Whether the government shuts down or not, as this editorial from the NYTimes makes clear it's not the money - it's abortion. Yes, the Republican party wants total control of American uteruses as the religious whack wing of the Tea Party [actually all of them] are in control of the agenda....
Ladies - how does that make you feel? Pissed I hope.....
The real irony is their main goal is to shut down Planned Parenthood, the sole provider of maternal advice to poor and middle class mothers across America.
So the foetus is sacred, and the resulting child is on it's own....maybe after they succeed in making abortion only for the rich the resulting babies can get jobs...
If the federal government shuts down at midnight on Friday — which seems likely unless negotiations take a sudden turn toward rationality — it will not be because of disagreements over spending. It will be because Republicans are refusing to budge on these ideological demands
• No federal financing for Planned Parenthood because it performs abortions. Instead, state administration of federal family planning funds, which means that Republican governors and legislatures will not spend them.
• No local financing for abortion services in the District of Columbia.
• No foreign aid to countries that might use the money for abortion or family planning. And no aid to the United Nations Population Fund, which supports family-planning services.
• No regulation of greenhouse gases by the Environmental Protection Agency.
• No funds for health care reform or the new consumer protection bureau established in the wake of the financial collapse.
Abortion. Environmental protection. Health care. Nothing to do with jobs or the economy; instead, all the hoary greatest hits of the Republican Party, only this time it has the power to wreak national havoc: furloughing 800,000 federal workers, suspending paychecks for soldiers and punishing millions of Americans who will have to wait for tax refunds, Social Security applications, small-business loans, and even most city services in Washington. The damage to a brittle economy will be substantial.
Democrats have already gone much too far in giving in to the House demands for spending cuts. The $33 billion that they have agreed to cut will pull an enormous amount of money from the economy at exactly the wrong time, and will damage dozens of vital programs.
But it turns out that all those excessive cuts they volunteered were worth far less to the Republicans than the policy riders that are the real holdup to a deal. After President Obama appeared on television late Wednesday night to urge the two sides to keep talking, negotiators say, the issue of the spending cuts barely even came up. All the talk was about the abortion demands and the other issues.
Democrats in the White House and the Senate say they will not give in to this policy extortion, and we hope they do not weaken. These issues have no place in a stopgap spending bill a few minutes from midnight.
A measure to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions came up for a Senate vote on Wednesday and failed. If Republicans want to have yet another legislative debate about abortion and family planning, let them try to pass a separate bill containing their restrictions. But that bill would fail, too, and they know it, so they have chosen extortion.
The lack of seriousness in the House is reflected in the taunting bill it passed on Thursday to keep the government open for another week at an absurdly high cost of $12 billion in cuts and the ban on District of Columbia abortion financing. The Senate and the White House said it was a nonstarter. Many of the same House members who earlier had said they would refuse to approve another short-term spending bill voted for this one, clearly hoping they could use its inevitable failure in the Senate to blame the Democrats for the shutdown. What could be more cynical?
The public is not going to be fooled once it sees what the Republicans, pushed by Tea Party members, were really holding out for. There are a few hours left to stop this dangerous game, and for the Republicans to start doing their job, which, if they’ve forgotten, is to serve the American people.
Excellent article by Robert Scheer on the wealthy and how they got there, and how they keep you distracted while you are being screwed.....
Look what is happening today - the Republicans are going to shut the government down because they won't accept the $33 billion deal Obama and the Democrats have handed them and want to include social changes.
Cuts to major programs helping the poor and middle class, just given away to the insatiable madness of the Tea Party rightwingers....and they'll never be satisfied.
A “working class hero,” John Lennon told us in his song of that title, “is something to be/ Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV/ And you think you’re so clever and classless and free/ But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see.”
The delusion of a classless America in which opportunity is equally distributed is the most effective deception perpetrated by the moneyed elite that controls all the key levers of power in what passes for our democracy. It is a myth blown away by Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz in the current issue of Vanity Fair. In an article titled “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%” Stiglitz states that the top thin layer of the superwealthy controls 40 percent of all wealth in what is now the most sharply class-divided of all developed nations: “Americans have been watching protests against repressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet, in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.”
That is the harsh reality obscured by the media’s focus on celebrity gossip, sports rivalries and lotteries, situations in which the average person can pretend that he or she is plugged into the winning side. The illusion of personal power substitutes consumer sovereignty—which smartphone to purchase—for real power over the decisions that affect our lives.
Gail Collins discusses the total weirdness of "The Donald", his Trumpness.....funny column from the mistress of sarcasm....love it.....
In a potential Republican field that includes Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, it’s hard to come up with a line of attack loopy enough to stand out from the pack. But darned if Trump didn’t manage to find one.
