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1-866 338-1015
1-866 220-0044

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Map of the pan-asian pipeline. One of 2 reasons we are in Afghanistan.


Source: US department of state.

Cheney's map

This is the map that cheney had on his desk when he had the "energy" conference during the first months of the Bush administration. long before 9/11 ever happened. this is how they were splitting up the loot earned by the blood of Americans.




The blue country you see there is Iran. It is one of the richest oil deposits in the world and our oil industry WANTS IT. It is the only reason you even know the word "Iran", but they'd have you believe Iranians are all terrorists so you will go kill them and they can have their oil


This is what imperialism looks like. We have a military presence in nearly every country in the world. Wonder what we'd say if some foreign country was installed on our continent? Would we welcome them or would we try to get rid of them. If we tried to rid our land of their presence, would we be called terrorists like those who try to get us out of their countries are?

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Hello,

First of all, I would like to say that I make no claim of any formal
education beyond high school in the poorest district in the state of
Texas. There was not much motivation to keep me in the classroom.
However, having said this, I feel that knowledge can be obtained in
many other ways, sometimes within our own thoughts and inner wisdoms. I
also feel that education -- in this country -- in many cases, is wanted
purely for monetary purposes and gains and thus, breeds arrogance;
instead of a higher purpose, that can enriching our lives and those of
others. So, I wrote this with good intentions, that it may shed light
on the darkest corners of the people who truly love this nation and
truth, as oppose to corruption and corporate greed. Thank you. --

Subject: The Core Cause Of A Lost Democracy

Corporate Lobbying And “Campaign Contributions”

The real election scandal and what has become of “democracy” by way of
lobbying. Lobbying in America has become the apparent cause of a false
democracy and an ownership of the vast majority of
lawmakers/politicians and our government. This in fact, is the very
core that has destroyed our nation and the beliefs put forth by the
founding fathers of this great nation.

The corporate criminals repeatedly found guilty of felony fraud, and
various other charges, continue to earn hundreds of billions of
tax-payer dollars through th
e years. Although, they pay out billions in
fines for crimes, this is merely the cost of doing business as usual in
America today and for many years past. This is in no way an accident.
This is a systemic fraud that has become part of the American business
model. The war industry, pharmaceutical companies, health insurance
industry and others are in control of our country through these
sellouts who in the best interest of the government embedded
corporations, mislead the American people daily.

The funneling of contract money back into the campaign war chest of the
typical politician -- republicans and democrats alike -- in return for
the guarantee of war and extreme protectionism of criminal defense
contractors; behind-closed-door lawbreaking agreements, extreme
protectionism and subsidies for the felon pharmaceutical companies,
corrupt health insurance industry, Monsanto and others who are also
found guilty of countless crimes and criminal acts against the American
people, (in our courts of law) has become business as usual in the
U.S.A. Corporate "campaign contributions" come at a very steep price to
the average American. Everything we once knew to have been, is no more.
All that is left is the propaganda of a fake democracy; the illusion of
freedoms and other liberties; the dept we are left with and must pay,
only for them to continue on their current path of greed and
destruction, all in our name and with our tax dol
lars.

The media is an intricate -- and likely the most vital -- part of a
Democracy. Without freedom of the press and accountability within
journalism itself, of which the corporate media currently has a strong
choke-hold on, the truth is hidden from the common American in an array
of daily distractions, misleading headlines and outright lies. For
years the corporate media has become a storyteller, a liar, to create
fear, to distract us from who and what truly controls our so called
democracy and thus, our lives. The widespread systemic fraud along with
the lies of the media go virtually unnoticed, while our Democracy, and
we, become the sacrificial lamb.

What will it take for us to organize, come together as one, to defend
our nation and constitution against the greatest invasion -- foreign or
domestic -- our America has ever seen?

Sincerely,

Felix L. Cruz

Friday, October 2, 2009

Gallup: Obama’s Mideast Policies Have Not Disproportionately Hurt Him With Jews | The Plum Line

The Plum LineGreg Sargent's blog

Gallup: Obama’s Mideast Policies Have Not Disproportionately Hurt Him With Jews

A fascinating new poll from Gallup finds that Obama’s standing among American Jews is higher than among any other religious group, suggesting he still has domestic political breathing room as he deals with Iran and enters into grueling Arab-Israeli negotiations.

It finds that his approval rating among Jews is at a healthy 64%, besting his numbers among catholics (54%), protestants (47%) and adults overall (54%).

At first glance, the poll also seems to suggest warning signs, finding that his approval rating has slipped among Jews, from 83% in January. But Gallup says that this is actually proportional with his overall slippage, and concludes:

Importantly, the decline in approval of Obama among Jews since January is no greater than that seen among the general public. This suggests that since Obama became president, his actions on Middle East policy issues — particularly relating to Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian dispute — have not had a disproportionately negative (or positive) impact on his image.

A great deal of this is driven by disproportional Jewish loyalty towards Dems, obviously, but it seems worth keeping in mind, given the escalating attacks on Obama as soft on Israel and Iran.



Gallup: Obama’s Mideast Policies Have Not Disproportionately Hurt Him With Jews | The Plum Line

Sites leased and available for lease

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Should Acorn Lose it's Government Contract?

sorry, i didn't know that thsi was someone else's work. thought my friend wrote it up.. linked above.


#1 - Can the illegal and/or unethical actions of a few individuals operating on their own and not under the sanction of their organizational entity automatically indict an entire organization?

#2 - If the answer to #1 is "YES", should that entity be barred from having any government contracts?

                     Federal      Instances        
Government Contract Misconduct Misconduct $
Contractor $(FY2007) (Since 1995) (Since 1995)


1. Lockheed Martin $34234.9m 50 $ 577.2m
2. Boeing Company $24304.9m 31 $1561.4m
3. Northrop Grumman $18506.5m 27 $ 790.4m
4. General Dynamics $14687.7m 9 $ 63.2m
5. Raytheon Company $12233.2m 17 $ 475.8m
6. BAE Systems $10119.2m 3 $ 1.3m
7. L-3 Communications $6802.2m 5 $ 41.3m
8. United Technologies $5874.1m 13 $ 383.0m
9. SAIC $5230.9m 10 $ 14.5m
10. KBR $4872.5m 18 $ 103.0m

Bush Dow vs Obama Dow

Bush Dow vs Obama Dow

Friday, September 18, 2009

Conservative Non-Socialist Pledge

I, ________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:

I will complain about the destruction of 1st Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 1st Amendment Rights.

I will complain about the destruction of my 2nd Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 2nd Amendment rights by legally but brazenly brandishing unconcealed firearms in public.

I will foreswear the time-honored principles of fairness, decency, and respect by screaming unintelligible platitudes regarding tyranny, Nazi-ism, and socialism at public town halls. Also.

