Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Obama's brand new senior staffers



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Obama daughters are now senior staffers

I hope you are sitting down when you read this one. We are Michelle Obama's personal money suppliers. Just keep your taxes up to date. If you don't Michelle will be unhappy. When Michelle is not happy no one is happy.

Michelle Obama Listed Daughters as 'Senior Staffers' on African "vacation". Can you believe this? Now, if a Republican would do something like this, the press would be all over it and yapping about it for weeks. Michelle Obama Listed Daughters As 'Senior Staffers' To Justify Expensive African Vacation and Safari.

October 5, 2011 The most accountable administration: Judicial Watch said the U.S. Air Force provided a C-32 ( a Boeing 757) modified by the military for the purpose of flying big-wigs around the world " to fly the First Lady and her entourage to and from Africa , at a cost of $424,142. Another $928.44 was listed as bulk food costs of providing 192 onboard meals for the 21 people who made the trip.

The Obama daughters were listed on the manifest as 'senior staff.' This trip was as much an opportunity for the Obama family to go on a safari as it was a trip to conduct government business, said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. This junket wasted tax dollars and the resources of our overextended military. No wonder we had to sue to pry loose this information. I missed this story yesterday, but it's worthy of our attention. The nation is suffering with the economy sputtering, the national debt soaring and Obama's economic rescue policies not only failing but actively making things worse.

Meanwhile, the First Lady justifies an expensive trip to Africa to take a vacation and safari with her daughters by saying it's 'official business' and even going so far as to list her children as staffers. The level of arrogance and dishonesty on display here is nothing short of shocking. But, er, hope for change and yes we can..

It's a true story. Check out this link...

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/10/michelle-obama-listed-daughters-malia-and-sasha-as-senior-staffers-for-432142-african-trip/

God Bless America !

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The Occupy Spring?

The Occupy Spring?

To casual observers, it would appear as if the Occupy movement faded
away this winter almost as suddenly as it burst onto the scene in
September. With most of its encampments swept aside with the last of
autumn's dead leaves, Occupy has little steady physical presence.
There are no mass marches disrupting traffic, few rousing speeches
from the human microphone, no late-night drum circle to annoy the
neighbors. At Occupy Wall Street, the movement's first spark,
activists report that they'll likely be out of money by the end of
March. And the mainstream media, both less charmed and less horrified
by Occupy's existence, have devoted less airtime to it, focusing
instead on the latest inane comment to emerge from the GOP primary.

About the Author
Richard Kim
Richard Kim is the executive editor of TheNation.com. He is co-editor,
with Betsy Reed, of the New York Times...
Also by the Author
The Tyler Clementi and Dharun Ravi We Will Never Know
Before one became a hate-monger and the other became his victim, both
young men were groping towards adulthood.

Richard Kim
'I'm Not Running Away From My Record, I'm Running on It': A Q&A With
Tammy Baldwin (US Politics, Healthcare Policy, Campaigns and
Elections)
The congresswoman and Senate candidate talks to The Nation about fair
trade, Citizens United and what healthcare reform really means for
Wisconsin.

Emily Douglas and Richard Kim
Related Topics
Republican Party U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission banking Like
all winter landscapes, this surface stillness conceals something more
complicated. In people's living rooms, in donated office spaces and in
indoor parks, Occupy's working groups are as busy as they were in the
fall. Occupy Our Homes has resisted foreclosures and evictions in
dozens of cities across the country. Occupy the SEC filed a public
comment on the Volcker Rule urging regulators to strengthen this
aspect of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. Other groups have
been hard at work on issues ranging from student debt to alternative
banking to worker-owned cooperatives. Meanwhile, protests—against
police brutality; against corporations like Bank of America, Pfizer
and Walmart; against budget cuts; and against institutions like the
Whitney Museum—have continued at an almost frenetic pace. Organizers
have also been using the winter to incubate grander plans, among them
a May 1 Day of Action that may turn into a call for a nationwide
general strike and proposals to occupy corporate shareholder meetings,
the NATO summit in Chicago, and the Democratic and Republican
conventions at the end of the summer.

There's no question that Occupy will be back this spring—it never
really went away. But what will this second stage look like? Will it
continue to function largely as a set of loosely connected,
issue-based campaigns? Or will it retake public space and re-establish
physical encampments and general assemblies as the heart of the
movement? How much attention will it pay to the upcoming elections? Is
Occupy's chief value as a branding device to focus the attention of
the 99 percent on the issue of inequality? Or is it the leading edge
of what will become a more radically anti-capitalist revolution?

Nobody knows the answers to these questions, and all paths forward
come with pitfalls. Obsessing about public space and protests risks
turning the movement into one long street battle with cops. But
continuing to organize primarily within working groups may lead the
movement to degrade into its component parts, reduplicating the left
we already know. And of course, Occupy picked a fight with the biggest
bully in the world—corporate America—and you can bet the bully hasn't
spent the winter in hibernation.

But rather than dwell on the danger, we asked eleven Occupy observers
to focus on the possible, to speculate about what comes next for
Occupy with the same vista-opening spirit that animated the fall.
Their responses follow.

IN THIS FORUM

Michael Moore: "The Purpose of Occupy Wall Street Is to Occupy Wall Street"
Ilyse Hogue: "Occupy is Dead! Long Live Occupy!"
Bill Fletcher Jr.: "Occupy the Imagination"
Marina Sitrin: "Occupy: This Is What Democracy Looks Like"
Todd Gitlin: "More Than a Protest Movement"
Frances Fox Piven: "Occupy! and Make Them Do It"
Stephen Lerner: "Horizontal Meets Vertical; Occupy Meets Establishment"
Jeremy Brecher: "Occupy Climate Change"
Jonathan Schell: "If Vaclav Havel Met Occupy's Human Mic..."
Arun Gupta and Michelle Fawcett: "Occupying the Unexpected"

Links and more here:

http://www.thenation.com/article/166828/occupy-spring

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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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ALEC Scraps Controversial Task Force, Now It's Time to Undo the Damage

ALEC Scraps Controversial Task Force, Now It's Time to Undo the Damage
Brentin Mock on April 17, 2012 - 1:38 PM ET

No longer able to defend themselves on Voter ID and "Kill at Will"
legislation they helped popularize—as much as they tried—the American
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is finally dropping both from
their agenda, announcing today that they will focus on free market,
anti-regulation policies. In a statement from Indiana state Rep. David
Frizzell, also ALEC's national chairman:

"Today we are redoubling our efforts on the economic front, a priority
that has been the hallmark of our organization for decades. Fostering
the exchange of pro-growth, solutions-oriented ideas is precisely why
ALEC exists.
"To that end, our legislative board last week unanimously agreed to
further our work on policies that will help spur innovation and
competitiveness across the country.
"We are refocusing our commitment to free-market, limited government
and pro-growth principles, and have made changes internally to reflect
this renewed focus.

"We are eliminating the ALEC Public Safety and Elections task force
that dealt with non-economic issues, and reinvesting these resources
in the task forces that focus on the economy. The remaining budgetary
and economic issues will be reassigned.

"While we recognize there are other critical, non-economic issues that
are vitally important to millions of Americans, we believe we must
concentrate on initiatives that spur competitiveness and innovation
and put more Americans back to work.

"Our free-market, limited government, pro-growth policies are the
reason ALEC enjoys the support of legislators on both sides of the
aisle and in all 50 states. ALEC members are interested in solutions
that put the American economy back on track. This is our mission, and
it is what distinguishes us."

