Would You Give Control Over Your Family, Jobs and Future to the Tea Party Movement?

Funn, I didn't hear anyone this weekend complain about the Supreme Courts decision to hand our elections over to the very corporations they say have highjacked our politicians. Odd isn't it?

CNN presented a number of reports from Nashville in an attempt to uncover what the tea party protesters and movement are all about. Any serious evaluation by the pundits would have to include a down right fear anyone would want to turn policy over to these low information right wing fringers.

Name calling? Not a chance. Extrapolate the consequences of deregulation, small government and private control of our country. Can you say utter social chaos. One individual said he wanted to get rid of seat belt laws and environmental controls. Another said there was a governmental assault on capitalism, our friend capitalism. The very capitalism that tanked the world economy. Tea party goers must think the Great Recession was a fluke, ignoring the end result of lost family incomes , health care coverage, jobs and employment security.



How many of the 600 attendees applauded Tom Tancredo's bigoted and racist rant? It sounded like alot. If you thought that was scary, it only gets worse.



NY Times: Ms. Palin gave the Tea Party crowd exactly what they wanted to hear, declaring the primacy of the Tenth Amendment in limiting government powers, complaining about the bailouts and the “generational theft” of rising deficits, and urging the audience to back conservative challengers in contested primaries.

“How’s that hopey-changey thing workin’ out for you?” She blasted him for rising deficits, “apologizing for America” in speeches in other countries, and for allowing the so-called Christmas bomber to board a plane headed for the United States, saying he was weak on the war on terrorism. “To win that war, we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law,” she declared.

When he asked her about the “two words that scare liberals: President Palin,” she demurred.

Palin: “I will live, I will die for the people of America. This party that we call the Tea Party, this movement, as I say, is the future of politics in America.”

When Andrew Breitbart, the founder of BigGovernment.com, introduced Ms. Palin by describing her as “the first person to tell us about the death panel,” the crowd cheered.

Washington Post:

Palin said if President Obama continues on the path he's on today, "He's not going to win" as an incumbent candidate in 2012. Palin said Americans are becoming frustrated because he "expects us to sit down and shut up and accept" his policies. Asked specifically which policies, Palin said Obama has been condescending to the American people with his "general personality."

Palin suggested that if President Obama "played the war card" by declaring war on Iran in the next two years, the political landscape would change dramatically in his favor.

Politico Pinch Hits for Ryan's Road Map for a Dickensian America.

Politico did an amazing "protect the Republican" piece denouncy criticism of anything "legitimate" coming from the right wing, no matter how draconian the legislation. Gee, it has numbers, theories and reduces federal spending, so what's not to like?

Maybe if such a proposal drops unimaginable costs onto seniors, who will then have to self ration life sustaining assistance, that should give you pause or at least turn your stomach just a little.

For Politico it's okay to create a "grassroots" tea partys, brutally criticizing Obama's campaign for change, but if anyone dared dissect honestly Ryan's Dickensian road map it's some evil orchestrated plot. Check out their own words:

Republicans believe the criticism was a setup. Rep. Devin Nunes, an ally of Ryan’s and a collaborator on the plan, said the Democrats’ playbook was obvious: Obama elevated Ryan’s plan in order to methodically break him down. Democrats dismantled the road map point by point over the past week, framing it as a radical shift back to George W. Busheconomics.

Yes, point by obvious point the plan shifted costs, or in republican lingo "indirectly taxes" seniors on fixed incomes and failing health, by reducing federal spending. The bills still have to be paid, but that's a minor detail. Politico continues to make legitimate GOP excuses for Ryan's brutal plan for rationing.

"…rather than opening a hopeful new avenue for bipartisanship, the White House and Hill Democrats quickly went to work ripping apart Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future” … Democrats accused the Wisconsin Republican of trying to privatize Social Security, cut taxes for the rich and increase them for the middle class. Medicare would be allowed to “wither on the vine.” “This is part of the Democratic process,” OMB Communications Director Kenneth Baer said. “The tone around this town is that people want and deserve and expect some substantial debate on this proposal.”