I pledge to eliminate all government intervention in my life. I will abstain from the use of and participation in any socialist goods and services including but not limited to the following:

  • Social Security
  • Medicare/Medicaid
  • State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)
  • Police, Fire, and Emergency Services
  • US Postal Service
  • Roads and Highways
  • Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)
  • The US Railway System
  • Public Subways and Metro Systems
  • Public Bus and Lightrail Systems
  • Rest Areas on Highways
  • Sidewalks
  • All Government-Funded Local/State Projects (e.g., see Iowa 2009 federal senate appropriations)
  • Public Water and Sewer Services (goodbye socialist toilet, shower, dishwasher, kitchen sink, outdoor hose!)
  • Public and State Universities and Colleges
  • Public Primary and Secondary Schools
  • Sesame Street
  • Publicly Funded Anti-Drug Use Education for Children
  • Public Museums
  • Libraries
  • Public Parks and Beaches
  • State and National Parks
  • Public Zoos
  • Unemployment Insurance
  • Municipal Garbage and Recycling Services
  • Treatment at Any Hospital or Clinic That Ever Received Funding From Local, State or Federal Government (pretty much all of them)
  • Medical Services and Medications That Were Created or Derived From Any Government Grant or Research Funding (again, pretty much all of them)
  • Socialist Byproducts of Government Investment Such as Duct Tape and Velcro (Nazi-NASA Inventions)
  • Use of the Internets, email, and networked computers, as the DoD's ARPANET was the basis for subsequent computer networking
  • Foodstuffs, Meats, Produce and Crops That Were Grown With, Fed With, Raised With or That Contain Inputs From Crops Grown With Government Subsidies
  • Clothing Made from Crops (e.g. cotton) That Were Grown With or That Contain Inputs From Government Subsidies

If a veteran of the government-run socialist US military, I will forego my VA benefits and insist on paying for my own medical care

I will not tour socialist government buildings like the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

I pledge to never take myself, my family, or my children on a tour of the following types of socialist locations, including but not limited to:

  • Smithsonian Museums such as the Air and Space Museum or Museum of American History
  • The socialist Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Monuments
  • The government-operated Statue of Liberty
  • The Grand Canyon
  • The socialist World War II and Vietnam Veterans Memorials
  • The government-run socialist-propaganda location known as Arlington National Cemetery
  • All other public-funded socialist sites, whether it be in my state or in Washington, DC

I will urge my Member of Congress and Senators to forego their government salary and government-provided healthcare.

I will oppose and condemn the government-funded and therefore socialist military of the United States of America.

I will boycott the products of socialist defense contractors such as GE, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Humana, FedEx, General Motors, Honeywell, and hundreds of others that are paid by our socialist government to produce goods for our socialist army.

I will protest socialist security departments such as the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, TSA, Department of Justice and their socialist employees.

Upon reaching eligible retirement age, I will tear up my socialist Social Security checks.

Upon reaching age 65, I will forego Medicare and pay for my own private health insurance until I die.

SWORN ON A BIBLE AND SIGNED THIS DAY OF __________ IN THE YEAR ___.

_____________ _________________________

Signed Printed Name/Town and State

The Marshmallow Test

Friday, September 11, 2009

What Went Wrong?

Questions Worth Re-Asking

Why did the president sit in that Florida classroom for several minutes after being told "America is under attack"?

Why did Rudy Giuliani put the anti-terrorism command center in the World Trade Center against the advice of experts who knew better?

Could there be any greater examples of heroism than the passengers who fought back on Flight 93, the rescue teams at the Pentagon, or the NYPD and NYFD responders who ran into the towers without hesitation because "It's my job"?

Father Mychal Judge: Saint...or Supersaint?
-
Why did firefighters have faulty radios instead of dependable ones, Mr. Giuliani?

Was it really necessary for the president to tell us to go shopping?

Why were rescue workers at Ground Zero told by the EPA director that the air was safe to breathe when it wasn't?

When rescue workers got horribly sick from breathing contaminated air, why were so many given perfunctory treatment and then left to fend for themselves?

Why did Rudy Giuliani say he "was at the site as often, if not more, than most of the workers," when he only visited the site for 29 hours over a span of 41 visits?
-
When Glenn Beck---one of the most respected figures in the Republican party---said, "When I see a 9/11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, 'Oh shut up!' I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining," why wasn't he banished into obscurity?
-
When the president stressed the importance of safeguarding our ports and vital infrastructure, why did he take so long actually get started? Are they much safer today?

When the president called for greater security at airports, why was there such a lopsided focus on passengers and very little on cargo?

When we found out that most of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, why did the president continue holding hands (literally) with their leaders?

Why were habeas corpus rights suspended years after the attacks of 9/11, when the country wasn't in a state of rebellion or invasion?

When Congress found out the president had broken the law before 9/11 by snooping on American citizens without warrants, why did they patch up the law to make his---and the phone companies'---illegal activities retroactively legal?

Bush nominated Bernard Kerik to be the head of Homeland Security...and he wasn't joking???
-
When Ann Coulter---one of the most respected figures in the Republican party---said, "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much," why wasn't she banished into obscurity?
-
When Bush had bin Laden in his sights at Tora Bora, why didn’t he take the shot?

Why were we told repeatedly that Saddam Hussein was a co-conspirator in the attacks when he had nothing to do with them?

When we needed more troops to vanquish the Taliban in Afghanistan, why did we invade Iraq?

How unspeakably crude was it for the Republican party to exploit the 9/11 attacks in a promotional video during their convention last year in St. Paul?
-
When Jerry Falwell got on TV and said, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'," why wasn't he defrocked and sent to work in soup kitchens for the rest of his life?

Is it possible to adequately express the importance of the work done by Beverly Eckert on behalf of truth, accountability and transparency?
-
What's going on at Ground Zero?
-
Are terrorists pricks, or what?
-
Are politicians who use fear to scare citizens into submission pricks, or what?
-
Will the shock of that day ever wear off?
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/9/10/780192/-Cheers-and-Jeers:-Rum-and-Coke-Friday

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Daily Kos: What they really mean

Glenn Beck and right-wingers are fond of calling the Obama Administration a haven for "socialist" and "communist" radicals.

Here's what they are really talking about:

Old-school teabaggers and their new leader
Old-school teabaggers and their new leader

Daily Kos: What they really mean

Thursday, September 3, 2009

BartCop's most recent rants - Political Humor and Commentary

Subject: Dear Republicans

Fuck you. No, I'm not joking. I'm sick of this bullshit.

 I'm sick of the way you've corrupted the public discourse. The way you've made it acceptable to hurl any insult you like at public officials. The way you blame us for the current atmosphere of hatred by accusing us of starting it with hating Bush. Like Bush didn't come on the heels of eight years of your tireless efforts to destroy Clinton by any means necessary, like Bush didn't give us good reason to complain. A couple of posters on a website compared Bush to Hitler and you've used it as free license to compare Obama to Hitler 24/7 and I'm sick of your hypocrisy, where it's acceptable to say shit about Obama that you would have had an apoplectic fit (and did) if anything remotely similar had been said about your guys. Keith Olbermann calls Cheney a fascist when he was actually using fascist tactics and you think that gives you the freedom to call Obama a fascist, socialist, Marxist constantly for no reason at all. Fuck you and your bullshit false equivalency.

 I'm sick of the way you've made the populace stupid. Around a fifth of your populace thinks the sun orbits the earth, over half think evolution never happened. Your populace actually believe the media has a liberal bias. Not because it has, you have the most conservative media in the free world, but because you've shouted it so loud and so often that you've brainwashed the public into believing it, like the battered wife who parrots her husband's insults. You've got a whole segment of the populace shouting about socialism and fascism and none of them know what the fucking words mean. You've convinced them that fascism is a left-wing thing. You've got them so turned around that some of them actually believe global warming isn't happening. Fuck you.

 I'm sick of the way you try to destroy the whole concept of government. You've tricked the people into believing that government can't do anything right, always being careful to exclude the army because you love your bullets and bombs but you've so destroyed the public's ability to reason that they don't even think of interstate highways, the space program, the national parks program, etc. Government is always great when it's doing what you tell it and inevitably corrupt when it isn't. Fuck you.