Check for a full explainer from John Nichols, but a few things here: I
wrote earlier this month about corporations pulling out of
ALEC—unofficially in response to the Voter ID and Kill at Will
("Castle Doctrine" or "Stand Your Ground") laws that respectively
place barriers to voting rights and led to the death of Trayvon Martin
and many others. At the time it was just Kraft, Pepsi and Coke, but
since then at least eight other companies involved with ALEC have
dropped out. Not all of the companies cited Voter ID or Kill at Will
as reasons for their ALEC divorce, but whatever. The fact that ALEC is
dropping the killer agendas altogether is an ending I think we can all
live with.

ALEC didn't go down without a fight. They were defensive until this
moment, and just a week ago they called the efforts to have companies
part ways with them an "intimidation campaign." ALEC executive
director Ron Scheberle said:

"ALEC is an organization that supports pro-growth, pro-jobs policies
and the vigorous exchange of ideas between the public and private
sector to develop state based solutions. Today, we find ourselves the
focus of a well-funded, expertly coordinated intimidation campaign.

At a time when job creation, real solutions and improved dialogue
among political leaders is needed most, ALEC's mission has never been
more important. This is why we are redoubling our commitment to these
essential priorities. We are not and will not be defined by
ideological special interests who would like to eliminate discourse
that leads to economic vitality, jobs and fiscal stability for the
states."

This was, of course, a cop-out. They seem to be confused about their
identity, thinking their role in spreading restrictive voter and loose
hand cannon laws don't qualify as "ideological special interests."
They must think that only groups like the NAACP and Color of Change,
who were at the forefront of getting the divorce papers signed by ALEC
member corporations, are special interests because they deal with
race. But because ALEC chose to ignore the racial implications of the
legislation they were hustling doesn't mean they don't have
ideological slants, or that they're not a special interest group. And
as I pointed out before, their claim that their real focus is on
"economic vitality" is tantamount to Citizen's Councils saying that
their real mission is to improve neighborhood real estate values.

If it's just about economic decisions then why did ALEC take a gun law
crafted in Florida to model and peddle to other states? While ALEC's
announcement today is a welcome victory, the bitter part of it is that
a lot of damage has already been done. Over half the states in the
nation have "Stand Your Ground" laws or some version of it; every
state in the nation except Illinois has a law that allows gun owners
to carry concealed weapons outside their homes. And as Jill Lepore
reported in The New Yorker this week, there are now as many guns as
there are people in the United States. ALEC is also culpable in the
nine states that passed strict photo voter laws, and most of the 21
other states that have other versions of voter ID legislation.

The "Public Safety and Elections" task force may be scrapped, but the
integrity of that decision would be enhanced if they convinced the
state legislators they have such tremendous influence over to reverse
course on these deadly laws they helped pass.

Lisa Graves, executive director of The Center for Media and Democracy,
which also played a central role in pushing corporations to part ways
with ALEC, echoes the same:

"ALEC's announcement is a partial victory for the power of grassroots
citizen action, but for Americans concerned about brand-name
corporations underwriting ALEC's extreme agenda to make it more
difficult for American citizens to vote and to protect armed
vigilantes, ALEC's PR maneuver to try to distance itself from its
record of extremism is an empty gesture unless it and the corporations
that have bankrolled its operations work to repeal ALEC-backed laws
that have advanced the NRA's agenda and that will impede citizens from
voting in the coming elections."

And from Color of Change:

"ALEC has spent years promoting voter suppression laws, Kill at Will
bills, and other policies that hurt Black and other marginalized
communities. They have have done this with the support of some of
America's biggest corporations, including AT&T, Johnson & Johnson and
State Farm.

ALEC's latest statement is nothing more than a PR stunt aimed at
diverting attention from its agenda, which has done serious damage to
our communities. To simply say they are stopping non-economic work
does not provide justice to the millions of Americas whose lives are
impacted by these dangerous and discriminatory laws courtesy of ALEC
and its corporate backers. It's clear that major corporations were in
bed with an institution that has worked against basic American values
such as the right to vote. Now that these companies are aware of what
they've supported, what will they do about it? If ALEC's corporate
supporters will not hold the institution accountable for the damage it
has caused nationwide, then the ColorOfChange community will hold them
accountable."

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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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In Senate, Republicans Block Debate on ‘Buffett Rule’

In Senate, Republicans Block Debate on 'Buffett Rule'

By JONATHAN
WEISMANNYTimes Published: April 16, 2012
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Monday blocked a move to open
debate on the so-called Buffett Rule, ensuring that a measure pressed
for months by President Obama and Senate Democrats to ensure that the
superrich pay a tax rate of at least 30 percent will not come to a
decisive vote.

Enlarge This Image

Luke Sharrett for The New York Times
Senators Roy Blunt, left, and Mitch McConnell, the minority leader,
walked to the Senate chamber on Monday.

Related
For Two Economists, the Buffett Rule Is Just a Start (April 17, 2012)
Obama Goes on Offensive Over Taxes on Wealthy (April 11, 2012)
* Warren E. Buffett: Stop Coddling the Super-Rich (August 15, 2011)

But the fierce debate preceding the 51-45 vote — the Democrats were
nine votes short of the 60 they needed — set off a week of political
wrangling over taxes that both parties insist they are already
winning.
Senate Democrats intend to return repeatedly to the legislation, named
after the billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has complained that
he pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary. On Thursday,
House Republicans will counter with a proposed tax cut for businesses
that they say would spur job creation but would cost the Treasury
almost exactly what the Democrats' tax increase would raise.

Republicans say they like that contrast, and their language ahead of
the vote on a motion just to take up the Buffett Rule was harsh and
aimed squarely at Mr. Obama, who first proposed a 30-percent tax rate
floor for anyone earning at least $1 million a year last September.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader,
went to the Senate floor and all but called Mr. Obama a liar.

"By wasting so much time on this political gimmick that even Democrats
admit won't solve our larger problems, it's shown the president is
more interested in misleading people than he is in leading," Mr.
McConnell said of the Buffett Rule push.

Democrats said they saw that as a sign of weakness. Pointing to a
Gallup poll from last week that indicated 60 percent of Americans
supported the proposal, including 63 percent of political
independents, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, called
the Republican response "proof positive" that "for first time in
decades, maybe generations, they're on the defensive on their
signature issue," taxes.

After he made that comment, a CNN poll was released putting support at
72 percent, including 53 percent of Republicans.

With taxes due on Tuesday, a Washington debate on the tax code this
week was inevitable, but the escalating attacks reflect the
peculiarities of this election year. Democrats have known for weeks
that the Buffett Rule would not win the 60 votes needed to break a
Republican filibuster, but they pressed forward in part to try to make
the Republicans' likely presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, the face of
economic "unfairness."

Mr. Romney paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent on $21.7 million
in income in 2010, the only full year's tax returns he has released.
The Obama re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee
again pressed Mr. Romney on Monday to release more than a decade's
worth of tax returns, something his campaign has refused to do.

"I don't think he's going to want this present inequity to remain when
he is a prime example of it," Mr. Schumer said.

In the Senate, all the Republicans but Senator Susan Collins of Maine
voted against allowing debate on the Buffett Rule. Every Democrat but
Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas voted to allow it. Four senators did
not vote.