But Democratic criticism is partisan, even if they're right.

On Capitol Hill, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag deconstructed the plan, saying it would address long-term fiscal problems but in a way that many policymakers might find “objectionable” because it would shift risks and costs onto individuals and their families.

For Politico this obvious cost shifting poses no identifiable problem. Why should it, especially when such inhumanity is coming from a policy wonk like Ryan? He's a "smart conservative."

In just a week, Ryan had gone from being seen as the smart conservative whom Obama might take seriously to being seen as the symbol of how Democrats believe Republicans would dismantle the social safety net if the GOP took control of Congress.

But Ryan claims his cost shifting won't hurt seniors because free market competition will lower prices for everyone, actually reducing Medicare costs. In the free market private sector now, we're seeing 20 to 35 percent increases per family policy (based on my own premium increase). Throw in Ryan's meager taxpayer subsidies, and insurers should be doing quite well thank you.

Showmanship Over Substance: The Republicans "Better Solutions" Plan.

On with the show! In fact, it's all show.

The Republican Party is skin deep with meaning. Take the time to notice what they look for in an effective leader. Appearance and talk mostly.

Remember when they complained Obama didn't "talk" enough about terrorism? He didn't "seem" concerned with high unemployment.

Republicans are offering Americans a choice in November, and it's all show. Margaret Carlson, a Bloomberg News columnist, wrote:

Republicans insist they are not simply the Party of No. They are the Party of Plans. At presidential addresses, Republicans hold up sheets of paper with their plans. At House Republicans’ session with President Obama last week in Baltimore, every other question was about their unappreciated plans. To their surprise, Obama recited some of their so-called plans back to them -- such a disturbing turn of events that Fox News cut away to resume its regularly scheduled programming.

Obama observed … You can’t just wish something into being, like the heading in their “No-Cost Jobs Plan” that reads, “Tear Down Self-Imposed Obstacles to Economic Growth.” In other words: Clear-cut pesky regulations … We might die, but we’ll be more competitive.

When that $787 billion bill passed a year ago, Republicans trashed it, not just refusing to acknowledge that it averted a depression but claiming it hadn’t saved or created one job. Rep. John Boehner claimed there hadn’t been any projects in his home state of Ohio -- until his hometown newspaper uncovered $52 million. Embarrassingly, a Republican sheriff from Boehner’s own district went on CNN to declare his gratitude: “The stimulus is working for me here in Butler County because I am keeping my deputies and I am not having to lay them off.”

At the Baltimore Q&A, with some dramatic flair, Republicans presented Obama
with a booklet designed …“Better Solutions” … the booklet is a smorgasbord of more broad, diffuse language that can’t be analyzed by experts, or translate into legislation.

Five of the 13 items were already in the GOP health care alternative, previously considered by the CBO, which Republicans swear by, (which) said this Republican alternative would have helped only 3 million people secure coverage and cut costs by only $68 billion over 10 years. (and increased the number of unisured to 52 million) The Democratic bill covers 36 million more people, trims the uninsured population to 4 percent of Americans and narrows the deficit by $104 billion.

National Tea Party Convention Platform for Crazy!

ABC News watched Tom Tancredo's speech Wednesday:

"The opening-night speaker at first ever National Tea Party Convention ripped into President Obama, Sen. John McCain and 'the cult of multiculturalism,' asserting that Obama was elected because 'we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.'

" America "put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House ... Barack Hussein Obama."

Right Wing Playing Up Rep. Paul Ryan as Victim of Media criticism for Draconian "Road for America's Future."

Poor Rep. Paul Ryan is getting picked on for his "Road Map for a Dickensian America" at the American Prospect.

And my conservative friend made it perfectly clear to me today; Health care rationing is going to happen anyway, so why not give each citizen the freedom to self ration care and medicine.

After a whole year of Republican hero's defending Americans against health care reforms that would end up killing grandma and lead to government rationing, "fiscal genius" Rep. Paul Ryan is now okay with rationing, as long as it's a mind wrenching torcherous personal decision. Inhumane? Sure. But does it save federal dollars? You bet.