 I'm sick of your rewriting of history. You've bleated so loud and long that Reagan was a great president, that the New Deal didn't work, that cutting taxes increases revenues, that you actually have the people believing this bullshit. And these are the same people who will go on to become teachers and fill their student's heads with this self-same bullshit. Reagan was a mediocre president at best who had the good fortune to be in power when the USSR collapsed under it's own weight and you bastards have turned him into the Second Coming. You've rewritten history so that everything foul and hateful and wrong can be attributed to a Democrat while everything worthwhile is a Republican's glory. Fuck you.

 I'm sick of your dragging the center ever further to the right. How many whackjob fringe ideas have you dragged into the mainstream? The aforementioned idea that tax cuts increase revenues, the Laffer Curve, the idea that Welfare harms the poor, the idea that there's rampant fraud in Welfare, the idea that whatever is good for corporations is good for the country. And you push these ideas through your corporate media and you do it so long and loud that they become part of the accepted political landscape and because it is easier to tell a lie than to debunk one, we never get away from this rancid shit. Fuck you.

 I'm sick of your casual criminality. Teddy Kennedy, a man who's boots you were not worthy to lick, was just buried and all I've heard from my rightist friends for days is Chappaquiddick, Chappaquiddick, Chappaquiddick. Your fucking golden boy raped the Constitution, mainly because he wanted to; tortured random people (and waterboarding is torture, fuck you too) essentially because he wanted to; spent like a drunken sailor, essentially because he wanted to; invaded a sovereign nation, essentially for the loot and destroyed people's lives, essentially for the evilulz and you bastards are obsessed with a fucking accident a Democrat had decades ago? You don't go on about Laura Bush killing some guy decades ago. Fuck you.

 I'm sick of you praising pure evil. You're letting Dick Cheney be the standard-bearer for Republicanism. Dick Cheney, a man so nakedly evil that even his friends call him "Darth"; a man so callous that Lex Luthor would recoil in terror; a man who probably has dismembered hitchhikers in those man-sized safes and kills plants by his mere proximity. Fuck you.

 I'm sick of your attempts to tilt the playing field permanently in your favor. Democrats filibustered a few of Bush's most hateful judicial picks and you pricks started screaming about doing away with the filibuster but now you're in the minority, you're filibustering absolutely everything you can and whining when you don't get the chance. You ignored everything the Democrats had to say when you had power and now that you don't, you scream that everyone must be bipartisan. You don't budge a fucking inch on anything but you insist that everyone must compromise to meet you. That's your idea of politics: Don't move an inch, force the other guy to come to the right to meet you and call the result a "compromise". Fuck you.

 I'm sick of your corporatism. You dress it up in false populism but anyone with half a brain can see that you're the brought and paid for subsidiary of big business. You keep pushing tax cuts as the answer for absolutely everything, you keep sabotaging every attempt to control the excesses of big business. You genuinely think the world would be a better place if it was a combination of Bill Gibson's dystopian vision of a corporate dominated world and Ayn Rand's bullshit Objectivism, yet another entry in mankind's endless attempts to find a moral justification for naked greed. You've taken the clinically insane spewings of a woman literally to the right of Hitler (pardon my Godwins) and the 1984-like vision of a dystopian author and convinced yourselves that would be a good place to live. Big business is the enemy of the people, always has been. The ideal for the corporate class is to have a small pool of people rich enough to buy their fucking crap and a much larger pool of people so poor and with so few options that they can be used and abused at the corporation's whim. A corporation's objective is not to look after you, it is to make ever-larger profits by any means necessary. You bastards want to reinstate fucking slavery to the corporate class and you've made the public so fucking stupid that they actually swallow the bullshit you're serving up, they actually want to enslave themselves to the corporations that abuse them at every turn. They actually care more about the corporations right to make obscene profits than they care about their child's right to live on a habitable planet. Fuck you.

Fuck you, you scumridden shitehawks, you make me sick. Just fuck off and die.
BartCop's most recent rants - Political Humor and Commentary

Sunday, August 30, 2009

You're probably just another ASS HOLE conservative if...

Notice a propensity of newly minted Libertarians showing up lately? Perhaps it's just coincidence their ranks swelled in inverse proportion to George Bush's approval rating, ditto that so many are mouthing traditional conservative talking points. But what about the everyday gun toting townhall screamers and taxcutters and deficit hawks we see on cable news: are they really libertarian as so many claim, or just conservatives in glibertarian clothes? Here's a few warning signs.

  1. If you think Ron Paul isn't conservative enough and Fox News is fair and balanced, you might not be a Libertarian.
  1. If you believe you have an inalienable right to attend Presidential townhalls brandishing a loaded assault rifle, but that arresting participants inside for wearing a pink shirt is an important public safety precaution, there's a chance you're dangerously unbalanced, but no chance you're a Libertarian.
  1. If you think the government should stay the hell out of Medicare, well, you have way, way bigger problems than figuring out if you're really a Libertarian.
  1. If you rank Anthonin Scalia and Roy Moore among the greatest Justices of all time, you may be bug fuck crazy, but you're probably not a Libertarian.
  1. You might not be a Libertarian if you think recreational drug use, prostitution, and gambling should be illegal because that's what Jesus wants.
  1. If you think the separation between church and state applies equally to all faiths except socially conservative Christian fundamentalism, you're probably not a Libertarian.
  1. You're probably not a Libertarian if you believe the federal government should remove safety standards and clinical barriers for prescription and OTC medications while banning all embryonic stem cell research, somatic nuclear transfer, RU 486, HPV and cervical cancer vaccination, work on human/non human DNA combos, or Plan B emergency contraception.  
  1. If you think state execution of mentally retarded convicts is good policy but prosecuting Scott Roeder or disconnecting Terri Schiavo was an unforgivable sin, odds are you're not really a Libertarian.
  1. If you argue that cash for clunkers or any form of government healthcare is unconstitutional, but forced prayer or teaching old testament creationism in public schools is fine, you're not even consistent, much less a Libertarian, and you may be Michele Bachmann.

And the number one sign: if you think government should stay the hell out of people's private business -- except when kidnapping citizens and rendering them to secret overseas torture prisons, snooping around the bedrooms of consenting adults, policing a woman's uterus, or conducting warrantless wire taps, you are no Libertarian.


Daily Kos: State of the Nation

Saturday, August 29, 2009

The Pioneer Woman Cooks - Ree Drummond

Cinnamon Rolls 101

Jun. 1, 2007

Hey! I have a great idea. Why not start a holiday tradition of delivering these delicious cinnamon rolls to your friends and cohorts?

Cinnamon Rolls - Printable Recipe

Growing up, my mom always made them for her good friends at Christmastime, and you could literally hear the primal groans of pure joy rising from the rooftops of our town. I’ve carried on the tradition through the years and have won friends and influenced people just by delivering these rolls. They really are that good.

A warning. If you follow these instructions and wind up delivering these cinnamon rolls to your friends, be prepared for any of the following to occur:
1. They’ll call you after they’ve taken the first bite and profess their eternal love for every ounce of your body, even your toe jam and love handles.
2. They’ll pass out after the first bite, hit their head on the kitchen counter, sustain a concussion, and sue you for damages, despite the fact that the one bite they tasted of your cinnamon roll was the single most profound culinary experience in their miserable little life.
3. They’ll call you and ask for the recipe, saying, "HOW did you make those?"
4. They’ll call you and propose marriage.
5. They’ll hug the cinnamon roll pan, get maple frosting all over their clothes, and send you the bill for the dry cleaning.

