Most Amerricans “Dissatisfied” or “Angry” with Policies Offered By Republicans In Congress

June 8th, 2010 by Karina

A Washington Post/ABC News poll released this morning shows more Americans trust Democrats over Republicans to handle the nation’s biggest problems and 60% are “dissatisfied” or “angry” with Congressional Republicans’ ideas:

By a 12-point margin, Americans trust Democrats over Republicans to handle our nation’s biggest problems – 44 percent to 32 percent (a decrease of five percent for Republicans since February).

Six in 10 Americans are dissatisfied or angry about the policies offered by Congressional Republicans.

By a five-point margin, Americans think Democrats have better ideas about the size and role of the federal government – 45 percent to 40 percent.

Congressional Republicans threaten to take us back to the failed policies that created the economic crisis—doing the bidding of the special interests: Wall Street banks, credit card companies, Big Oil, and insurance companies.

Republican representatives and senators have become 'chicken littles' who think life as we know it in the USA is about to end. How many times must we listen to these chicken littles 'crying wolf?"

source: Nancy Pelosi blog,  The Gavel

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The White House Blog: The President's Health Care Tele-Town with Seniors is tonight

Posted by Jesse Lee on June 7, 2010 at 7:20 PM EDT

One of the most interesting moments during the debate on health reform last year was the President's tele-town hall with the AARP. It was a moment when disinformation was flying fast and furious from opponents of reform, and it was a unique opportunity to sit down and go through the concerns that seniors had one by one.

Well it's been almost a year, the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, and many of the benefits that we're once theoretical arguments for reform are now becoming reality -- like the $250 rebate checks that will begin arriving next Thursday for seniors who have fallen into the Medicare prescription drug donut hole – the first step to closing the donut hole completely.

But there's still plenty of misinformation out there -- in fact there are whole new sources of it in the form of scams meant to prey on confusion about the law.

That's why at 11:30PM EDT tonight President Obama will join senior citizens across the country, gathered at a series of local meetings, to participate via phone in a national tele-town hall meeting. Additionally, more than a dozen senior Obama Administration officials will join seniors at selected meetings to discuss the new health care law and answer questions -- view a lengthy list of meetings in the White House release. The President’s tele-town hall meeting will be broadcast live on C-Span, as well as here online at WhiteHouse.gov/live.

So if you're a senior and you've got questions about your health care, tune in. If you're not a senior but have a parent or grandparent who might be interested, give them a heads up. It will be great opportunity to hear answers from the President who believed so passionately in the need for these reforms.

source: the White House blog

source: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=8997

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Public relations problems on the high seas

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Al Jazeera: New Middle Eatern Power Triangle?

By Marwan Bishara in on June 8th, 2010

Recent events and diplomatic activity before and after the Israeli attack on the Gaza "freedom flotilla" have created a new powerful regional triangle at the expense of an old Arab one.

The diplomatic developments  between Iran, Turkey and Syria is creating a new regional axis that, for all practical purposes, could replace the diminished Arab triangle of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria. This could transform the region in the process.

The visits of the Iranian and Syrian presidents to Turkey this week have underlined a new sense of solidarity and cooperation that will be followed with much interest and concern in Western capitals and Israel. Turkey had been an ally of Israel for many years but the rise of Islamic fundmanetalism in the country and Israeli diplomatic faux paux has made a continued diplomatic relationship impossible.

The new trio could break up the US imposed moderate-extremist division of the region and instead introduce a diverse, hard to isolate new axis that is fundamentally opposed to the Israeli occupation and committed to breaking the siege of Gaza.

Each of these Middle East players bring important strategic assets to the table: Iran is an energy rich Gulf power with an important nuclear card in hand; Turkey is an emerging Euro-Asian power with NATO membership; and Syria is an Arab nation with influence in Lebanon. 

The three countries have an open border policy which could eventually create a market of more than 150 million people.

The old triangle

Syria's disagreement with Egypt over the Palestinian issue and its tensions with Saudi Arabia over the Iranian issue have served to diminish the old  Arab triangle that had an important influence on Arab policies for decades. Damascus, Cairo and Riyadh have been able, at times, to effect major change in the Arab world.

But, in reality it was a pragmatic and effective way to serve their agenda when convenient: Egypt exploited the 1973 war to sign a separate agreement with Israel; Syria used the Taif agreement to get its hands on Lebanon; and Saudi Arabia took advantage of a weaker Iraq to extend its regional influence under US auspices.

Enter an unlikely trio

Until recently, hostility defined Turkish-Syrian relations, just as coolness defined Turkish-Iranian relations.

Even though Turkey and Iran are founding members of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), Turkish ties with Israel and NATO have alienated Ankara from its Southern and Eastern neighbours.