Rep. Paul Ryan's plan is simple: He will cut federal spending on Medicare and Social Security so he can say the government is saving money and balancing the books, all the while shifting the costs and spending to Americans on fixed incomes and failing health.

My born again conservative friend is fine with that too, because it does away with big goverment.

Remember this from a few days ago?

Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein calls it rationing, since he believes seniors would have to buy less comprehensive policies and cut back on care. Ryan, in an interview with Klein, argues that the programs are growing themselves into extinction, and his plan at least gives seniors the choice to choose the care they receive. Said Ryan: "Rationing happens today! The question is who will do it? The government? Or you, your doctor and your family?"

The critics of health care rationing are now advocating health care rationing. Got it?

Sallie Mae and other Student Lenders Claim Taxpayers won't like Saving $80 Billion over 10 years by cutting them out of the Middle. Yeah, Right.

They must really think we're idiots!

Taxpayers are demanding government cut spending in big ways so Americans can keep more of their hard earned money. So the following plan does just that by taking the expensive private middleman out of student lending, completely:

NY Times: The money that would be saved by cutting out the private-industry middlemen — about $80 billion over the next decade, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis — could instead go toward expanding direct Pell Grants to students, establishing $10,000 tax credits for families with loans, and forgiving debts eventually for students who go into public service … shift tens of billions of dollars in expected savings to early learning programs, community colleges and the modernization of public school facilities.

Now that's smart savings…or maybe not?

Four months ago, it appeared all but certain Congress would succeed in overhauling the student loan business and ending government subsidies to private lenders. President Obama called the idea a “no-brainer” …But an aggressive lobbying campaign by the nation’s biggest student lenders has now put the plan in peril. The student loan industry is seeking to cast the administration’s plan as an ill-conceived government takeover that could put thousands of people out of work at private lending centers … at a time when unemployment is hovering around 10 percent.

That's right, THOUSANDS of people, at a time when the nation just lost 8 million jobs in the last year. Funny, no one seemed concerned when TENS OF THOUSANDS would have lost their jobs had the two biggest automakers gone out of business.

Jamie Gorelick (a lobbyist for the lending industry) said, “I would think that the White House would prefer not to make senators vote for something that is going to be very unpopular in their states — and for good reason.”

I'm sorry, did she just say Americans would be unhappy saving $80 billion, getting a $10,000 tax credit, expand early learning programs, fund community colleges and modernize schools? That it would be "very unpopular?"

Representative George Miller, pretty much summed up what I was thinking, with this comment:

“If people want to lose $80 billion on the taxpayer’s dime for the very narrow interests of Sallie Mae, I guess they can decide that, but it makes no economic sense to me.”

Republicans Trying to Convince Terrorists Obama is Weak. GOP Inviting Next Attack.

Jonathan Alter frames the terrorist trials in N.Y., and the Republican criticism of them, as a way of showing how the GOP is helping energize and encourage another attack on our country. His point is well made on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Maddow Eviscerates Sen. Susan Collins on What She Doesn't Know About the Terror Trials.

As I watched Rachel Maddow expose Sen. Susan Collins as a brash, slow talking know-it-all national security phony, I couldn't help thinking what would have happened if a Democrat had been caught telling so many lies. I haven't seen one post on this story, beautifully researched by Maddow and staff, showing just how politicized Republicans have made terrorism.

See for yourself. As the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, Collins appears to know nothing about security and the process. Is it any wonder why Republicans think government is the problem, when you have incompetents like Sen. Susan Collin making it up as she goes along.

Republican Fiscal Leaders Portrayed as Sheep, in Surreal Pro Republican Candidate Carly Fiorina ad.

Another jaw dropping attack ad by our conservative fringe party of flat out insanity, and their candidate, Carly Fiorina. Play by play by Rachel Maddow.

The Huffington Post wrote: "Seriously, what the Fiorina campaign should be doing is firing everyone involved with this ad -- you know, for calling fiscal conservatives sheep, for making some poor guy crawl around in a field, for attempting to create buzz over this crazy acronym "FCINO," which stands for Fiscal Conservative In Name Only -- but for my own sake, I'm glad this doesn't seem to be happening."