Let’s start by making the dough.

Mix 1 quart of whole milk, 1 cup of vegetable oil, and 1 cup of sugar in a pan. "Scald" the mixture (heat until just before the boiling point.) Turn off heat and leave to cool 45 minutes to 1 hour. Go fold laundry or sculpt or play Twister with your mailman or something.


When the mixture is lukewarm to warm, but NOT hot, sprinkle in 2 packages Active Dry Yeast.


Let this sit for a minute so the yeast gets all warm and moist and happy.


Then add 8 cups of all-purpose flour.


Stir mixture together. Cover and let sit for at least an hour. Go throw away the rest of your wrapping paper or build a Lego Rottweiler or do Yoga or watch Home Shopping Network and order a frozen pizza oven for your countertop or some cellulite cream.


After an hour, the dough will look like this.


Now add 1 more cup of flour


1 heaping teaspoon baking powder


And 1 "scant" (less than a full) teaspoon baking soda and 1 heaping tablespoon of salt.

Stir mixture together. At this point, you could cover the dough and put it in the fridge until you need it—overnight or even a day or two, if necessary. Just keep your eye on it and if it starts to splurge out of the pan, just punch it down. Or, of course, you can just go ahead and make the rolls.

Let’s do that, shall we?

Sprinkle surface generously with flour.


Take half the dough and form a rough rectangle.


Then roll the dough thin, maintaining a general rectangular shape. Rectangle should increase in both width and length as you roll it out.


Here’s my beautiful, weird, lovely, delightful friend, Hyacinth. She came over to make cinnamon rolls with me. Ain’t she purty?


Now drizzle 1 1/2 to 2 cups melted butter over the dough. Don’t be shy; lay it on thick, baby. You know you want it.


Oh, by the way? This is not non-caloric. In case anyone asks.


Now sprinkle 1 cup of sugar over the butter…


…followed by a generous sprinkling of cinnamon.


Now, starting at the opposite end, begin rolling the dough in a neat line toward you. Keep the roll relatively tight as you go. Some of the butter/sugar/cinnamon mixture may ooze out toward the end, but that’s no big deal.


Next, pinch the seam to the roll to seal it.Doesn’t Hyacinth have lovely hands? I’d give anything to have her hands.


Spread 1 tablespoon of melted butter in seven round, foil cake or pie pans. Then begin cutting rolls approximately 3/4 to 1 inch thick and laying them in the buttered pans. Repeat this process with the other half of the dough. This recipe makes approximately seven pans of rolls.


Let the rolls sit for 20 to 30 minutes to rise, then bake at 400 degrees until light golden brown, about 15 to 18 minutes.

While the rolls are in the oven, make the deliciously sinful maple frosting.
To a mixing bowl, add 1 bag of powdered sugar.

To this, add about 2 teaspoons maple flavoring


1/2 cup milk...


1/4 cup melted butter


…and 1/4 cup of brewed coffee. Also add 1/8 teaspoon (a generous pinch) salt.


Then have a big, strong, virile man stir it up for you. I chose Marlboro Man.


The mixture should be thick but pourable. Taste and adjust as needed.


Generously drizzle frosting over warm rolls after you pull them out of the oven. And take a walk on the wild side. Don’t be afraid to drown them puppies. Be sure to get frosting around the perimeter of the pan, too, so the icing will coat the outside of the rolls.

These are not non-caloric. Did I mention that?


The frosting will settle in and become one with the cinnamon rolls. And you’ll be another step closer to being the most popular person in town…or the jiggliest, depending on whether you choose to deliver the rolls to friends or lock yourself in your pantry and eat them all by yourself.

Not that I’ve ever done that, mind you. I don’t ever do things like that. I’m a model of self-discipline. And I don’t have time to do such things—I’m too busy doing the Stairmaster. Yeah, that’s me—Miss Will Power. I don’t ever consume wasted calories. And if I do, I’m always vigilant about compensating with a higher activity level and weeks of fasting. And all.

Go forth and conquer! Yes you can. And report back to me.


The Pioneer Woman Cooks - Ree Drummond

Friday, August 21, 2009

Bush and his evil cabal used terror to manipulate the easily scared

Wasteful military spending

Delta House Missile Defense
Volume XIV No. 34: August 21, 2009

Faced with proposed budgetary terminations, in a move that would make Bluto and his Animal House fraternity brothers proud, missile defense program boosters threw a big ‘ol party this week.

Okay, so they weren’t wearing togas, but military brass, scientists, and academics descended by the hundreds on Huntsville, Alabama, for the annual Space and Missile Defense Conference. As the home of the Army Space and Missile Command, Missile and Space Intelligence Center, and scores of related government agencies and defense contractors, Huntsville is the perfect venue for what amounts to a pep rally (trade show) for our country’s most expensive weapons systems.

The event was well-timed to remind Congressional Appropriators that decisions about missile defense funding await them after the August recess when they take up the fiscal year 2010 Defense Appropriations bill. Specifically, they must decide whether to defy the White House and reinstate funding for programs shrunk by the Pentagon—including the Airborne Laser and Ground-Based Missile Defense—or terminated outright, such as the Multiple-Kill Vehicle and Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI). House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha has already spared KEI the knife, giving the program based in his home district $80 million in the House version of the bill.

In another example of fortuitous timing, the Missile Defense Agency reported Wednesday a successful test of the Airborne Laser, a Boeing creation that would shoot ballistic missiles out of the sky with a laser mounted on the nose of a 747 aircraft. MDA had conducted a similar test the previous week, and will attempt to actually shoot down a missile by the end of the year.

But even if the system passes that test, the fact is the laser is still too weak to allow the large planes to shoot down missiles from a safe distance. The planes would have to practically hover above their targets in order to destroy them—hardly an invulnerable position. Defense Secretary Gates said as much when he testified before the House Armed Services Committee in May. “There’s nobody in uniform I know who thinks this is a workable concept,” he said.

The Defense Department has in fact budgeted plenty of money for continued development of directed-energy lasers and weapons—just not ones mounted on aircraft that invite enemy target practice. Yet in Huntsville this week, the ABL seemed the belle of the ball: TV cameras lingered over models of laser-packin’ 747s that, according to the DOD budget, will never be built.

Meanwhile, Huntsville’s Representative Parker Griffith (D-AL) hit the dance floor to defend the wasteful weapons. "Did we make a policy decision and then place a budget? Or did we make a budget decision and then develop a policy?" he asked Thursday afternoon during a presentation titled “The Politics of Missile Defense and the Adversarial Influences.” "It should not have been a budget issue. The defense of the United States is going to be expensive," he said. Too late. It already is expensive – as Secretary Gates has pointed out. We should be able to defend our country on the more than half a trillion dollars we are currently spending.

We surely agree that strategy and security should guide defense spending before parochial concerns about jobs, votes, and dollars. But military leaders, scientists and the preponderance of evidence agree that missile defense programs like the Airborne Laser have failed on that score, and other investments—including many other missile defense programs—are more deserving of our limited dollars. The party has to end some time and we have to make tough budgetary choices. The easiest choice should be to spend our precious cash on defense programs that will actually work.