Republicans relished a debate on their turf, accusing Democrats of
trying to raise taxes on investments and capital to feed their
appetite for government spending. They portrayed the Buffett Rule as a
gimmick and political show vote, whose revenue impact would not even
dent the trillion dollar budget deficit.

Instead, the House will vote on a bill by Representative Eric Cantor
of Virginia, the majority leader, to give businesses with fewer than
500 employees a 20 percent tax cut this year. Mr. Cantor says that
while the Buffett Rule would raise taxes on "job creators," his bill
would spur job growth by easing the tax burden on small businesses.

Republicans and Democrats have created mirror-image arguments to take
into the election year. The Cantor bill would cost the Treasury $46
billion. The Senate Democratic bill would raise $47 billion over 10
years — but $160 billion if the Bush era tax cuts for the affluent are
extended.

Democrats argued for more fairness in the tax code. Their legislation
would establish a 30-percent floor for households earning $1 million a
year.

A White House statement on Monday supporting the Senate bill said "one
in four taxpayers with annual income greater than $1 million today
pays a lower tax rate than millions of hardworking middle-class
households."

Republicans argued that no one's taxes should be raised while the
economy is struggling to regain its footing. The House bill would
offer a tax cut to small businesses, but it is drawn so broadly that
it would benefit anyone with income through partnerships and other
"pass-through" entities." Almost half the benefit would accrue to the
households with income over $1 million, according to the non-partisan
Tax Policy Center.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee immediately went after
the two most vulnerable Senate Republicans running for re-election
this year, Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts and Dean Heller of Nevada,
accusing them of standing by billionaires while their party tries to
cut Medicare. And they vowed the measure would continue to come up
this year.

"Sometimes special interests can take a punch or two, and it's only
the threat of public persistence that can move an issue along," said
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, the author of
the legislation.

But Republicans were just as much on offense. The National Republican
Congressional Committee said vulnerable House Democrats could "either
focus on growing small businesses by providing them tax relief to
create jobs or help his party leaders raise taxes to fuel their
spending addictions."

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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The Trouble with Mitt's Math

The Trouble with Mitt's Math


Romney's Bad Math
Ben Adler on April 16, 2012 - 5:11 PM ET

Speaking at a closed-press fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida, on
Sunday night, Mitt Romney offered more details than he ever has to
date on what he might do about federal spending and taxes. Luckily,
some reporters standing outside overheard him. NBC reports:

"I'm going to take a lot of departments in Washington, and agencies,
and combine them. Some eliminate, but I'm probably not going to lay
out just exactly which ones are going to go," Romney said. "Things
like Housing and Urban Development, which my dad was head of, that
might not be around later. But I'm not going to actually go through
these one by one. What I can tell you is, we've got far too many
bureaucrats. I will send a lot of what happens in Washington back to
the states."

Asked about the fate of the Department of Education in a potential
Romney administration, the former governor suggested it would also
face a dramatic restructuring.

"The Department of Education: I will either consolidate with another
agency, or perhaps make it a heck of a lot smaller. I'm not going to
get rid of it entirely," Romney said, explaining that part of his
reasoning behind preserving the agency was to maintain a federal role
in pushing back against teachers' unions. Romney added that he learned
in his 1994 campaign for Senate that proposing to eliminate the agency
was politically volatile.

Romney expounded on that lesson—that he shouldn't publicly admit to
his plans to leave society's most vulnerable citizens without any
federal support—in a March interview with The Weekly Standard. "One of
the things I found in a short campaign against Ted Kennedy was that
when I said, for instance, that I wanted to eliminate the Department
of Education, that was used to suggest I don't care about education,"
said Romney. "So will there be some that get eliminated or combined?
The answer is yes, but I'm not going to give you a list right now." In
other words, Romney believes that if he tells the public what he might
actually do in office they will dislike his plans and reject them.
This is just as revealing as Romney's infamous recollection that he
told his gardener not to use illegal immigrants on his property
because "I'm running for office, for Pete's sake." Romney doesn't want
to wage an honest contest between his ideas and his opponent's. His
self-described preference is to try to win by telling the American
they can have tax cuts without painful sacrifices on spending.

Publicly, Romney has proposed to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and
to then cut taxes further. He also wants to increase defense spending.
In total he would reduce federal tax revenues by $5 billion over the
next ten years. The Committee for a Responsible Budget estimated that
Romney would add $2.6 trillion to the deficit. He has promised to cut
spending as well, but he has avoided mentioning credible specifics.

That's bad enough. But what is even worse is that what he offers in
private doesn't add up either. It would be one thing if Romney had a
secret plan to balance the budget with drastic spending cuts to major
federal programs. While it would be dishonorable of him to refuse to
discuss that plan while running for president, at least you would know
he has a plausible—if totally heartless—plan for governing once
elected.

But he doesn't. Instead the new details he offered were that he might
eliminate the mortgage interest deduction on second homes and abolish
the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The former idea is a good one, although I'll believe that President
Romney and Congress have the will to stand up to powerful lobbies such
as the real estate and construction industries when I see it happen.
It would not, however, generate nearly enough revenue to make up for
Romney's massive tax cuts. Perhaps because Romney himself owns three
homes, he thinks owning a second home is a fairly common middle-class
practice. In fact, only 6 percent of Americans have a second home.
Eliminating the entire mortgage tax deduction would save about $215
billion by 2021, according to the Congressional Budget Office, so
eliminating it only on second homes would save just a fraction of
that. If you want to be generous and assume that a lot of the owners
of second homes also have third and fourth homes, and that they take
out mortgages to buy those homes, you could guess that Romney's
proposal might save something like 10 percent of that total, or a
whopping $21.5 billion in total between now and 2021. By contrast,
letting the Bush tax cuts expire only on families making more than
$250,000 per year would have saved $40 billion in 2011 alone.

While HUD makes for an appealing target for destruction among rich
Republicans because it is the only cabinet department dedicated to
addressing poverty, it is not actually a very large agency compared
to, say, the Pentagon. Its entire budget for fiscal year 2012 is $47.2
billion dollars. (The Department of Defense budget this year is $645.7
billion.) The vast majority of HUD spending falls into one of two
appropriation streams: construction of public housing ($19.2 billion)
and Section 8 housing vouchers ($17.2 billion). Romney did not specify
whether he would eliminate those programs, or just abolish the
department that houses them and redistribute their responsibilities.
Assuming Romney doesn't, or can't, actually get rid of the federal
government's two main programs to prevent homelessness, he won't get
very much savings by closing HUD and its important, but smaller,
programs such as Community Development Block Grants. As I report in a
forthcoming feature for Next American City, under President Obama HUD
has been dramatically helpful to cities with very small amounts of
money through programs such as the Sustainable Communities Initiative.
I've asked the Romney campaign to clarify whether Romney wants to
eliminate all federal housing subsidies and, if so, whether he has any
plan to combat the dramatic rise in homelessness and severe poverty
that would surely result. Having not received a response, my guess is
that his honest answer would be that he has no idea what exactly he
proposes to cut. And he certainly hasn't bothered to come up with an
alternative affordable housing agenda.

Republicans are not terribly interested in making serious domestic
policy proposals or even dealing with social issues at all. For
example, House Republicans have decided that their zeal to keep taxes
low on millionaires and even billionaires must be paid for by
squeezing food stamp recipients. As Politico's David Rogers reports,
"An average family of four faces an 11 percent cut in monthly benefits
after Sept. 1, and even more important is the tighter enforcement of
rules demanding that households exhaust most of their savings before
qualifying for help." If they succeed, it will save $3 billion per
year.