Reasons to Oppose Don't Ask Don't Tell Ripe for Parody, Colbert.

I kicked around a few news oriented clips dealing with those bigoted snearing senators so openly opposed to DADT, Republicans don't bother hiding it anymore, but found Stephen Colbert's take on these insecure politicians the most insightful.

Wedding vow Removal Should have been a Red Flag

Really, how dumb can one person be? Or, love is more than blind, it's asking to be dumped on. From Politicalwire.com:

South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford says she made the "leap of faith" to marry husband Gov. Mark Sanford "even though the groom refused to promise to be faithful, insisting that the clause be removed from their wedding vows."

Said Mrs. Sanford: "It bothered me to some extent, but ... we were very young, we were in love. I questioned it, but I got past it ... along with other doubts that I had."

Justice Thomas Proves He's One Incredibly Conservative Activist Justice.

I'm still waiting for the Democrats and media pundits to include in their critiques of the Supreme Court decision to allow corporate money and personhood, the words "activist justices."

Republicans never miss a beat throwing out "liberal activist judge," even in the nominating process, without any proof at all. But politicians and media talking heads have disassociated activism from the conservative philosophy. Which brings me to conservative activist Justice Thomas. Read how Thomas shows contempt for a free press, as though it were not a part of the constitution, equating it to a completely seperate entity known as a corporation. There is a difference. NY Times:

At law school in Florida, Justice Clarence Thomas vigorously defended the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance decision. “I found it fascinating that the people who were editorializing against it were The New York Times Company and The Washington Post Company,” Justice Thomas said. “These are corporations.” The law struck down in Citizens United contained an exemption for news reports, commentaries and editorials.

But this troubled, emotionally insecure, and out to prove he made it on his own activist justice isn't concerned about the constitution, but instead, took aim at a flawed law he was finally able avenge.

He added that the history of Congressional regulation of corporate involvement in politics had a dark side, pointing to the Tillman Act, which banned corporate contributions to federal candidates in 1907. “Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.” It is thus a mistake, the justice said, to applaud the regulation of corporate speech as “some sort of beatific action.”

Thomas of course glosses over the overriding issue that despite an individuals right to speak, even in a group, that doesn't suddenly mean the group has the same rights as an individual. A simple yet baffling concept for the worst supreme court justice on the bench right now.

According to Thomas, one bad intention, a racial one, is enough to negate the sound reasoning behind keeping unlimited amounts of corporate money out of elections and the idea that corporations aren't people. Convoluted and hyper-conservative in his reasoning…

Justice Thomas said “If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association,” he said. “If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association. But what if you put yourself in a corporate form?” Justice Thomas asked, suggesting that the answer must be the same.

Thomas' partisan conservative philosophy shines through with this characteristically authoritarian view of his powerful position on the Supreme Court bench.

Questioning the Supreme Court and other government branches needs to stay within the range of fair criticism or "run the risk in our society of undermining institutions that we need to preserve our liberties," Justice Clarence Thomas said. Thomas (said) that some comments he hears about the court "border on being irresponsible."

The question of ideology is answer definitively here with Clarence Thomas, who on one hand advocates a strict reading, a constructionist theory of the constitution, while excepting the premise of looking at things differently. The typical conservative contradiction.

"The idea of assigning ulterior motives to opinions that people don't agree with, rather than saying simply that the court doesn't agree with my argument. There are different approaches, because we start with different assumptions. Or we look at things differently," he said.

Is it any wonder even Pres. Obama considered Thomas the worst justice, up until Alito mouthed "not true" that is.

Health Care Spending Grew to Record 17.3%...Largest Jump Ever!

The new figures below showing just how fast health care costs are skyrocketing should shut the chattering Republican filibusterers up for good, but sadly won't. If they had any shred of credibility, and I don't believe they do, reform opponents would change their position in flash. Hey guys, the spending referenced below is coming out of our pocket:

According to the Washington Post:

"In a stark reminder of growing costs, the government has released a new estimate that healthcare spending grew to a record 17.3% of the U.S. economy last year, marking the largest one-year jump in its share of the economy since the government started keeping such records half a century ago," the Los Angeles Times writes.