Let us know what you think.

Johann Hari: The Republican Party Is Turning Into A Cult

J

Something strange has happened in America in the nine months since Barack Obama was elected. It has best been summarized by the comedian Bill Maher: "The Democrats have moved to the right, and the Republicans have moved to a mental hospital."

The election of Obama -- a center-left black man -- as a successor to George W. Bush has scrambled the core American right's view of their country. In their gut, they saw the US as a white-skinned, right-wing nation forever shaped like Sarah Palin. When this image was repudiated by a majority of Americans in a massive landslide, it simply didn't compute. How could this have happened? How could the cry of "Drill, baby, drill" have been beaten by a supposedly big government black guy? So a streak that has always been there in the American right's world-view -- to deny reality, and argue against a demonic phantasm of their own creation -- has swollen. Now it is all they can see.

Since Obama's rise, the US right has been skipping frantically from one fantasy to another, like a person in the throes of a mental breakdown. It started when they claimed he was a secret Muslim, and -- at the same time -- that he was a member of a black nationalist church that hated white people. Then, once these arguments were rejected and Obama won, they began to argue he was born in Kenya and secretly smuggled into the United States as a baby, and the Hawaiian authorities conspired to fake his US birth certificate. So he is ineligible to rule and the office of President should pass to... the Republican runner-up, John McCain.

These aren't fringe phenomena: a Research 2000 poll found that a majority of Republicans and Southerners say Obama wasn't born in the US, or aren't sure. A steady steam of Republican congressmen have been jabbering that Obama has "questions to answer." No amount of hard evidence -- here's his birth certificate, here's a picture of his mother heavily pregnant in Hawaii, here's the announcement of his birth in the local Hawaiian paper -- can pierce this conviction.

This trend has reached its apotheosis this summer with the Republican Party claiming en masse that Obama wants to set up "death panels" to euthanize the old and disabled. Yes: Sarah Palin really has claimed -- with a straight face -- that Barack Obama wants to kill her baby.

You have to admire the audacity of the right. Here's what's actually happening. The US is the only major industrialized country that does not provide regular healthcare to all its citizens. Instead, they are required to provide for themselves -- and just under 50 million people can't afford the insurance. As a result, 18,000 US citizens die every year needlessly, because they can't access the care they require. That's equivalent to six 9/11s, every year, year on year. Yet the Republicans have accused the Democrats who are trying to stop all this death by extending healthcare of being "killers" -- and they have successfully managed to put them on the defensive.

The Republicans want to defend the existing system, not least because they are given massive sums of money by the private medical firms who benefit from the deadly status quo. But they can't do so honestly: some 70 percent of Americans say it is "immoral" to retain a medical system that doesn't cover all citizens. So they have to invent lies to make any life-saving extension of healthcare sound depraved.

A few months ago, a recent board member for several private health corporations called Betsy McCaughey noticed a clause in the proposed healthcare legislation that would pay for old people to see a doctor and write a living will. They could stipulate when (if at all) they would like to be withdrawn. It's totally voluntary. Many people want it: I know I wouldn't want to be kept alive for a few extra months if I was only going to be in agony and unable to speak. But McCaughey started the rumor that this was a form of euthanasia, where old people would be forced to agree to death. This was then stretched somehow to include the disabled. It was flatly untrue -- but the right had their talking point, Palin declared the system "downright evil", and they were off.

It's been amazingly successful. Now, every conversation about healthcare has to begin with a Democrat explaining at great length that, no, they are not in favor of killing the elderly -- while Republicans get away with defending a status quo that kills 18,000 people a year. The hypocrisy was startling: when Sarah Palin was Governor of Alaska, she encouraged citizens there to take out living wills. Almost all the Republicans leading the charge against "death panels" have voted for living wills in the past. But the lie has done its work: a confetti of distractions has been thrown up, and support is leaking away from the plan that would save lives.

These claims have become so detached from reality that they often seem like black comedy. The right-wing magazine US Investors' Daily claimed that if Steven Hawking had been British, he would have been allowed to die at birth by its "socialist" healthcare system. Hawking responded with a polite cough that he is British, and "I wouldn't be here without the NHS." Frank Laffer, the right-wing economist lauded by David Cameron, claimed on CNN that it would be a disaster if the government got its hands on Medicare, the program providing healthcare for the elderly, paid for entirely by... the government.

This tendency to simply deny inconvenient facts and invent a fantasy-world isn't new; it's only becoming more heightened. It ran through the Bush years like a dash of bourbon in water. When it became clear Saddam Hussein had no Weapons of Mass Destruction, the US right simply claimed they had been shipped to Syria. When the scientific evidence for man-made global warming became unanswerable, they claimed, as one Republican congressman put it, that it was "the greatest hoax in human history", and all the world's climatologists were "liars". The American media then presents itself as an umpire between "the rival sides", as if they both had evidence behind them.

It's a shame, because there are some areas in which a conservative philosophy -- reminding us of the limits of grand human schemes, and advising caution -- could be a useful corrective. But that's not these what so-called "conservatives" are providing: instead, they are pumping up a hysterical fantasy, that is only a thin skin covering raw economic interests and base prejudices.

For many of the people at the top, this is mere cynical manipulation: one of Bush's former advisors, David Kuo, has said the President and Karl Rove would mock evangelicals as "nuts" as soon as they left the Oval Office. But the ordinary Republican base believe it. They are being cruelly manipulated into opposing their own interests through false fears and invented demons. Last week, one of the Republicans sent to disrupt a healthcare town hall started a fight and was injured -- and then complained he had no health insurance. I didn't laugh; I wanted to weep.

Indeed, if you spend any time with American right-wingers -- as I have, reporting undercover on events like the National Review cruise and the Christian Coalition Solidarity Tour of Israel -- you soon find that your arguments don't center on philosophy. You have to concentrate on correcting basic factual errors about the real world.

They insist Europe has fallen to Islam, since Muslims immigrants are becoming a majority and are imposing sharia law. In reality, Muslims make up 3 percent of the population of Europe, and most of them oppose sharia law. They insist Franklin Roosevelt caused the Great Depression, and should have cut government spending. In reality, whenever he did cut spending -- as he tried periodically throughout the 1930s -- the economy began to tank. But explain this patiently -- with a thousand sources -- and they simply shriek that you are lying, and they know "in their heart" what is true. They insist gay marriage would cause the institution of the family to collapse. In reality, where it has already been introduced in Europe, heterosexual families continue just as before. On the list goes: evolution is a lie, a blastocyst is akin to a baby, torture produces actionable intelligence...

How do they train themselves to be so impervious to reality? It begins, I suspect, with religion. They are taught from a young age that it is good to have "faith" -- which is, by definition, a belief without any evidence to back it up. You don't have "faith" Australia exists, or fire burns: you have evidence. You only need "faith" to believe the untrue or unprovable. Indeed, they are taught that faith is the highest aspiration and most noble cause. Is it any surprise this then percolates into their political views? Faith-based thinking spreads and contaminates the rational.

Up to now, Obama has not responded well to this onslaught of unreason. He has tried to conciliate the elite economic interests, and joke about the fanatical fringe they are stirring up. He has shamefully assured the pharmaceutical companies that an expanded healthcare system will not use the power of government as a purchaser to bargain down drug prices, while wryly saying that he "doesn't want to kill Grandma." Rather than challenging these hard interests and bizarre fantasies aggressively, he has tried to flatter and soothe them. His healthcare plan is weaker and harder to explain as a result.