“If he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the greatest scams of all time,” Trump told Bill O’Reilly, who demurred: “I don’t think that’s the case.”
Vote for Donald Trump, the man who can make Bill O’Reilly look like the most sensible guy in the room.
Trump’s main argument for why he should be taken seriously as a presidential contender is his business success. Has Obama ever hosted a long-running reality series? Owned a bankruptcy-bound chain of casinos? Put his name on a flock of really unattractive high-rise apartment buildings? No!
“By now my name is big enough and equated with the gold standard to the extent that I don’t have to say too much about it,” wrote Trump in one of his books, before going on to say a lot more about it.
Amusing and quite good little video - Tango for one!!! 5 minutes.....
Every time you use a debit card you generate a relatively large fee for the huge banks, but they are now being challenged by the retailers who have to swallow these fees...
Ironic isn't it - the oligarchs are fighting each other....
As a lobbying group, the largest American banks have been dominant throughout the latest boom-bust-bailout cycle – capturing the hearts and minds of the Bush and Obama administrations, as well as the support of most elected representatives on Capitol Hill.
Their reign, however, is being seriously challenged – finally – by an alliance of retailers, big and small, on whose behalf a variety of ads are now running, including on television (such as this one, by Americans for Job Security), the Web (such as this, by American Family Voices) and a powerful radio spot directly attacking the too-big–to-fail banks.
Ladies - one for the book club - "Bossypants" by Tina Fey.....sounds excellent.....
But any concern that Fey, like so many before her, has been ruined by fame is quickly dispelled by "Bossypants," a book that reminds you why Fey has succeeded where so many have failed — because she is precise, professional and hilarious.
At first, "Bossypants" appears to be just more of the same — there's Fey on the cover looking fabulous but not owning it (her airbrushed face is framed by two large and hairy male arms) and the back is filled with fake and self-deprecating quotes regarding her appearance and talent. Pay them no mind; inside lies a collection of autobiographical essays that should (but of course won't) prove once and for all that pretty is nowhere near as important as funny, and funny doesn't work without that rare balance of truth and heart.
How the CIA has cut it's costs thanks to Facebook.....Onion News has the story.....amusing, and it might actually be true....
A local Lake County issue, the hospital tax we all pay, is discussed by Lauren Ritchie....and she details how our taxes are being misused by these hospitals....
At the Tavares Tea Party meeting I went to this issue actually came up.....
If they were for-profit companies, the three hospitals this year would have paid $4.8 million in local taxes alone, figures show. And Florida Hospital Waterman, for example, would have shelled out more than $10 million in total taxes, according to the calculations of Marilyn Bainter, a North Lake Hospital District board member who is fighting to abolish the tax.
The hospitals are expected to provide charity care in exchange for this big tax break, and that is supposed to level the playing field between for-profit and not-for-profit competing companies.
So, what's the reality?
For-profit hospitals contribute oodles
Nonprofit hospitals have strayed from their mission. When they find something that makes a bunch of money, they spin it off into a for-profit company. Then they pay themselves and their colleagues a bundle to run it.
This approach also gives nonprofit hospitals an excuse to whine that they can't afford any more charity care. Of course not — they've isolated all the losing propositions under the nonprofit corporate umbrella and skimmed off the money-makers.
Todays quick British joke
Quote of the day. . . referring to Prince William's bachelor party:
"It's got to be weird stuffing money into a stripper's bikini when every bill has a photo of your grandmother printed on it."
"It's got to be weird stuffing money into a stripper's bikini when every bill has a photo of your grandmother printed on it."
Another Grannie joke
Grannies on the Road
Sitting on the side of the road waiting to catch speeding drivers, a state
trooper sees a car puttering along at 22 mph. He thinks to himself, "This
driver is as dangerous as a speeder!" So he turns on his lights and pulls
the driver over.
Sitting on the side of the road waiting to catch speeding drivers, a state
trooper sees a car puttering along at 22 mph. He thinks to himself, "This
driver is as dangerous as a speeder!" So he turns on his lights and pulls
the driver over.
Approaching he car, he notices that there are five elderly ladies - two in
the front seat and three in the back, wide-eyed and white as ghosts.
The driver, obviously confused, says to him, "Officer, I don't understand. I was
going the exact speed limit. What seems to be the problem?"
going the exact speed limit. What seems to be the problem?"
The trooper trying to contain a chuckle, explains to her that 22 was the
route number, not the speed limit.
A bit embarrassed, the woman grinned and thanked the officer for pointing out her error.
"But before you go, Ma'am, I have to ask, is everyone in this car OK? These
women seem awfully shaken."
"Oh, they'll be all right in a minute, officer.. We just got off Route 127!”
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