The AP writes:

For all the hue and cry over a government takeover of health care, it's happening anyway.

Federal and state programs will pay slightly more than half the tab for health care purchased in the United States by 2012, says a report by Medicare number crunchers released Thursday.

That's even if President Barack Obama's health care overhaul wastes away in congressional limbo. Long in coming, the shift to a health care sector dominated by government is being speeded up by the deep economic recession and the aging of the Baby Boomers, millions of whom will soon start signing up for Medicare.

The report serves as a reality check in the debate over Obama's health care plan, which has been dominated by disagreements over how large a role government should play. Richard Foster, Medicare's top economic forecaster, said the recession has only worsened the two stubborn problems facing the U.S. health care system, lack of insurance coverage and high costs. "All that argues that some form of health care reform is a good idea," Foster said.

There seems to be little chance that the balance will tip back decisively in the direction of private financing, with the Baby Boom generation signing up for Medicare and the lack of health insurance at many new jobs.

How disfunctional are Democrats? They still lack the motivation to push through change, even after going the brutal one year distance that has alienated their base, and proved they lack the ability to manage government. R.I.P.

Big Government Jobs Pay More than Devastated Private Sector Jobs...Big Lie, Bad Comparison.

I got a call from my conservative friend again who was worked up into a lather about the high wages paid to government employees as compared to the private sector work force. These newly released facts from the "reliably" libertarian Cato Institute proved government is too big and getting paid too much. The big problem? First, consider the conservative source. Politifact dissected the claim:

Republican Senator Scott Brown made his debut on the Sunday morning talk circuit …encouraged President Barack Obama to put a freeze on federal position hires and raises because, "as you know, federal employees are making twice as much as their private counterparts. I recognize that our federal workers do important work, but it’s not right that lesser-paid private sector workers suffering through a recession have to pay for expensive government salaries,” he said, citing numbers from the Cato Institute … According to those numbers, the average wage for 1.9 million federal civilian workers was $79,197, compared to $50,028 for the nation’s 108 million private-sector workers. The numbers he cites from the CATO study are not twice as high.

Secondly, it's important to understand that a big reason for the disparity is the different mix of jobs in the federal workforce. It has more higher-paying white collar jobs, experts told us, while there are more lower-paying, blue-collar jobs in the private sector that bring the average down. So it is not an apples-to-apples comparison. So (Brown) he's wrong to say it's double and wrong to suggest that it's always the case when comparing specific jobs. We rate his claim False.

The problem with these countervailing facts is that they are discovered too late, too often. The damage has been done and the public has already digested the misinformation. This is a popular Republican/libertarian political ploy. They know they can get mileage out of pure fantasy long before the media (who lost the ability to fact check stories) knows what happened, because it's never failed to work for them.

Rep. Paul Ryan on His Medicare Rationing Plan: "Rationing happens today! The question is who will do it?"

The star of the Republican Party, Rep. Paul Ryan, has been getting a tremendous amount of press lately (guilty as charged) for his Road Map for America's Future. The road kill you see up ahead are senior citicizens and retirees. Check out this analysis from the Minneapolis StarTribune.com;

Ryan wants to privatize both Medicare, the government-run health care program for seniors, and Medicaid, the joint state/federal health care program for the poor and elderly (many depend on Medicaid to pay for nursing home care). He also wants to put caps on how much the government spends on them. For example, seniors currently enrolled in Medicare would get vouchers to buy their own private health insurance plan. The money set aside for vouchers would not grow in lock-step with Medicare's projected costs.

Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein calls it rationing, since he believes seniors would have to buy less comprehensive policies and cut back on care. Ryan, in an interview with Klein, argues that the programs are growing themselves into extinction, and his plan at least gives seniors the choice to choose the care they receive. Said Ryan: "Rationing happens today! The question is who will do it? The government? Or you, your doctor and your family?"