But this kind of mania can't be co-opted: it can only by over-ruled. Sometimes in politics you will have enemies, and they must be democratically defeated. The political system cannot be gummed up by a need to reach out to the maddest people with the maddest fears. There is no way to expand healthcare without angering Big Pharma and the Republicaloons. So be it. As Arianna Huffington put it, "It is as though, at the height of the civil rights movement, you thought you had to bring together Martin Luther King and George Wallace and make them agree. It's not how change happens."

However strange it seems, the Republican Party really is spinning off into a bizarro-cult who believe Barack Obama is a baby-killer plotting to build death panels for the grannies of America. Their new slogan should be -- shrill, baby, shrill.

ohann Hari: The Republican Party Is Turning Into A Cult

Thursday, August 20, 2009

What a piece of shit looks like. He's a fake cryer and the idiots eat it up.

Hot Air: GMAC Can't Boycott Glenn Beck -- They Got Bailout Money! | Crooks and Liars

Steve Forbes Another Republican Liar and Faker

Mario Solis-Marich at Nuestra Voice managed to get Steve Forbes -- the chief cohort of Dick Armey at FreedomWorks, the outfit that has been organizing the teabaggers' disruptions health-care town halls -- to sit for a 15-minute interview, ostensibly to talk about Forbes' new book, Hey, Son, Do You Like to Watch Gladiator Movies? Power Ambition Glory: The Stunning Parallels between Great Leaders of the Ancient World and Today . . . and the Lessons You Can Learn.
In a quick few minutes he claimed that people in England over 65 years of age could not receive dialysis, that Obama wanted single payer, and that Freedom Works displayed video of the almost violent Doggett town hall on their web site so that politicians can “see what happens” when they lie about financial matters.
Solis-Marich played along for awhile, letting Forbes talk about the need for credibility if you want to be a leader. (One of Forbes' favorite gladiator Ancient Greek hero tales involves a Spartan "outsider" who has to prove himself constantly to his charges through transparency and honesty.) Then he unloaded on him for FreedomWorks' unhinging attacks on the health-care town halls by using patently false propaganda, wondering if that was the kind of leadership he had in mind.My favorite part was this exchange:
Solis-Marich: The leader of FreedomWorks -- you know, and I'm sure, you just wrote a book about leadership, so that's why we're talking about the leaders -- Dick Armey just had to quit his job today at DLA Piper. DLA Piper is a huge lobbying firm that, you know, represented organizations just like AIG, and in fact helped AIG get its massive bailout from the federal government. He quit today because of pressure that, people were basically saying, "Lookit. Of course he runs FreedomWorks. Many of the clients of AIG in fact benefit if this health-care reform does not go well."
Do you think that it would be proper and good leadership for Dick Armey and yourself as a member of the Board of Directors to finally disclose to the American people who actually is funding FreedomWorks?
Forbes: [long pause] I think it's, uh, it's very clear in terms of funding -- and, and, and by the way --
Solis-Marich: OK. Who funds you?
Forbes: If you want, if you want, full disclosure in terms of the lists of donors of any organization that takes a public position, go ahead and advocate it and make it the law of the land.
Solis-Marich: I'm not asking about law. We're talking about leadership. You said that it's very clear who funds it. Then tell us! You said it's very clear. Mr. Forbes, please tell us, who funds FreedomWorks?
Forbes: You have, uh, most of it is from citizens, and that's something we're proud of.
Solis-Marich: What is the percentage of corporate money that FreedomWorks gets?
Forbes: I don't know offhand, but uh ...
Solis-Marich: Even as a member of the board of directors?
Forbes: The exact percentage? Not right now.
Solis-Marich: How about close? Give me a guess.
Forbes: I have no idea.
Solis-Marich: No idea. And what are the corporate names that we would recognize that give corporate money to FreedomWorks?
Forbes: Look, if you want to get into that, you can call Dick Armey, and they can provide you with the information. Appropriate information.
Solis-Marich: So do you think it's good leadership not to publicly disclose to the American people who's actually funding FreedomWorks?
Forbes: [long pause] I think that, uh, well, let's turn the tables. If, uh, if you, uh, want full disclosure in terms of who gives everywhere, do it with the labor unions as well.That's right. Because, as you know, the unions get all that money not from union dues but from secret funding by an unholy cabal of conspiring Communists, space aliens who want to eat us, and Satanists.
Steve Forbes lies, distorts, insists that health-care reform is "socialized medicine" in Solis-Marich interview | Crooks and Liars

Thursday, August 13, 2009

The Righties Are Threatening the Rest of Us.

Who are the real Fiscal Conservatives?

Our leaders in Washington have not produced a balanced budget since 1960, when we paid down our national debt; a little over $500 million. Since then, we have had nothing but deficit spending. The Clinton administration and the Democrats like to say they handed the Bush administration billions in surplus. That is not true, they were talking about surplus Social Security, Medicare and other trust funds money coming into trust funds in future years. Every administration from Reagan on, has been using these surplus funds like general Tax Revenues and writing IOUs in the form of US Treasury Bonds, until over $5 trillion is now owed to these funds. You will note in the chart at the end that even Clinton increased the debt by $1.54 trillion in his 8 years, with his last year being $18 billion in deficit. Where was the Surplus? There was none.


Only Congress can authorize the spending of funds. However, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2 and Obama never submitted a balanced budget over the past 29 years nor did any of them veto an unbalanced budget proposal in that time. Can you believe a Congress person, Democrat, Independent or Republican, in that time period, has said "No" to spending money? Ultimately it ends in the Oval Office. It is the President's responsibility and he does have the Veto Power.


The debt Obama inherited of $10.6 trillion,(estimate another $700 billion plus with the TARP factored in. Solid numbers won't be out till next fiscal year I suspect it will be much higher when we find out what the federal reserve has done, perhaps $12 trillion or higher. They've been very secretive about what they are doing.) Interest on the $10.6 trillion at 3%, if we're lucky, is $318 billion a year at 5%, it would be $530 billion. How would you like to figure out your budget with that wasted amount already factored in to start with?

In 1980, our national debt was $900 billion (rounded off). After 12 years of Reagan and Bush 1, it had increased to $4.2 trillion, an increase of 466%. This was the time Reagan brought down the top tax rate of 70% to 31% for the very rich. Bush 2 brought it down from 39.6% to 35%, again for the very rich. The national debt almost doubled as it increased $4.9 trillion. So much for the "Trickle Down Theory". Bush 2 is the only president in history who reduced tax revenue while engaged in two wars. We might also considered Reagan reduced tax revenue while engaged in war, if you considered the "Cold War", when we bankrupted the Soviets in spending money on defense.

The Bush Stimulus plan, $700 billion plus, was passed by Bush just before he left office to bail the Banks out. It was then implemented in Obama's term in office without any control by him. The plan itself was not written with explicit plans on how to distribute, how to account for or how to use this money with any real thought. Yet, it is a big part of the deficit for this year that Obama is being blamed for. About half of Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan has been sent out, and is waiting to be put into the pipeline. This money was allotted for stimulating Main Street. To be put in the pockets of working people who actually spend it instead of toward the profit margins of the banks. You'd think the Republicans would like a plan that put money in the pockets of the masses, but instead all they do is talk about what a waste it is and how it's not working. But they all want their piece of it. That's for sure. They hate it because If it's not going into the coffers of wildly rich bankers and their bonuses for screwing up the entire economy with their greed. They HATE THE THOUGHT of our money getting into the hands unwashed masses.