Republicans, including Romney, are fond of saying that they idolize
Ronald Reagan and wish to govern as he did. And they would, with lower
taxes, higher deficits, greater inequality and less help for the most
needy.

More:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/167416/romneys-bad-math

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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ALEC Disbands Task Force Responsible for Voter ID, 'Stand Your Ground' Laws

ALEC Disbands Task Force Responsible for Voter ID, 'Stand Your Ground' Laws
John Nichols on April 17, 2012 - 12:00 PM ET

Pressured by watchdog groups, civil rights organizations and a growing
national movement for accountable lawmaking, the American Legislative
Exchange Council announced Tuesday that it was disbanding the task
force that has been responsible for advancing controversial Voter ID
and "Stand Your Ground" laws.

ALEC, the shadowy corporate-funded proponent of so-called "model
legislation" for passage by pliant state legislatures, announced that
it would disband its "Public Safety and Elections" task force. The
task force has been the prime vehicle for proposing and advancing what
critics describe as voter-suppression and anti-democratic
initiatives—not just restrictive Voter ID laws but also plans to limit
the ability of citizens to petition for referendums and constitutional
changes that favor workers and communities. The task force has also
been the source of so-called "Castle Doctrine" and "Stand Your Ground"
laws that limit the ability of police and prosecutors to pursue
inquiries into shootings of unarmed individuals such as Florida
teenager Trayvon Martin.

The decision to disband the task force appears to get ALEC out of the
business of promoting Voter ID and "Stand Your Ground" laws. That's a
dramatic turn of events, with significant implications for state-based
struggles over voting rights an elections, as well as criminal justice
policy. But it does not mean that ALEC will stop promoting
one-size-fits-all "model legislation" at the state level.

Indeed, the disbanding of the "Public Safety and Elections" task force
looks in every sense to be a desperate attempt to slow an exodus of
high-profile corporations from the group's membership roll.

Anger over initial failure of Florida police and prosecutors to
address Martin's shooting led to an intense focus on the state's
"Stand Your Ground" law, and on the role of ALEC and the National
Rifle Association in passing similar laws in states across the
country.

That expanded interest in ALEC, a conservative "bill mill" that has
been under scrutiny since the Center for Media and Democracy and The
Nation launched the "ALEC Exposed" project last summer.

Pressure by CMD, civil rights groups such as the NAACP, the Urban
League and ColorOfChange and good government organizations such as
Common Cause and People for the American Way—which have expressed
concern with ALEC's meddling in public safety and democracy debates at
the state level—has in recent weeks led to decisions by Coca-Cola,
Pepsi, McDonald's and other corporations to drop their affiliations
with ALEC.

In many cases, the corporations that have quit ALEC have suggested
that—while they were comfortable working with the right-wing group in
order to advocate on behalf of tax and regulatory policies that are
favorable to their business interests—they are ill at ease being drawn
into debates about issues such as voting rights and gun control.

ALEC's decision to disband the Public Safety and Elections task
force—which worked on those issues—cannot be seen as anything other
than a response to the pressure the group has felt as high-profile
corporate members have been quitting it on an almost daily basis.

While the group is not acknowledging as much, its statement on the
disbanding of the task force speaks volumes.

"We are refocusing our commitment to free-market, limited government
and pro-growth principles, and have made changes internally to reflect
this renewed focus," announced Indiana State Representative David
Frizzell, ALEC's national chairman. "We are eliminating the ALEC
Public Safety and Elections task force that dealt with non-economic
issues, and reinvesting these resources in the task forces that focus
on the economy."

While this is a dramatic development in the struggle to expose and
challenge ALEC's one-size-fits all assault on local and state
democracy, it should be remembered that ALEC remains a prime
proponent—via task forces working in other areas—of state-based
assaults on labor rights, environmental protections and public
education.

"Dozens of corporations are investing millions of dollars a year to
write business-friendly legislation that is being made into law in
statehouses coast to coast, with no regard for the public interest,"
explains Bob Edgar of Common Cause. "This is proof positive of the
depth and scope of the corporate reach into our democratic processes."

More:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/167425/alec-disbands-task-force-responsible-voter-id-stand-your-ground-laws?rel=emailNation

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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Re: [PresidentBarakObama] Remarks by the President on Increasing Oversight on Manipulation in Oil Markets

So what Obama really said in the Rose Garden at lunch was: I am going to use unelected regulators who will make ad hoc decisions not based on written law to label people, especially political opponents like the Koch brothers, as speculators, and fine them and keep them tied up in court. If you oppose my election I will do this to you. And bonus: I will discourage domestic energy production by scaring people out of the industry.

On Tuesday, April 17, 2012, Tommy News wrote:
Remarks by the President on Increasing Oversight on Manipulation in Oil Markets
Rose Garden

11:27 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Good morning, everybody.  Lately, I've been speaking a
lot about our need for an all-of-the-above strategy for American
energy -- a strategy that produces more oil and gas here at home, but
also produces more biofuels and fuel-efficient cars, more solar power
and wind power and other sources of clean, renewable energy.

This strategy is not just the right thing to do for our long-term
economic growth; it's also the right way for us to reduce our
dependence on foreign oil right now.  It's the right way for us to put
people to work right now.  And ultimately, it's the right way to stop
spikes in gas prices that we've put up [with] every single year -- the
same kind of increase that we've seen over the past couple of months.

Obviously rising gas prices means a rough ride for a lot of families.
Whether you're trying to get to school, trying to get to work, do some
grocery shopping, you have to be able to fill up that gas tank.  And
there are families in certain parts of the country that have no choice
but to drive 50 or 60 miles to get to the job.  So when gas prices go
up, it's like an additional tax that comes right out of your pocket.

That's one of the reasons we passed a payroll tax cut at the beginning
of this year and made sure it extended all the way through this year,
so that the average American is getting that extra $40 in every
paycheck right now.

But I think everybody understands that there are no quick fixes to
this problem.  There are politicians who say that if we just drilled
more then gas prices would come down right away.  What they don't say
is that we have been drilling more.  Under my administration, America
is producing more oil than at any time in the last eight years.  We've
opened up new areas for exploration. We've quadrupled the number of
operating rigs to a record high.  We've added enough new oil and gas
pipeline to circle the Earth and then some.

But as I've said repeatedly, the problem is we use more than 20
percent of the world's oil and we only have 2 percent of the world's
proven oil reserves.  Even if we drilled every square inch of this
country right now, we'd still have to rely disproportionately on other
countries for their oil.  That means we pay more at the pump every
time there's instability in the Middle East, or growing demand in
countries like China and India.

That's what's happening right now.  It's those global trends that are
affecting gas prices.  So even as we're tackling issues of supply and
demand, even as we're looking at the long-term in terms of how we can
structurally make ourselves less reliant on foreign oil, we still need
to work extra hard to protect consumers from factors that should not
affect the price of a barrel of oil.

That includes doing everything we can to ensure that an irresponsible
few aren't able to hurt consumers by illegally manipulating or rigging
the energy markets for their own gain.  We can't afford a situation
where speculators artificially manipulate markets by buying up oil,
creating the perception of a shortage, and driving prices higher --
only to flip the oil for a quick profit.  We can't afford a situation
where some speculators can reap millions, while millions of American
families get the short end of the stick.  That's not the way the
market should work.  And for anyone who thinks this cannot happen,
just think back to how Enron traders manipulated the price of
electricity to reap huge profits at everybody else's expense.