Ryan, so far, is one of the few politicians who's willing to point this out. His prescriptions for the Big Three entitlements are radical and unpalatable. But at least, he's offering up specific solutions. It's a brutal yet admirable kind of honesty, one that's in short supply around the nation's capital.

Ryan gets kudos for being brutally honest? Radical and unpalatable is good? Here's hoping all of this is in short supply in the nations capital. But there's more, where Ryan reduces health care to a mere product . From Ezra Klein's interview:

Klein: The Lasik thing is interesting because it gets to the question of whether health care is a market. When I think of getting Lasik, or buying a television, I can walk out of the store. That’s what gives me as a consumer my power in the market. But if I have chest pains and my doctor prescribes a bypass, how do I walk out of the store?

Ryan: In Milwaukee, the price of bypass ranges from $47,000 to $100,000. Nobody knows where to go for quality, or the prices. So wouldn’t it be good for the prices and quality metrics to be publicized? And let people make a decision. There’ll always be some level of co-pay or deductible or co-insurance that’s going to push people towards the best value.

Then, when you have those chest pains and you’re being rushed in the ambulance, you’ll be rushed to a hospital that’s all along been competing for business and has been improved by that process. You’ll get better health care than you otherwise would. That’s how you improve the system.

Just a thought: If a hospital has to reduce prices to compete, will that reduce the amount of care and quality of treatment? It brings to mind this one free market principle, an old latin warning; "Buyer Beware." That's Ryan's health care gamble for Americans.

Googles Chrome Tablet May be Better Alternative to Featureless iPad.

Look out, here comes Google!

Sure I think Apple's iPad is really a great looking and somewhat functional, in a limited sort of way, but Google has its own plans with the Chrome OS Tablet.

Let's hope it will have a net cam and mic, along with a USB port, a few features not included on the iPad.

According to Techcrunch.com: It’s increasingly looking like the best alternative will be Google’s Chrome OS, which is clearly on a collision course with the iPad. And tonight, we’ve come across some very impressive mockups of what Chrome OS may look like on a tablet form factor.

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Research 2000: The Republican State of the Nation. Ugly.

Here are the final poll results from Research 2000 and the Daily Kos, with Ed Schultz.

Religion and the Family Research Council: We're All Bigots Here!

Hardball's Chris Matthews scores again, exposing the ugly truth about the Family Research Council and the religious right, when he gets Peter Sprigg to admit their bigoted policy and opposition to doing away with Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the military.

Senate Republicans have also taken a similar position, including John McCain, which should tell voters somethng about the party of NO's ability to govern "all the people."

Ryan's Brutal Plan: Break Up Medicare. Did You Know Our deficit crisis in an entitlement crisis.

This is another reiteration of an earlier post I did on the subject of Paul Ryan's idea of Medicare vouchers, but this time written up by The Atlantic's Derek Thompson. This outrageous idea is starting to get national media notice now, because it shows the hypocritical nature of the Republican Party's new image of the great protectors of grandma's life saving Medicare program.

Paul Ryan's Shocking Budget Proposal -- Derek Thompson:which essentially privatizes Social Security and strangles Medicare inflation with cost-controlled vouchers -- is a really important lesson in budgeting. It's very easy to fix our long-term deficit crisis. All you have to do is blow up our entitlement program.

There's a bit of a debate about whether Ryan's proposal is so honest it's crazy, or so crazy it's not serious. I think it's extremely serious -- not as a budget proposal, but as a dystopian parable. It's like reading 1984 for the next century, but with graphs.

Consider the terrifying Medicare proposal. Ryan would give seniors a voucher that would immediately be worth less than Medicare spending per enrollee. Over the next decade, the buying power of the voucher would grow more slowly than medical spending, but at the same time, the cost of premiums will increase because seniors would wander into the more expensive private market for insurance. Anybody wanna know what rationing look like?