The Kurdish issue has been important for all three nations (as well as for Iraq) and was until recently a major point of contention between Turkey and Syria. The four nations have used and abused the Kurdish question whenever it has served their agendas.

Separated by language and historical experience, they made little effort to cement strong neighborly relationships until recently.

But, the election of the AK party in Turkey triggered an important political transformation that opened the way for relations to be strengthened with its neighbours. This also ended the old Turkish alliance with Israel.

Billionaires Rally to Ask Americans to Donate Their Social Security Checks

On Wednesday, April 28, 2010, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation met with billionaires, millionaires and politicos at the Ronald Reagan Building in D.C.

The day after the new Fiscal Commission held their first meeting, these leaders gathered in secret to devise ways to cut Social Security (SS) benefits (not the reason for the budget deficit) in the name of the federal budget deficit.

OUTSIDE the meeting, ‘Billionaires for Social Insecurity’ gathered to ask the public in a more outright fashion to hand over their SS checks.

George W. Bush said that his greatest disappointment as President was failing to push through SS reform. Bush said that the GOP leadership said Social Security privatization that it would cost them votes. The GOP leadership was right on.

SS privatization never had a prayer. Bush himself said, his proposal was blocked by congressional Republicans. Democrats wanted nothing to do with it either. It was dreamland.

Rightardia was just getting started as a blog when Bush showed up in Tampa in front of invited blushing GOP supporters for conservative propaganda event on why SS should be privatized. If you had the wrong bumper stickers on you car you were banned from this 'private event."

What would grandpa and granny face if SS were privatized? First the SS fund managers would collect annual management fees which would reduce Social Security payments to retirees. This is not an exaggeration. Congress created the 401k's as a saving plan. When people lost their jobs, and tried to live off their 401K plan, they found that up to a third of their savings were gone due to management fees.

Second, experienced Social security workers would be replaced by $8-10 hour boiler room telemarketers. When a worker reached SS age or applied for Social Security disability, the process would be a lot harder because the the SS workers had limited experience.

Third and perhaps, most importantly, your SS check would be a crapshoot that was dependent on current market conditions. If you applied for SS retirement in 2008, you would have gotten a substantially smaller check that a SS retiree got in prior years due to the financial meltdown.

This is exactly what happened in the UK after Margaret Thatcher privatized the British Social Security system.

Britain's experiment with substituting private savings accounts for a portion of state benefits was a failure.

A explanation for what has gone wrong is that the costs and risks of running private investment accounts outweigh the value of the returns they are likely to earn. On average, fees and charges can reduce pension lump sums by up to 30 percent on retirement.

The UK savings industry, which sells those private accounts, had already acknowledged this.

In 2002, many U.K. insurance companies, mindful of tough new rules against giving bad advice, began to write to their customers urging them to consider abandoning their private savings and returning to the state pension system -- something hundreds of thousands of Britons had to do because the UK privatized SS system was a failure.


Ros Altmann, a Harvard-trained specialist in pension economics and a governor at the London School of Economics, says that neither the voting public nor most politicians understood the true implications of the UK privatization plan.

But those who pushed for the change knew what they were doing:  Altmann notes. “But with the effects of compound interest, that amounts to nearly a 50-percent reduction in the value of benefits over 30 to 40 years.”

As a result, the basic state pension in the United Kingdom -- the equivalent of U.S. Social Security -- is today lower than that in all but four other European countries: Portugal, Greece, Belgium, and Ireland.

It is also substantially below that of its U.S. counterpart. Clearly privatizing SS in the Holy Grail of conservative agenda in the US.


source: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=8997

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If you find a conservative in your woodpile!

I found a Conservative Republican in my wood pile the other day. 

Well, actually, my dog found it. 

The Republican was shouting obscenities at me and my dog, telling us how we didn't matter, waving the American flag, hissing, spitting, showing its fangs, and threatening lawsuits. 

The dog wasn't having any of it. The dog kept the cowardly conservative from crawling out of the mud, barking, growling, and showing its teeth at the hideous Republican. 

Well, long story short, we all now know what Republicans actually are. They are rapists, swindlers, confidence men, and criminals dressed in three piece suits. 

I had a round nosed shovel with me at the time, and wanting to protect myself, my faithful canine, and everyone else from this Republican, I hit the thing in the head a dozen times to kill it. But these Republicans are hard headed monsters and a conservative doesn't change. It just kept on hissing, spitting, shouting threats, and demanding I do this and that. 

Fortunately, the shovel I had with me was my sharp shovel. I keep an edge on it like that of a knife. A sharp shovel makes the manual labor it is used for easier and every little bit of relief when accomplishing a difficult job helps. So I raised my shovel over the Republican's head and brought it down, edge first across its neck. 