Now, the good news is my administration has already taken several
actions to step up oversight of oil markets and close dangerous
loopholes that were allowing some traders to operate in the shadows.

We closed the so-called Enron loophole that let traders evade
oversight by using electronic or overseas trading platforms.  In the
Wall Street reform law, we said for the first time that federal
regulators will make sure no single trader can buy such a large
position in oil that they could easily manipulate the market on their
own.  So I'd point out that anybody who's pledging to roll back Wall
Street reform -- Dodd-Frank -- would also roll back this vital
consumer protection along with it.

I've asked Attorney General Holder to work with Chairman Leibowitz of
the Federal Trade Commission, Chairman Gensler of the Commodity
Futures Trading Commission, and other enforcement agencies to make
sure that acts of manipulation, fraud or other illegal activity are
not behind increases in the price that consumers pay at the pump.

So today, we're announcing new steps to strengthen oversight of energy
markets.  Things that we can do administratively, we are doing.  And I
call on Congress to pass a package of measures to crack down on
illegal activity and hold accountable those who manipulate the market
for private gain at the expense of millions of working families.  And
be specific.

First, Congress should provide immediate funding to put more cops on
the beat to monitor activity in energy markets.  This funding would
also upgrade technology so that our surveillance and enforcement
officers aren't hamstrung by older and less sophisticated tools than
the ones that traders are using.  We should strengthen protections for
American consumers, not gut them.  And these markets have expanded
significantly.

Chairman Gensler actually had a good analogy.  He said, imagine if the
NFL quadrupled the number of teams but didn't increase the number of
refs.  You'd end up having havoc on the field, and it would diminish
the game.  It wouldn't be fair.  That's part of what's going on in a
lot of these markets.  So we have to properly resource enforcement.

Second, Congress should increase the civil and criminal penalties for
illegal energy market manipulation and other illegal activities.  So
my plan would toughen key financial penalties tenfold, and impose
these penalties not just per violation, but for every day a violation
occurs.

Third, Congress should give the agency responsible for overseeing oil
markets new authority to protect against volatility and excess
speculation by making sure that traders can post appropriate margins,
which simply means that they actually have the money to make good on
their trades.

Congress should do all of this right away.  A few weeks ago, Congress
had a chance to stand up for families already paying an extra premium
at the pump; congressional Republicans voted to keep spending billions
of Americans' hard-earned tax dollars on more unnecessary subsidies
for big oil companies.  So here's a chance to make amends, a chance to
actually do something that will protect consumers by increasing
oversight of energy markets. That should be something that everybody,
no matter their party, should agree with.  And I hope Americans will
ask their members of Congress to step up.

In the meantime, my administration will take new executive actions to
better analyze and investigate trading activities in energy markets
and more quickly implement the tough consumer protections under Wall
Street reform.

Let me close by saying none of these steps by themselves will bring
gas prices down overnight.  But it will prevent market manipulation
and make sure we're looking out for American consumers.  And in the
meantime we're going to keep pursuing an all-of-the-above strategy for
American energy to break the cycle of price spikes year after year.
We are going to keep producing more biofuels; we're going to keep
producing more fuel-efficient cars; we are going to keep tapping into
every source of American-made energy.

And these steps have already helped put America on a path to greater
energy independence.  Our foreign -- our dependence on foreign oil has
actually decreased each year I've been in office -- even as the
economy has grown.  America now imports less than half of the oil we
use for the first time in more than a decade. So we are less
vulnerable than we were, but we're still too vulnerable.

We've got to continue the hard, sustained work on this issue.  And as
long as I'm President we're going to keep placing our bets on
America's future -- America's workers, America's technology, America's
ingenuity, and American-made energy.  That's how we're going to solve
this problem once and for all.

Thank you very much, everybody.

END

More:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/17/remarks-president-increasing-oversight-manipulation-oil-markets

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy



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Have a great day,
Tommy


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Fwd: Tea Party -- One Lump or Two?:Thorns in the Rose Garden - Obama threatens his opponents with a regulatory black listing



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So what Obama really said in the Rose Garden at lunch was: I am going to use unelected regulators who will make ad hoc decisions not based on written law to label people, especially political opponents like the Koch brothers, as speculators, and fine them and keep them tied up in court.

Blog: Tea Party -- One Lump or Two?
Post: Thorns in the Rose Garden - Obama threatens his opponents with a regulatory black listing
Link: http://teapartiers.blogspot.com/2012/04/thorns-in-rose-garden-obama-threatens.html

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Remarks by the President on Increasing Oversight on Manipulation in Oil Markets

Remarks by the President on Increasing Oversight on Manipulation in Oil Markets
Rose Garden

11:27 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. Lately, I've been speaking a
lot about our need for an all-of-the-above strategy for American
energy -- a strategy that produces more oil and gas here at home, but
also produces more biofuels and fuel-efficient cars, more solar power
and wind power and other sources of clean, renewable energy.

This strategy is not just the right thing to do for our long-term
economic growth; it's also the right way for us to reduce our
dependence on foreign oil right now. It's the right way for us to put
people to work right now. And ultimately, it's the right way to stop
spikes in gas prices that we've put up [with] every single year -- the
same kind of increase that we've seen over the past couple of months.

Obviously rising gas prices means a rough ride for a lot of families.
Whether you're trying to get to school, trying to get to work, do some
grocery shopping, you have to be able to fill up that gas tank. And
there are families in certain parts of the country that have no choice
but to drive 50 or 60 miles to get to the job. So when gas prices go
up, it's like an additional tax that comes right out of your pocket.

That's one of the reasons we passed a payroll tax cut at the beginning
of this year and made sure it extended all the way through this year,
so that the average American is getting that extra $40 in every
paycheck right now.

But I think everybody understands that there are no quick fixes to
this problem. There are politicians who say that if we just drilled
more then gas prices would come down right away. What they don't say
is that we have been drilling more. Under my administration, America
is producing more oil than at any time in the last eight years. We've
opened up new areas for exploration. We've quadrupled the number of
operating rigs to a record high. We've added enough new oil and gas
pipeline to circle the Earth and then some.

But as I've said repeatedly, the problem is we use more than 20
percent of the world's oil and we only have 2 percent of the world's
proven oil reserves. Even if we drilled every square inch of this
country right now, we'd still have to rely disproportionately on other
countries for their oil. That means we pay more at the pump every
time there's instability in the Middle East, or growing demand in
countries like China and India.

That's what's happening right now. It's those global trends that are
affecting gas prices. So even as we're tackling issues of supply and
demand, even as we're looking at the long-term in terms of how we can
structurally make ourselves less reliant on foreign oil, we still need
to work extra hard to protect consumers from factors that should not
affect the price of a barrel of oil.

That includes doing everything we can to ensure that an irresponsible
few aren't able to hurt consumers by illegally manipulating or rigging
the energy markets for their own gain. We can't afford a situation
where speculators artificially manipulate markets by buying up oil,
creating the perception of a shortage, and driving prices higher --
only to flip the oil for a quick profit. We can't afford a situation
where some speculators can reap millions, while millions of American
families get the short end of the stick. That's not the way the
market should work. And for anyone who thinks this cannot happen,
just think back to how Enron traders manipulated the price of
electricity to reap huge profits at everybody else's expense.