Fiscal hawks like talking about "tightening belts." This goes way beyond tightening by a few belt holes. Truly, I think it's a shocking budget, and the kind of thing that no party in power would ever have the cojones to propose. Indeed, Republicans didn't even have the cojones to co-sign health care reform's Medicare cuts. Six months after the Democrats' proposed Medicare savings made Republicans shout bloody murder (literally: Death Panels), Rep. Paul Ryan is now proposing the program's gradual extermination. Like any good dystopian parable, this doesn't deserve to be taken literally.

It's about the lesson: Our deficit crisis in an entitlement crisis, and the solution won't be pretty.

Sen. Mitch McConnell Declares, Civil Trials for Terrorists "We Now Know as a Mistake." Why.....? Daily Show Digs a little Deeper.

He just making this stuff up, isn't he?

Wyatt Cenac, from the Daily Show, gets the "mildly inconvenienced" man on the street opinion.

New Daily Kos Poll Shines Light on Death Panels and Impeachment.

Digging deep into the conservative mind, a new poll from the Daily Kos might just offer up a few good laughs and an unsettling feeling about seeing these people in a voting booth. Keith Olbermann probes for answers..

Even Fox News' Chris Wallace Doesn't Believe in Rep. Paul Ryan's Health Care Scheme.

Fox News' Chris Wallace wasn't timid taking on Rep. Paul Ryan's Dickensian "Road map" plan for health care reform.

1. The CBO's numbers say the GOP provisions would cut the deficit by $68 billion over ten years, less than the Democratic bill, which cuts the deficit $104 billion over the same time frame.

2. The Republican plan would supposedly lower current premiums because of government subsidies, which don't adjust for inflation, but end up leaving more people uninsured.

3. The Republican plan would leave 52 million people uninsured in 2019, more than the 46 million uninsured today.

So when Ryan claims his plan would insure more than the above CBO graded GOP proposal, that's not saying much. For a guy who doesn't like government subsidies, he's promising a lot of them to "help" people get insurance. Sounds like hell on earth to me, with no curb on sky rocketing costs.

Rep. Paul Ryan is embarrassing himself. Keep it up Paul.

Rep. Hensarling Drops Great Recession into the laps of Democrats, and Admits Republicans Will Cut Soc. Sec. & Medicare.

Politifact (check out the details below) just dissected the false accusation flung out at Obama by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, which accused him of daily deficits exceeding anything the Republicans created when they controlled congress for an entire year. But, the facts don't lie.

Rep. Hensarling's main point and trick wording tries to dump the Great Recession on the Democratic congress, clearing Bush and the previous six years of Republican control of any responsibility. Unbelievable but true. How do they come up with these BizarroWorld strategies?

This time, Chris Matthews is not fooled, and pursues it with all his energy.



In the clip below, Hensarling admits tough decisions will have to be made with Social Security and Medicare. That means cuts in federal spending, sticking the bill with individual senior citizens on fixed incomes. This is how the Republicans will balance the budget folks. Be warned.

Politifact:
"Rep. Jeb Hensarling did some extreme cherry-picking to suggest that deficits have ballooned under Obama," the Web site writes. "

Obama said the question sounded more like a talking point from someone running a campaign and was an example of why it's so hard to achieve bipartisan legislation.

In a press release issued by Hensarling after the meeting, he noted that the monthly deficit in October 2009 was $176 billion … to begin with, Hensarling is choosing the highest number. Over his full, eight-year term (including much of the 2009 deficit that rightly falls to him), the country ran up $3.3 trillion in total deficits. That works out to an average of about $412 billion per year -- more than double the number Hensarling is using. If you want to just look at the six years Bush had a Republican Congress, the average drops to about $260 billion a year.

In October 2008, the month before Obama was even elected, the monthly deficit was $232 billion. That's higher than any of the monthly deficits under Obama. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget office estimated the 2009 deficit at nearly $1.2 trillion on the day Obama was sworn in. Obama increased it by about $250 billion.

In summary, Hensarling's numbers only work if you cherry-pick the highest month under full Democratic control and compare it to one of the lowest years under full Republican control. If you compare average months (about $112 billion a month for Obama and the Democratic Congress) to average years under Bush (about $412 billion a year if you include his full 8-year term, or about $260 billion a year if you only include the first six years with a Republican Congress), Hensarling's numbers are wrong. There are so many bookkeeping tricks in this one that he's far from the truth. We his claim False.