It would be laughable, if it weren't so serious, Republican's feigning about Obama's irresponsible spending is all in deficit. What a short memory they have, forgetting how George W. Bush spent money like a Drunken Sailor. His eight years in office, the national debt increased $4.9 trillion (not including the $700 billion plus TARP money). Those eight years equate to a little over 3% of our nation's 232 years of history, while the $4.9 trillion was 46 % of the total debt of $10.6 trillion when he left office. Bush's last fiscal year in office, FY 2008, the deficit was $1 trillion, 62 billion, 59 times higher than Clinton's $18 billion for FY 2000. This is what Obama inherited from Bush and the Republicans; horrendous national debt, large interest payments on the national debt (wasted money), Bush's last minute transfer of wealth from the masses to the bankers; of which Obama had no control regarding it's rules, along with two wars and a broken economy.

There may be a problem facing us the near future that could put us in deeper trouble. The recent meeting with China indicated the were concerned over our national debt and large deficit spending, and rightly so. If they stop lending money to us, followed by other lending nations, we are to put it in far east term, "in deep Kimchee". The only thing left then, to sustain trillion dollar deficits for future year's budgets would be to "print money' that had no backing. This would lead to run away inflation. This is the worse disaster that could happen to us. The American dollar would sink to an undeterminable low. In general terms, "A loaf of bread could well take a wheel barrow full of worthless money".


I would not like to be in Obama's shoes, would you? I don't know what would drive ANYONE to take that job. great benefits I guess.



From the US National Debt to the Penny, Daily History, on the Internet

Date: Total Debt Deficit

Clinton's 8 Years in Office

20 Jan 1993 $4 Trillion, 188 Billion
20 Jan 2001 $5 Trillion, 728 Billion $1 Trillion, $540 Billions

Clinton's Last FY in Office

1 Oct 1999 $5 Trillion, 652 Billion
1 Oct 2000 $5 Trillion, 670 Billion $18 Billion

Bush's 8 Years in Office

20 Jan 2001 $5 Trillion, 728 Billion
20 Jan 2009 $10 Trillion, 626 Billion $4 Trillion, 898 Billion

Bush's Last FY in Office

1 Oct 2007 $9 Trillion, 062 Billion
1 Oct 2008 $10 Trillion 124 Billion $1 Trillion, 62 Billion


Colonel Colin J. N., Chauret, USAF Retired
31 Years Active Service, 1942-1973
8506 Parthenon Place, Universal City, TX 78148
(210) 658-8720: Cjnchauret@aol.com

When will we start arresting these domestic terrorists?

They are dumb struck when their excuse for hating anything obama does is shot down with reason. This is a stupid person.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Inciting Violence & Manufacturing Outrage

Your Questions About Health Care Reform Answered

A little comedic relief about the proposed health care bills:

Ok, so there's been a lot of misinformation about proposals to reform the health insurance industry and provide (near) universal coverage. Understandable! It's complicated stuff. Herewith, I'll try to answer some questions

1) Is it true that all of the bills currently proposed would end the practice of "rescission," whereby health insurance providers refuse to treat customers who've paid their premiums simply because they've become ill?

No! That's a common misunderstanding. Actually, all of the bills would ban incisions, that is, they would legally bar surgeons from performing surgery until a panel of twelve gay illegal immigrant government bureaucrats unanimously signed off on the procedure.

2) Is it true that health care reform would ban insurers from refusing to insure people because of pre-existing conditions?

Wrong again. To get rid of health inequality, the bills actually mandate that every American be given a pre-existing condition. A National Illness Commission, with academics appointed from Harvard, Reed College and Berkeley, will evaluate each citizen, and based on their demographic profile, choose their malady. Each disease or syndrome is scored on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most severe. White christian men will receive pre-existing conditions of 8 or higher. Black people, "wise latinas," and ACORN members will be exempted.

3) I heard the proposals currently under consideration provide seniors with option of free counseling sessions under Medicare, where they can discuss a living will and end-of-life care.

That's a huge misconception. The bills require all senior citizens (who are non union members) be euthanized on their 70th birthday. Under section 278(c)ii all last rites will be performed by Jeremiah Wright using a Q'uran.

4) I've heard the bills being proposed would require insurers to provide preventative care, like mammograms, free of charge.

No, but all lactating mothers will be forced to breast-feed poor children.

5) Will the current bills plug the "donut hole" in the Medicare prescription drug benefit so seniors don't have to pay exorbitant out of pocket expenses for their medication?

Absolutely not. The legislation will ban donuts.



Your Questions About Health Care Reform Answered

Your Questions About Health Care Reform Answered

A little comedic relief about the proposed health care bills:

Ok, so there's been a lot of misinformation about proposals to reform the health insurance industry and provide (near) universal coverage. Understandable! It's complicated stuff. Herewith, I'll try to answer some questions

1) Is it true that all of the bills currently proposed would end the practice of "rescission," whereby health insurance providers refuse to treat customers who've paid their premiums simply because they've become ill?

No! That's a common misunderstanding. Actually, all of the bills would ban incisions, that is, they would legally bar surgeons from performing surgery until a panel of twelve gay illegal immigrant government bureaucrats unanimously signed off on the procedure.

2) Is it true that health care reform would ban insurers from refusing to insure people because of pre-existing conditions?

Wrong again. To get rid of health inequality, the bills actually mandate that every American be given a pre-existing condition. A National Illness Commission, with academics appointed from Harvard, Reed College and Berkeley, will evaluate each citizen, and based on their demographic profile, choose their malady. Each disease or syndrome is scored on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most severe. White christian men will receive pre-existing conditions of 8 or higher. Black people, "wise latinas," and ACORN members will be exempted.

3) I heard the proposals currently under consideration provide seniors with option of free counseling sessions under Medicare, where they can discuss a living will and end-of-life care.

That's a huge misconception. The bills require all senior citizens (who are non union members) be euthanized on their 70th birthday. Under section 278(c)ii all last rites will be performed by Jeremiah Wright using a Q'uran.

4) I've heard the bills being proposed would require insurers to provide preventative care, like mammograms, free of charge.

No, but all lactating mothers will be forced to breast-feed poor children.

5) Will the current bills plug the "donut hole" in the Medicare prescription drug benefit so seniors don't have to pay exorbitant out of pocket expenses for their medication?

Absolutely not. The legislation will ban donuts.



Your Questions About Health Care Reform Answered

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Right-Wing Turncoat Gives the Inside Scoop on Why Conservatives Are Rampaging Town Halls

By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet. Posted August 7, 2009.

Editor's note: Stephen C. Webster writes for Raw Story the latest example of extreme right-wing demagoguery in Tampa on Thursday, this time inspired by right-wing Fox News's Glenn Beck: "In a stunning display of anger, Florida Republicans and fans of Fox editorialist Glenn Beck turned a Tampa healthcare forum into a “near riot,” one reporter said, as they attempted to enter the meeting hall and drown out a group of community organizers and a member of congress There were at least two reports of violence at the forum. “The meeting which was scheduled to begin at 6:00 at the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County drew hundreds of people who quickly began to overwhelm staff and event organizers at the front entrance,” reported Tampa news station 10 Connects. ...