Cut the head of the snake clean off. The Republican/conservative/Tea Bagger has a huge head but a tiny little pencil neck and scrawny or obese body. The Republican's head rolled a couple of feet from its body. 

It kept spewing threats and obscenities all the while it was rolling away from its body. Then the Republican dropped its American flag, which I now keep to be displayed on national holidays and the like. 

The head fell silent with my dog and I looking on in the silence of our victory. The head fell silent and the monster was dead, just like the GOP. 

My dog had her rabies booster shots the other day, so I let her play with the Republican's head in the back yard. You can't be too careful with these rabid Republicans. I buried the body in the backyard, but nothing would grow above the Republican's carcass. 

Conservatives and everything around them never change. So I dug up the Republican's carcass, dismembered it to reduce its size, and placed it in the garbage. 

The garbage man emptied the garbage a few days later. I flipped the garbage man an extra $20 for his trouble. 

If you sun dry a Republican's skull, it bleaches white and makes an interesting display piece. You can take it camping with you and leave it for the kids to find as a great prop when telling monster stories around the campfire, too. 

Rightardia comment: This post made the Rightardia staff smile. Republicans like to suggest that only conservatives represent America, but the right wing media has established conservatives as people who are poorly educated and hold irrational views. 

America found out in 2008 that that privatization and deregulation don't work.  Weak regulatory laws and enforcement of these laws produced the financial meltdown of 2008 and the the Gulf Oil spill. 

In the case of the latter, an agency of the Department of Interior, the Mineral Management Service, was co-opted by corporations. 

The rabid right represented by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Michale Savage and the Tea Partiers has descended into simple fascism. 

Of course, there is also small cadre corporate and conservative handlers which make up the leadership of the GOP. 

The rise of militias is alarming because this is how Nazism started in Germany. The Conservatives have descended into a black pit that it may never be able to crawl out of. 

Principled conservatives like William F. Buckley, Jr. and Barry Goldwater would be aghast if they could saw what the modern Republican Party had become. 

Path:news.usenetmonster.com!spoolset.readnews.com!postnews.google.com!news2.google.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:32:58 -0500 From: "Old Grand Dad" <do_not_reply@voting.felons.com> 

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Conservative solution to stop BP oil leak

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Rick Scott, one of the worst Florida GOP candiates ever

Immigration is not a Florida issue and Scott must have forgotten what happened to Republicans who ran on this issue in the last election. Scott seems to think he is running against Obama which is another red herring.

How can Floridians support a man who was asleep as the switch when he was CEO of (Columbia) HCA?

The real issues affecting Floridians are one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, the Gulf Oil spill and the big drop in tourism. Drill, baby, drill is the GOP slogan.

Rick Scott has no political experience and his leadership skills as the CEO of HCA are suspect after it received a record $1.7 trillion fine for Medicare fraud. Can Florida risk it political future on a man with such shaky credentials?

Scott was forced out as CEO in 1997, but he got a $10 million severance package for his incompetent management of HCA. Florida can do better than this bum!


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Republicans are gnashing their teeth over Bush tax cut expirations

Supply Side economist Arthur Laffer, chairman of Laffer Associates,  created the Laffer Curve. Laffer warns of coming tax hikes when the Bush era tax cuts expire. Laffer was a Reagan era economist considered to be the father of discredited Supply Side economics.


• the highest federal personal income tax rate will go to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. this rate will affect the most affluent Americans. 

• the highest federal dividend tax rate pops up to 39.6 percent from 15 percent;

• the capital gains tax rate will hit 20 percent from 15 percent;

• the Estate Tax rate is restored  to 55 percent. Bush suspended the Estate Tax during during his presidency. 

“Lots and lots of other changes will also occur as a result of the sunset provision in the Bush tax cuts,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

Laffer says the coming hikes — coupled with the prospect of rising prices, higher interest rates and more regulations next year — are causing businesses to shift production and income from 2011 to 2010 to the greatest extent possible.

In 2011, the first $ one million of an estate's value is excluded from this tax. Republicans like to refer to the Estate tax as a death tax and also suggest Americans are taxed twice because of income tax. The Estate tax, in fact, is the only tax at the federal level that taxes wealth.

Rightardia believes that the tax cut expirations will mainly affect the "have mores" which represent a big part of the GOP base.  Teh Bush tax cuts actually had a negative effect on the middle class.

The Bush tax cuts did not have any clear effect on the US economy and Bush era job creation stats were poor.

Of course, conservative media like NewsMax suggest the expiration of the tax cuts will "end life as we know it in the US."


Source: Newsmax and Moneynews.


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GOP's real legislative priorities

The GOP has never had the interests of the middle class in mind. It has a pipeline of conservatives thought the Greek collegiate system, and pimps, whores and shills from corporate America.

What is the real Agenda of the GOP? It's what it has always has been: make the rich--richer and the poor--poorer.

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