Now, the good news is my administration has already taken several
actions to step up oversight of oil markets and close dangerous
loopholes that were allowing some traders to operate in the shadows.

We closed the so-called Enron loophole that let traders evade
oversight by using electronic or overseas trading platforms. In the
Wall Street reform law, we said for the first time that federal
regulators will make sure no single trader can buy such a large
position in oil that they could easily manipulate the market on their
own. So I'd point out that anybody who's pledging to roll back Wall
Street reform -- Dodd-Frank -- would also roll back this vital
consumer protection along with it.

I've asked Attorney General Holder to work with Chairman Leibowitz of
the Federal Trade Commission, Chairman Gensler of the Commodity
Futures Trading Commission, and other enforcement agencies to make
sure that acts of manipulation, fraud or other illegal activity are
not behind increases in the price that consumers pay at the pump.

So today, we're announcing new steps to strengthen oversight of energy
markets. Things that we can do administratively, we are doing. And I
call on Congress to pass a package of measures to crack down on
illegal activity and hold accountable those who manipulate the market
for private gain at the expense of millions of working families. And
be specific.

First, Congress should provide immediate funding to put more cops on
the beat to monitor activity in energy markets. This funding would
also upgrade technology so that our surveillance and enforcement
officers aren't hamstrung by older and less sophisticated tools than
the ones that traders are using. We should strengthen protections for
American consumers, not gut them. And these markets have expanded
significantly.

Chairman Gensler actually had a good analogy. He said, imagine if the
NFL quadrupled the number of teams but didn't increase the number of
refs. You'd end up having havoc on the field, and it would diminish
the game. It wouldn't be fair. That's part of what's going on in a
lot of these markets. So we have to properly resource enforcement.

Second, Congress should increase the civil and criminal penalties for
illegal energy market manipulation and other illegal activities. So
my plan would toughen key financial penalties tenfold, and impose
these penalties not just per violation, but for every day a violation
occurs.

Third, Congress should give the agency responsible for overseeing oil
markets new authority to protect against volatility and excess
speculation by making sure that traders can post appropriate margins,
which simply means that they actually have the money to make good on
their trades.

Congress should do all of this right away. A few weeks ago, Congress
had a chance to stand up for families already paying an extra premium
at the pump; congressional Republicans voted to keep spending billions
of Americans' hard-earned tax dollars on more unnecessary subsidies
for big oil companies. So here's a chance to make amends, a chance to
actually do something that will protect consumers by increasing
oversight of energy markets. That should be something that everybody,
no matter their party, should agree with. And I hope Americans will
ask their members of Congress to step up.

In the meantime, my administration will take new executive actions to
better analyze and investigate trading activities in energy markets
and more quickly implement the tough consumer protections under Wall
Street reform.

Let me close by saying none of these steps by themselves will bring
gas prices down overnight. But it will prevent market manipulation
and make sure we're looking out for American consumers. And in the
meantime we're going to keep pursuing an all-of-the-above strategy for
American energy to break the cycle of price spikes year after year.
We are going to keep producing more biofuels; we're going to keep
producing more fuel-efficient cars; we are going to keep tapping into
every source of American-made energy.

And these steps have already helped put America on a path to greater
energy independence. Our foreign -- our dependence on foreign oil has
actually decreased each year I've been in office -- even as the
economy has grown. America now imports less than half of the oil we
use for the first time in more than a decade. So we are less
vulnerable than we were, but we're still too vulnerable.

We've got to continue the hard, sustained work on this issue. And as
long as I'm President we're going to keep placing our bets on
America's future -- America's workers, America's technology, America's
ingenuity, and American-made energy. That's how we're going to solve
this problem once and for all.

Thank you very much, everybody.

END

More:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/17/remarks-president-increasing-oversight-manipulation-oil-markets

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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On Tax Day: Get Your 2011 Federal Taxpayer Receipt Now

Get Your 2011 Federal Taxpayer Receipt Now

Today is Tax Day, the final day to file your 2011 tax return on time.
President Obama thinks it is important that Americans understand how
and where their federal tax dollars are being spent so we created a
tool that will show you just that. Enter a few pieces of information
about your taxes into the Federal Taypayer Receipt and you'll learn
how much of your money went to different national priorities such as
education, health care and veterans benefits.

Go Here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/2011-taxreceipt

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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Re: Senate Republicans Vote Down The Buffet Tax Rule, Vote Them Out of Office!


Romney can only SIGN (and nudge).
Republicans talk about 'reforming' PPACA ... had THEY put it into practice, there would be ZERO (at least as broadcast by the Media) discussion/concern/outrage.

How many co-signed the Legislation seeking to simply REPEAL (HR 4995) it? 25 Wow, such dedication!

Regard$,
--MJ

So the GOP, running mostly the last few years on abolishing Obamacare, will nominate the candidate who pioneered Obamacare? -- Judge Andrew Napolitano



At 12:38 PM 4/17/2012, you wrote:
I don't think ObamaCare can pass muster with the Supremes, and Romney has promised to repeal ObamaCare.   There is way too much opposition in this Nation for ObamaCare to stand as Michael and Mark have suggested.
 


 
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 11:39 AM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

Provided Our Robe Masters do not do the appropriate/constitutional thing and eliminate PPACA ... AND given the same scenario .... watch for Obamacare to merely be 'fine tuned' with a stamped "R" on it -- ostensibly remaining the same with the faithful whooping it up as though it were otherwise.

My hope is that (soon) Boobus Americanus will remove the blinders and recognize the obvious. One would think that several decades of examples would provide the necessary basis.

Regard$,
--MJ

"Republicans hate Obama, but it's said one most hates those like oneself." -- Sheldon Richman





At 11:32 AM 4/17/2012, you wrote:
I agree MJ,

NONE of the Obama executive orders will be done away with.. the Republicans will like them the same as the Dems do. There will be NO major policy changes other than (possibly) Obamacare.

On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 9:29 AM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:
Even WERE those three to occur ... watch for no significant change in direction to occur (save that Resident being he who should not be named).
With Obama continuing/expanding what Bush did AND the Seven Two Dwarfs promising MORE of the same ....
Regard$,
--MJ
"Obama's reelection campaign motto should be "no hope and no change." For that matter, so should be Romney's, Gingrich's, & Santorum's." -- Jacob Hornberger




At 11:24 AM 4/17/2012, you wrote:
Good prognostication there Greg.....Watch for a change in residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, also.
 

