Time to Choose Obama or Bush Tax Plan

The Black People are Gonna Get You

One thing always seems to get the vote for the GOP. It worked in the 60's and it is working now.

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But Where are the Specifics?

GOP: Keep Tax Cuts for the rich but we can't afford to help jobless

Seriously, GOPer's want to spend $68 billion per year on tax cuts for the rich and at the same time tell people who are out of work that we can't afford an extension to unemployment benefits. What is really shocking is that the GOP will likely gain seats in the next Congress. What is wrong with the American voter?

Fixing Social Security

According to the Congressional Budget Office we have several choices.



I favor taxing covered earnings up to $250,000 without an increase in benefits or better yet, taxing covered earnings above the taxable maximum without an increase in benefits. Why? Because higher income earning men live longer than lower income earning men. Seems only fair that those that are going to live longer should have to pay more into the system.


Reference

Who Owns You?

I do believe wilfull ignorance is a major problem in the USA. People can't think critically, they cannot evaluate evidence (facts) that is staring them in the face. And, even worse, even if they see and understand the facts, a majority will not accept those facts. We are getting screwed by a big Red, White and Blue Dick.

It Sounds True; It Should be True: Therefore it IS True

Ever hear of Ted Barber? He's runnin fer Congress down home in Alabamy. He's the guy running the campaign commercials where he has conversations with ghosts of the founding fathers. He ran the commercial claiming we are all going to end up slaves or in nazi-like concentration camps.

Today he writes an editorial in the Washington Post defending his positions.

Over the past 18 months, the federal government has sought to seize or has seized control of the health-care industry, the financial industry, the mortgage industry, the automobile industry, student loans, broadband Internet and the energy sector through cap-and-trade legislation.

Some questions. Has the federal government seized control of the health-care industry? If they did, they used mostly Republican ideas to do so. Have they "seized" control of the finance industry? Explain how please. Where is the evidence for what Barber wrote in the above paragraph? What are the facts? Do facts even matter anymore?

A few days ago, Former Gov. Mitt Romney wrote an editorial in the Washington Post describing how bad President Obama's new strategic arms limitation treaty with Russia is. Paragraph after paragraph of demonstrable misinformation and lies were written. Facts did not matter. It sounded true, it should be true, so it is true. No matter the facts.

Sadly, at least 40% of us believe in this crap. It sounds true, it should be true, so it is true. Facts no longer matter.

Republicans for Corporations

Not that there are any new revelations here. The Republican party has not made a secret of their support of corporations over people...ever. One example not mentioned is the funding of the finance reform bill to be voted on shortly. Democrats want banks to pay for it. Republicans want to use TARP (taxpayers dollars) funds to pay for it.

Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?

Joseph Nye Welsh was the lead counsel for the US Army when it was being investigated by the infamous Sen. Joseph McCarthy. When Sen. McCarthy accused one of Welsh's junior attorneys of being a communist, Welsh eventually said: At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

I wonder when someone will state some similar phrase to Republicans that are defending British Petroleum, especially concerning the $20 billion escrow account?

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) doesn't want to live in a country that "shakes down" private corporations. He has actually apologized to BP.

Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) sees the escrow account as a "redistribution of wealth" fund.

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) says the fund was obtained using a "Chicago-style shakedown".

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) is worried the fund will hurt BP's profits.

Rep. John Boehner thinks the America taxpayer should fund some of the relief.

GOP candidate Sharon Angle says we need further deregulation of the oil industry.

Tea Party candidate Rand Paul stated that it is un-American to criticize BP.

And, not surprisingly, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are both opposed to the escrow account, as is Dick Army, one of the puppetmasters behind the tea party.

I wonder how many people in the Gulf states agree with the views of these people. And, why do the above individuals seem to favor BP?

In one way the views of the above people aren't really surprising. Shortly after President Obama was elected, the GOP decided that they would oppose ANYTHING that President Obama or Democrats supported. I also believe that these views will catch on with a good portion of the GOP and conservatives.

Unfortunately, the tea partiers and other right-wing nuts will suck of these views adding to the support of the BP supporters. The views stated by the above individuals will actually help them and not hurt them.

The Loony Left

Rand Paul is blaming the "loony left" for his problems concerning his views on the 1964 Civil Rights Act. But just who is the "loony left"? For Paul and probably most conservatives, any Democrat would be included in the loony left group. But there is no question that there does exist a "loony left".

For example, those people who do not "believe" in the protective capacity of vaccines. Or, believe that vaccines are responsible for autism. This group of people consist of those "new age" liberals that probably accept the evidence for global climate change but somehow can't accept the evidence for the usefulness of vaccines.

The Huffington Post is one place these new age loony leftists seem to get their information. Take for example this post by "integrative physician" Dr. Frank Lipman on the usefulness of the swine flu vaccine. Dr. Lipman questioned the swine flu vaccine's safety. Right off this indicates to me the good Doctor does not understand how flu vaccines are manufactured.