“Thursday’s forum/near riot was sponsored by state Rep. Betty Reed, D-Tampa, and the Service Employees International Union, who apparently had hoped to hold something of a pep rally for President Obama’s health care reform proposal,” noted St. Petersburg Times reporter Adam Smith. He continued: “Instead, hundreds of vocal critics turned out, many of them saying they had been spurred on through the Tampa 912 activist group promoted by conservative radio and television personality Glenn Beck. Others had received e-mails from the Hillsborough Republican party that urged people to speak out against the plan and offered talking points to challenge supporters.” Such “mobs” have been denounced in recent days by Democratic lawmakers, while journalists like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow have revealed the corporate interests and Republican operatives that bankroll and organize these town hall disruptions.

****

Right-Wing Turncoat Gives the Inside Scoop on Why Conservatives Are Rampaging Town Halls

by Francis Schaeffer

The Republican Old Guard are in the fix an atheist would be in if Jesus showed up and raised his mother from the dead: Their world view has just been shattered. Obama's election has driven them over the edge. Consider Former Congressman Dick Armey. Several far right foundations and the multitrillion dollar health-insurance industry have teamed up with him  to organize the far right foot soldiers of the Republican Party to  intimidate people speaking on behalf of health-care reform.  They are using my old shock troops -- given many of these folks were first energized by the Evangelical pro-life movement that my late father and I started in the 1970s. What we did to clinics they are now doing to congressmen and others speaking out for health care reform.

Having failed at the ballot box, having watched their Fox News-organized "tea parties" fizzle the intimidation tactics which the Republicans have embraced are being used in a well-financed, top-down orchestrated fake grass roots campaign by corporate interests to try and protect  the profits of the insurance business.
Armey's FreedomWorks is  organizing against health care reform. Armey's lobbying firm represents pharmaceutical companies including Bristol-Myers Squibb. Armey's lobbying firm also represents the trade group for the life insurance industry.  FreedomWorks is supporting the status quo at all costs. (They are also fans of fossil fuels. Armey's lobbying firm represents Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister of the UAE, on energy related issues.)

Last year, the Wall Street Journal exposed FreedomWorks for building "amateur-looking" websites to promote far right interests of Armey. FreedomWorks represents a top-down, corporate-friendly approach that's been the norm for conservative organizations for years. How do I know this is the norm? Because I used to have strategy meetings with the late Jack Kemp and Dick Army and the rest of the Republican gang about using their business ties to help finance the pro-life movement to defeat Democrats. I know this script. I helped write it.
 
Democratic members of Congress are being harassed by angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior at local town halls. It's the tactic we used to follow abortion providers around their neighborhoods. "Protesters" surrounded Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) and forced police officers to have to escort him to his car for safety. We used to do the same to Dr. Tiller... until someone killed him.


How Can The Right Stoop So Low?

I used to know Dick Armey quite well. One of my sons even worked for him as an intern. I knew Armey in the context of his being a fan of my late Evangelical Religious Right leader father Francis Schaeffer. (Back in the day when I was a right wing "pro-life"  organizer who has long since quit the Republicans in disgust at their -- our -- descent into extremism and hate.) Armey was once a decent guy, whatever his political views. How could he stoop so low as to be organizing what amounts to America's Brown Shirts today?

I think I know what happened to him, Gingrich and the rest: They can't compute that their white man-led conservative revolution is dead. They can't reconcile their idea of themselves with the fact that white men like them don't run the country any more -- and never will again. To them the black president is leading a column of the "other" into their promised land. Gays, immigrants, blacks, progressives, even a female Hispanic appointed to the Supreme Court... for them this is the Apocalypse.

The last presidential election (to paraphrase Bart Simpson)  "broke their brains." What else could explain their embrace of intimidation -- rather than discourse -- over the health care debate and such unsavory moments of madness as the Republicans accusing Obama and Judge Sonia Sotomayor of racism, knowing full well that they'd just destroyed their chances with the Hispanic community forever?  

The "Scorched Earth Policy"

Dick Army and company have been driven mad by their reversal, not just of political fortunes but of seeing that they've wasted their lives. They now know they were wrong: about the country, the free market, war for fun and profit, and what the American people really want. They made their best case and were rejected by the American people --  and by history. Bush was their man and he turned out to be a fool. So now all the the Republican gurus have left is what the defeated Germans of World War Two had: a scorched earth policy. If they can't win then everyone must go down. Obama must fail! The country must fail!

The Lobbyist-run Groups "Americans for Prosperity " and "FreedomWorks/ Dick Armey-Orchestrated Memo:

Here is a leaked excerpt from the folks organizing the intimidation campaign:

    - Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: "Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington."

    - Be Disruptive Early And Often: "You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep's presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep's statements early."

    - Try To "Rattle Him," Not Have An Intelligent Debate: "The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions."

The Last Republican Tactic: Outright Lies

A barrage of outright lies, wherein the Democrats are being accused of wanting to launch a massive euthanasia program against the elderly, free abortions for everyone, and "a government takeover" of health-care is now being combined with physical intimidation that in several cases has required police escorts to protect pro health-care reform speakers surrounded by angry plants sent to disrupt public forums on the health-care issue.
Demonstrators hung Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) in effigy outside of his office. (Missing from the reporting of these stories -- with the notable exception of Rachel Maddow -- is the fact that much of these protests are coordinated by public relations firms and lobbyists who have a stake in opposing President Obama's reforms.

There is no daylight between the Republican Party, the health-care insurance industry, far right leaders like Dick Armey, the legion of insurance lobbyists, and now, a small army of  thugs. All we're missing is actual uniforms, otherwise we now have a full blown American version of the Nazi Brown Shirts.

No, I don't believe that these people are about to take over the country. No, the sky is not falling. But the Republican Party is. It is now profoundly anti-American.

The health-insurance industry is run by very smart and very greedy people who have sunk to a new low.  So has the Republican Party's leadership that will not stand up and denounce the likes of Dick Armey for helping organize roving bands of thugs trying to strip the rest of us of the ability to be heard when it comes to the popular will on reforming health care.

Conclusion: the Fascist Formula

Here's the emerging American version of the fascist's formula: combine millions of dollars of lobbyists' money with embittered  troublemakers  who have a small army of not terribly bright white angry people (collected over decades through pro-life mass mailing networks) at their beck and call, ever ready to believe any myth or lie circulated by the semi literate and completely and routinely misinformed right wing -- Evangelical religious underground. Then put his little mob together with the insurance companies' big bucks. That's how it works -- American Brown Shirts at the ready.  

What's the results of the fascist formula for the rest of us? Well, think how this "method" worked against Dr. Tiller's abortion clinic and how that story ended. In this case a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to save our economy from going bankrupt because of spiraling health care costs may be lost, not because of a better argument, but because of lies backed up by anti-democratic embittered thuggery. The motive? Revenge on America by the Old White Guys of the far right, and greed by the insurance industry.  

What Can Be Done?

It's time that this whole shabby (and insane) business be exposed, vilified in run out of town on a rail by whatever responsible Republicans -- if any -- that are still in the party and who want to see the fortunes of their party revived. Republican leaders taking insurance industry money via lobbying firms and using it to organize what amounts to roving bands of thugs not only need to be exposed but thrown out of the public debate forever.  They should become absolute pariahs.  

It's time to give this garbage in name: insurance industry funded fascism.

Right-Wing Turncoat Gives the Inside Scoop on Why Conservatives Are Rampaging Town Halls | Health and Wellness | AlterNet