 
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 9:18 AM, GregfromBoston <greg.vincent@yahoo.com > wrote:
GOP will hold the House and take the Senate.  Prepare to be really buimmed out.
On Monday, April 16, 2012 7:36:10 PM UTC-4, Tommy News wrote:
Senate Republicans Vote Down The Buffet Tax Rule, Vote Them Out of Office!
BREAKING: Buffett Rule fails in Senate
 Take back Congress from the 1%
Donate now so we can take back Congress for the 99%.
Today in a close vote, the Senate failed to pass the Buffett Rule, a
groundbreaking piece of legislation that would have made millionaires
and billionaires pay their fair share. So while the middle and working
class will be paying their fair share in taxes on Tax Day tomorrow,
many of the 1% will not.
The GOP obstructionists voted against the Buffett Rule, just like they
voted for the Medicare-killing Ryan budget. They're basically Robin
Hood in reverse - robbing from the 99% to give ever more lavish tax
breaks to the rich.
The majority of the country wants the Buffett Rule but they just
ignored us. They can't be changed, they can only be defeated.
So we've got a plan to defeat these right-wing zealots by registering
and turning out progressive voters this fall in key states and
congressional districts. Will you donate $5 right now to help us take
back Congress from the 1%?
With your help, we'll be working in:
•    8 of the 12 states key in deciding the presidential election;
•    Nearly half of the Congressional seats needed to win the majority
in the U.S. House, including some of the most progressive candidates
in the country like Ann McLane Kuster (NH-2);
•    7 key U.S. Senate races, including 2 of the top progressive
Senate candidates – Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Tammy Baldwin in
Wisconsin. And with Sen. Olympia Snowe stepping down, we have an
opportunity to pick up an additional Senate seat in Maine!
•    2 of the most competitive Governors' race in the country (NH and WV);
•    1 of the most important ballot initiatives in the country
(overturn Ohio's anti-voting rights law H.B. 194);
•    9 states with key state legislative races that could determine
control of a legislative body or deny a right-wing supermajority;
These are all states where USAction and our affiliates have been
long-time leaders waging issue campaigns, building coalitions and
creating a progressive infrastructure, and where we will continue to
do so long after Election Day. The core of the 2012 plan is based on
two paid organizers in each congressional district recruiting 400
volunteers and coordinating a 4-month volunteer canvass that can build
our base by contacting at least 7,500 voters that support us and
getting them to vote.
To be successful, however, we need to start these volunteer canvasses
by May 15th - that's just 1 month away! Your donation of $5 today can
help us fund these organizers and their outreach, and make the
difference in November. Then next year we can pass a Buffett Rule, and
bring sanity back to our government.
We need a Congress that works of, by and for the people — not just the
1%. Donate $5 now so we can take back Congress for the 99%.
Thank you for all you do,
David Elliot
USAction / TrueMajority

https://secure.truemajority.org/o/2/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?donate_page_KEY=7174&track=BuffettVote_email_2905&Email=Tommysnews@gmail.com
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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
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Mark M. Kahle H.



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Most Conservative Congress in How Long? At Least a hundred years!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/most-conservative-congres_b_1428346.html?ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=041712&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief


Mike Lux

Most Conservative Congress in How Long?
Posted: 04/16/2012 11:18 am


There is a new study out by a pair of political scientists saying that
the current Republican caucuses in Congress are the most conservative
in a hundred years. I think they are underestimating.

The 1911-12 congressional Republicans, after all, at least had some
Teddy Roosevelt Republicans still in the Congress, so while a distinct
minority, the party had some reformers and moderates in their
caucuses. No, I think you would have to go back into the 1800s, into
the Republican Congress swept into power with William McKinley's 1896
election, to find a party as thoroughly reactionary as this one. This
is somehow appropriate, because these Republicans clearly do want to
repeal the 20th century. Starting with the early Progressive movement
reforms Teddy Roosevelt got accomplished, the tea party GOP is trying
to roll back all the progress our country has seen over the last
century plus.

Let's go back to those late 1890s Republicans -- who they were, what
they believed, how they operated. This was the heart of the era
dominated by Social Darwinists and Robber Baron industrialists, and
the McKinley presidency was the peak of those forces' power. The
Robber Barons were hiring the Pinkertons to (literally) murder union
leaders, and were (literally) buying off elected officials to get
whatever they wanted out of the government: money for bribery was
openly allocated in yearly corporate budgets. These huge corporate
trusts were working hand in hand with their worshipful friends in the
Social Darwinist world, the 1800s version of Ayn Rand, who taught that
if you were rich, it was because that was the way nature meant things
to be -- and if you were poor, you deserved to be. Any exploitation,
any greed, any concentration of wealth was justified by a survival of
the strongest ethic. It was an era where Lincoln's and the Radical
Republicans of the 1860s' progressive idea of giving land away free to
poor people who wanted to work hard to be independent farmers through
the Homestead Act was being overturned by big bank and railroad trusts
ruthlessly driving millions of family farmers out of business. The
Sherman Anti-Trust Act was being completely ignored by McKinley. And
of course, none of the advances of the 20th century were yet in place:
child labor laws, consumer safety, the national parks or later
environmental laws, consumer safety, popular election of Senators,
women's suffrage, a progressive tax system, decent labor laws, a
minimum wage, Social Security, Glass-Steagall, the GI Bill, civil
rights laws, Medicare, Medicaid, Legal Services, Head Start. None of
it existed.

Flash forward to today. With the exception of women's suffrage (and
given the gender gap, I have no doubt that secretly Republicans would
be happy to get rid of that), various high-level Republicans from this
session of Congress have argued for the repeal or severe curtailment
of all of those advances. This is not just Conservative with a capital
C, but Reactionary with a capital R.

This is why the worship by so many pundits and establishment figures
of bipartisanship and meeting in the middle as the all-around best
value in American politics is so fundamentally wrong as a political
strategy for Democrats. With the Republicans in Congress actually
wanting to repeal the gains of the 20th century, for Democrats to meet
them halfway becomes a nightmare strategy. Repealing half of the 20th
century is just not a reasonable compromise, even though that would be
meeting the Republicans halfway. What we need to do instead is to
propose our own bold strategy for how to move forward and solve the
really big problems we have. Our country needs to have this debate,
and I am confident once people understand the two alternatives, they
will choose our path forward rather than the Republicans' path
backward.

Ultimately, this is a debate about values. Conservatives believe in
that old Social Darwinist philosophy: whoever has money and power got
that way because nature intended it, and they ought to get to keep
everything they have and to hell with anyone not strong to make it on
their own. Selfishness is a virtue, as Ayn Rand said; greed is good,
as Gordon Gekko proclaimed in the movie Wall Street; in nature, the
lions eat the weak, as Glenn Beck happily proclaimed to a cheering
audience. That is the underlying ethic of the Ryan-Romney Budget. What
progressives argue is the opposite: that we really are our brothers'
and sisters' keepers; that we should treat others as we would want to
be treated, and give a helping hand to those who need it; that
investing in our citizens and promoting a broadly prosperous middle
class that is growing because young people and poor people are given
the tools to climb the ladder into it is the key to making a better
society and growing economy.

The debate is well worth having. The good news is that the Republicans
are hardly shying away from it: by embracing this radically retrograde
Ryan-Romney Budget, they are wearing their hearts on their sleeves and
openly yearning to return to 1896. The Democrats should welcome this
debate with open arms.


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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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Tommy

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Tammy Baldwin Reacts With Rally Call to Obama's Executive Order Decision on Workplace Protections

Tammy Baldwin Reacts With Rally Call to Obama's Executive Order Decision

The Wisconsin representative and candidate for Senate said more work
must be done by activists and politicians if LGBT employees are going
to get workplace protections.
By Lucas Grindley

Tammy Baldwin Candidate Tammy Baldwin, who could become the first gay
person to be elected to the Senate, reacted to the news that President
Obama won't ban discrimination by federal contractors by urging more
action from activists.

"We've got to keep on organizing," the congresswoman from Wisconsin
told the Washington Blade.

The president's decision not to issue an executive order has roiled
LGBT rights groups, with many issuing statements about their
disappointment. Obama said he would instead press for passage of the
Employment Non-Discrimination Act, ensuring gays and lesbians can't be
fired from any job nationwide just because of their sexual
orientation. And Baldwin said that would become an important emphasis.