For some reason the loony left seems to be very suspicious of science based medicine. Many members of the loony left prefer to use "alternative medicine" such as homeopathy, naturopathy or hydrotherapy.

Another group of the loony left are those that want the right to get sick from drinking raw milk. Raw milk is regulated, as are many other food products, because there is a possibility of infecting yourself with some dangerous pathogens when drinking unpasteurized milk. The loony left is willing to take that chance however.



Then there is the hypocrit group of the loony left. These liberals want the US to be self sufficient in energy. But, not if it ruins the "view". Or, they combine the "view" criticism with health issues, as has been done by Dr. Nina Pierpont.

Now don't get me wrong. Show me convincing scientific evidence that raw milk is safe, that vaccines cause autism, that you can be healed with water and that wind turbine syndrome is an actual danger to health and I'll be the first to join the loony left.

Feingold on War

How many Senators will join Sen. Feingold in asking for an Afghanistan timetable? One trillion dollars spent on war over the last ten years. Thousands dead. For what?

No More Soldiers Should Die in Afghanistan

Memorial Day should be an anti-war day. Yes, fallen (dead) soldiers should be remembered. But wouldn't it be far better not to have dead soldiers in the first place? This is especially true over the last ten years. Think of the soldiers lives wasted in Iraq. And, for what? Can anyone answer that question? Think of the ongoing war in Afghanistan. When was the last time in history that Afghanistan was brought under foreign control? The Russians couldn't do it, why do we think we can do it (and why do we want to)? Again, can anyone explain what we are doing in Afghanistan? Fighting Al Queda? Then why aren't we fighting in Pakistan or Somalia?

We need to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as possible. Let's not have to remember anymore dead soldiers from those worthless causes.

More Krauthammer Bloviating

Today Charlie explains why the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is the responsibility of environmentalist. The enviromentalist have prevented drilling on land and in shallower waters, forcing oil companies into deep water drilling. This by the way is pretty much the current conservative talking point.

Charlie is wise in saying

Obama is no more responsible for the damage caused by this than Bush was for the damage caused by Katrina

. He is saying that, because unlike many conservatives, he realizes that by calling the oil spill disaster "Obama's Katrina", he is admitting that the Bush Administration screwed up the response to hurrican Katrina. And we cannot have that.

I'm will to place a good amount of the blame on Obama. President Obama came into office knowing the Minerals Management Service was basically the oil companies regulating themselves. He said he would fix that situation and he did not.

But who is really to blame? Where is the personal responsibility? Who wants cheap gasoline? We do. "Drill baby drill was the mantra of the majority over the last 18 months. Politicians, wanting to keep their jobs, make decisions based on keeping those that want cheap gasoline happy. Hell, even President Obama caved on not allowing deep water drilling.

So there is plenty of blame to go around. BP for being crappy engineers (actually, more likely the fault of BP accountants). The MMS for not doing their job of regulating. President Obama for not fixing the MMS. But let's face it. We all need to take a little responsibilty because we don't want to pay what everyone else in the world pays for fuel.

America Speaking Out

Have you heard about the Republican website "America Speaking Out"? Here is your chance to tell Congress what you think, what you want, and how to solve America's problems. Great idea....right?

Well, before you answer that question I suggest you visit the site and read some of the comments. Now I admit I'm not the best writer around. But, I can string enough words together to get my point across in a semi-coherent manner. I'm not the greatest speller around, but I know how to use a dictionary.

A good majority of comments on "America Speaking Out" are poorly reasoned, misspelled, and consist of just 'good ol' common sense'.

Some suggestions: repeal child labor laws, children these days are too coddled. Or, deport the illegals but tatoo a big letter 'I' on their chest before they are deported. And, where would we be without the Obama is not a citizen comments.

The comments on the website speak volumes about the makeup of the Republican/Conservative party.

The Andrew Wakefield Story

Dr. Andrew Wakefield of MMR vaccine causes autism fame has been struck from the medical register in the UK. I just thought Wakefield was a dishonest researcher until I read the "facts in the case" which can be found here.

The Rage is Not about Health Care - Part 2

Are Tea Partiers Racist? It seems not all of them, but a recent survey indicates a substantial proportion of Tea Partiers have racist sentiments.

You do have to ask what the tea party "rage" is about. It can't be income taxes because most of us got an income tax reduction under President Obama. Nor can it be about the federal deficit or debt or size of the government. If that was the case, we would have seen plenty of tea party demonstrations during the GW Bush years. Is it about government being intrusive in our lives? If it is, where is the outrage over the new Arizona "show me your papers" law?

Signs carried by tea party demonstrators give us a hint that many of them have problems with non-white people.




So what do the latest survey results tell us?


Well, the first part of the above graph gives us a hint. A substantial portion of tea partiers (73%)believe that blacks don't try hard enough compared with 33% of those who oppose the tea party.