A Terrorist Show Trial a Platform to Get the Message Out? What About the Tiller Trial?

It appears the Republicans campaign of fear is working, scaring Democrats into acting irrational and running for cover, as the possibility of canceling the terrorist trials in civil court is gaining steam. If that wasn't enough, and it never is for the right wing, a Republican Senator Lindsey Graham wants to pull any funding for the trials.

(UPI) -- Congressional Republicans said they would act on New York's reluctance to hold a terrorism trial through measures that would block trial funding. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he plans to introduce a proposal Tuesday that would end funding for the alleged Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists to be prosecuted in federal court, saying the alleged conspirators should be tried by military commissions, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Undermining the president is the ultimate goal of the Republican Party, calling into question everything this administration wants to do, while actually making the argument for the terrorists that they can get their message out in civil court. That was never a given, but it is now.

Critics say such trials would create a platform for radical propaganda. It would give these terrorists a stage to get their message out to the world, recruiting and potentially inviting future attacks. If that were true, than why is it alright to give a "platform" and "stage" to this media saturated show trial of Scott Roader, sensationally presented by Fox News below?

Amazon Monopoly on eBooks Cracking. Power Grab Defeated By Publisher, the Creator of Content.

(Full disclosure, my wife is a published writer, but we still have major disagreements over how copyrighted material is used and how tight those restrictions should be.)
Over the last week, Amazon did what many consumers should find shocking; they pulled a publishers ebooks and physical books from their site over a retail pricing disagreement. Think about that. Instead of continuing to sell both kinds of books, they just disappeared.

For smaller publishers, such a move would be a killer. Such power by a retailer over the publishers of intellectual property, and an artists creation, is stunning. Check this out from PCworld:

According to PCWorld, "After temporarily halting sales of Macmillan books (that includes physical and e-books) on Amazon.com over the weekend, Amazon did and about face Sunday night and said it will start selling Macmillan books again and cede to the publisher's demands to charge more for titles sold for the Kindle digital reader.

Amazing isn't it. Future and current authors should be scared to death of their ability to make a living knowing Amazon thinks they're getting paid to much, that there is some imagined dollar amount that is fair while another dollar amount is untenable. Should established popular authors sell their books at the same price as a first time writer?

Why are recently released films, DVD's and Blu-ray's priced higher than previously released media? Why are some movies more expensive than others? The same goes for music. At some point, the creative writers and their publishers should have ultimate control over what their content is worth. Retailers can then offer up the product and let the consumer decide. Unless of course you're Amazon. What's to stop Amazon from lowering the ebook prices even further to sell more Kindle's?

According to the NY Times: Because Amazon has discounted the price of most new and popular e-books on its Kindle e-reader to $9.99, it loses money on most of those sales. Amazon’s goal has been strategic: it aims to establish a low price for e-books that will have the ancillary benefit of helping it sell more Kindle devices.

Keeping that in mind...

Publishers like Macmillan have been complaining that Amazon doesn't charge enough for its e-books. "We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles," Amazon said in a statement on Sunday.

Ceasing the sale of ALL TITLES! The online retail god has spoken! Poor Amazon. They even made this "pot calling the kettle black" statement:

Amazon claims prices as high as $15 for e-books are "needlessly high", but explained that it had to "capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles."

What, publishers have a monopoly over their own product? WTF!

The Amazon monopoly won't last for long. As much as I hate Apple, they seem to value the work of artists a whole lot more than Amazon:

In contrast, Apple adopted the agency model for the iBookstore on the iPad, where the publisher sets the price for e-books and keeps 70 percent of the sale, while the agency (Apple) keeps the remaining 30 percent. Amazon's model is widely seen as damaging to the publishing industry because consumers are paying too little for the titles, yet the retailer was able to set the prices because of the popularity of its Kindle reading device.

Amazingly, some writers see Amazon as the victim. Just wait till Amazon decides $9.99 is a little overpriced. Can you say "starving artist?"