"We embrace executive orders when they can occur," she told the Blade.
"This president has issued several that have advanced our protections
as a community significantly, but there's no substitute for having
Congress act in sending the president the bill to sign."

As a member of the House, Baldwin knows the chances of passing ENDA
while Republicans are in control are poor. That's why voters need to
elect "a pro-equality majority" and "leadership that's pro-equality,"
she said.

Meanwhile, polls show Baldwin in a tight race but leading Republicans
in Wisconsin to replace outgoing Sen. Herb Kohl. Plus Baldwin has
continued her fundraising strength into the first quarter of 2012 by
raising $2 million, significantly outpacing her potential opponents.

Baldwin is an outspoken supporter of LGBT equality, and she also told
the Blade that she sides with the growing number of Democrats who are
calling for the party's platform to include marriage equality.

More:
http://www.advocate.com/Politics/Tammy_Baldwin_Reacts_With_Rally_Cry_to_Obama_Executive_Order_Decision/

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Have a great day,
Tommy

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Tommy

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Attacks continue in Que. student strike | Canada | News | Ottawa Sun



Hi all
 
I'm sending the link instead of copying and pasting because of the video that is worth seeing.
 
Any of you with kids or grand kids in a U.S. university will laugh at these spoiled brats. With the tuition hike the fees are still less than $4,000 a year. And there are lots of other subsidies that they get.
This is causing a lot of talk here in the Great White North. As we have a wealth redistribution system call Equalization grants. Which basically takes money for successful provinces and gives it to the basket cases. With predictable results. Alberta is a booming oil producing province and it sends Quebec app.. $5.400 for every man woman and child in Alberta. So, the Quebec government has lots of money to spoil it's citizens. With things like cheap university fees and $7.00 a day daycare. Yup it only cost a parent $7.00 a day to have all day daycare for their kids.
 
As a result the citizens have become a spoiled and pampered lot. And the people of Alberta are getting kind of pissed off. There is an election going on in Alberta right now. and transfer payments are a big issue.
 
Note that flags these punks are carrying. It's not surprising considering what they are taught in schools. My niece just graduated. And she would email me regularly with all the nonsense that she heard from some of her profs.
 
Bear
 
http://www.ottawasun.com/2012/04/16/attacks-continue-in-que-student-strike

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Re: Senate Republicans Vote Down The Buffet Tax Rule, Vote Them Out of Office!

You know there is a problem here kids.  Romney won't admit that his universal health plan is in fact, THE model for Obamacare.  Nor will Obama.
 
It really IS a state v Fed thing, but I am here to say Romney care is a DISASTER!.
 
How can we make it worse?
 
Give it to the Fed!
 
The shit will fly in Mass tomorrow (we got an extra day, we're special), when the $1200.00 fines start kicking in for those who could not prove health insurance.  Lets watch.
 

On Tuesday, April 17, 2012 12:38:38 PM UTC-4, KeithInTampa wrote:
I don't think ObamaCare can pass muster with the Supremes, and Romney has promised to repeal ObamaCare.   There is way too much opposition in this Nation for ObamaCare to stand as Michael and Mark have suggested.
 


 
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 11:39 AM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

Provided Our Robe Masters do not do the appropriate/constitutional thing and eliminate PPACA ... AND given the same scenario .... watch for Obamacare to merely be 'fine tuned' with a stamped "R" on it -- ostensibly remaining the same with the faithful whooping it up as though it were otherwise.

My hope is that (soon) Boobus Americanus will remove the blinders and recognize the obvious. One would think that several decades of examples would provide the necessary basis.

Regard$,
--MJ

"Republicans hate Obama, but it's said one most hates those like oneself." -- Sheldon Richman





At 11:32 AM 4/17/2012, you wrote:
I agree MJ,

NONE of the Obama executive orders will be done away with.. the Republicans will like them the same as the Dems do. There will be NO major policy changes other than (possibly) Obamacare.

On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 9:29 AM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

Even WERE those three to occur ... watch for no significant change in direction to occur (save that Resident being he who should not be named).

With Obama continuing/expanding what Bush did AND the Seven Two Dwarfs promising MORE of the same ....

Regard$,
--MJ

"Obama's reelection campaign motto should be "no hope and no change." For that matter, so should be Romney's, Gingrich's, & Santorum's." -- Jacob Hornberger




At 11:24 AM 4/17/2012, you wrote:
Good prognostication there Greg.....Watch for a change in residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, also.
 


 
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 9:18 AM, GregfromBoston <greg.vincent@yahoo.com > wrote:
GOP will hold the House and take the Senate.  Prepare to be really buimmed out.
On Monday, April 16, 2012 7:36:10 PM UTC-4, Tommy News wrote:
Senate Republicans Vote Down The Buffet Tax Rule, Vote Them Out of Office!
BREAKING: Buffett Rule fails in Senate

 Take back Congress from the 1%
Donate now so we can take back Congress for the 99%.

Today in a close vote, the Senate failed to pass the Buffett Rule, a
groundbreaking piece of legislation that would have made millionaires
and billionaires pay their fair share. So while the middle and working
class will be paying their fair share in taxes on Tax Day tomorrow,
many of the 1% will not.
The GOP obstructionists voted against the Buffett Rule, just like they
voted for the Medicare-killing Ryan budget. They're basically Robin
Hood in reverse - robbing from the 99% to give ever more lavish tax
breaks to the rich.
The majority of the country wants the Buffett Rule but they just
ignored us. They can't be changed, they can only be defeated.
So we've got a plan to defeat these right-wing zealots by registering
and turning out progressive voters this fall in key states and
congressional districts. Will you donate $5 right now to help us take
back Congress from the 1%?

With your help, we'll be working in:
•    8 of the 12 states key in deciding the presidential election;
•    Nearly half of the Congressional seats needed to win the majority
in the U.S. House, including some of the most progressive candidates
in the country like Ann McLane Kuster (NH-2);
•    7 key U.S. Senate races, including 2 of the top progressive
Senate candidates – Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Tammy Baldwin in
Wisconsin. And with Sen. Olympia Snowe stepping down, we have an
opportunity to pick up an additional Senate seat in Maine!
•    2 of the most competitive Governors' race in the country (NH and WV);
•    1 of the most important ballot initiatives in the country
(overturn Ohio's anti-voting rights law H.B. 194);
•    9 states with key state legislative races that could determine
control of a legislative body or deny a right-wing supermajority;

These are all states where USAction and our affiliates have been
long-time leaders waging issue campaigns, building coalitions and
creating a progressive infrastructure, and where we will continue to
do so long after Election Day. The core of the 2012 plan is based on
two paid organizers in each congressional district recruiting 400
volunteers and coordinating a 4-month volunteer canvass that can build
our base by contacting at least 7,500 voters that support us and
getting them to vote.
To be successful, however, we need to start these volunteer canvasses
by May 15th - that's just 1 month away! Your donation of $5 today can
help us fund these organizers and their outreach, and make the
difference in November. Then next year we can pass a Buffett Rule, and
bring sanity back to our government.

We need a Congress that works of, by and for the people — not just the
1%. Donate $5 now so we can take back Congress for the 99%.
Thank you for all you do,
David Elliot
USAction / TrueMajority

https://secure.truemajority.org/o/2/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?donate_page_KEY=7174&track=BuffettVote_email_2905&Email=Tommysnews@gmail.com

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Have a great day,
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