Sixty percent of die hard tea partiers also believe that "we have gone too far in pushing equal rights in this country". This attitude compares with 23% of tea party skeptics. Seventy seven percent of tea party skeptics believe that "If people were treated more equally, we'd have many fewer problems in this country", compared with only 31% of tea baggers.

The tea party tells us they are upset about big government and government intrusion into our lives. Unfortunately, 56% of tea baggers disagree that "The government can detain people as long as they wish without trial". Ninety percent of us non-tea baggers disagree with this statement.

Essential Fatty Acids - Part 1

Fatty acids are organic, carboxylic acids consisting of long, unbranched chains of hydrocarbons. Fatty acids can be either saturated, with no double or triple bonds (top left), or unsaturated, containing one or more (polyunsaturated) double or triple bonds (top right).

Unsaturated fatty acids can be found in either the cis or trans configuration.

In the cis configuration, the hydrogen atoms are found on the same side of the double bond. In the trans configuration, the two hydrogen atoms are on the opposite side of the double bond. Fatty acids in the cis congiguration are bent or kinked. This affects their melting temperature resulting in the fats being liquid at room temperature.

The human body can make most of the fatty acids it needs. However, there are two essential fatty acids the body cannot make. These fatty acids, linoleic and alpha-linoleic acids, must be ingested because humans lack the enzymes necessary for producing double bonds at the Omega-3 and Omega-6 positions. Omega-3 and Omega-6 are made from the two essential fatty acids. These acids are catagorized based on their physiological properties using the n-x nomenclature.



The top fatty acid pictured is named using the conventional nomenclature for fatty acids where the first double bond is counted from the carboxy end of the molecule (the COOH end). The Omega-x (or w-x)nomenclature is the opposite. The location of the first double bond is counted from the methyl end of the molecule. In the above case, the first double bond is located at the 3rd carbon and the second double bond is located at the 6th carbon.

Should We Let the Bush Tax Cuts Expire?

All the data indicates that keeping the Bush tax cuts will only allow the deficit to grow larger and larger. The Bush tax cuts are the largest contributor to large budget deficits. Who would have guessed?

Are Americans Childish?

Who's at fault for our current political and economic state? Is it the out-of-control partisanship in Congress? Is it the Senate filibuster, which now requires a supermajority for anything to get done in the Senate? Is it President Obama for enacting huge stimulus and health care spending (remember he ran and got elected on those platforms).

Over a year ago, a majority of Americans supported the stimulus spending. Now, a majority say we are spending too much. We seem to want help for unemployed workers but at the same time we denigrate them as people who live off government handouts.

How about the current financial re-regulation proposals? We were incensed that bailed out financial companies got bailed out and CEO's got huge bonuses. Now it seems we don't want financial re-regulation - or at least the conservatives don't.

We are upset about National Debt and budget deficits, but we can't seem to explain what exactly we want to cut to reduce deficits. Don't cut medicare, or social security, and certainly not the defense budget. Balance the budget by cutting medical lawsuits or cutting government "waste". And, cut taxes at the same time. Really, that's crazy talk and we know it.

Now many want to cut the stimulus or stop it. But at the same time we want spending on infrastructure - roads, bridges etc. Cut the stimulus, but extend unemployment benefits. Make up your minds.

What do we want? Do we want a smaller government or not? If we do, we need to cut spending. I've yet to have a conservative politician tell me what should be cut. They will tell you they support spending cuts and smaller government, but ask them where they propose to cut spending and you hear crickets chirping. The fact is, you don't win elections by promising to cut medicare or social security.

Our deficits are huge. Anyone with even half a brain knows that at some point taxes will need to be raised to balance the budget and pay down debt.

I'm not sure the current state of our government is the fault of politicians. We get to vote politicians out every 2-6 years if we don't like what they are doing.

To see who is at fault for the current political and economic climate - look in the mirror.

"The Rage is Not About Health Care" (nor taxes)

A few weeks ago, New York Times columnist wrote an interesting opinion piece "The Rage Is Not About Health Care". For almost 3 weeks I've been mulling over commenting on the article.

Upon passage of the Health Care Reform bill, conservative heads everywhere started exploding. John Boehner's face almost turned red, if that's possible, from anger. Tea Partier's spat hateful comments at Congressmen Lewis and Frank. References to President Obama being Hitler, Stalin, Lenin etc. continued. Bricks were thrown through office windows, a gas line cut on the house of a congressman's brother and death threats were phoned in to congressional offices. As Rich pointed out, it was a "small scale mimicry of Kristallnacht".

What exactly did Democrats do to incite this anger? They campaigned on passing health care reform legislation. They continually folded to conservative demands and modified the HCR bill until it was a mirror image of Mitt Romney's health care reform bill in Massachusetts. Hell, the individual mandate was a conservative idea!

As Rich points out, the anger over this issue is similar to that over the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I agree. But like Rich says, the rage is not about HCR. The rage started shortly after President Obama was elected. In fact, there was plenty of rage against candidate Obama at Palin rallies well before he was elected.

Here is a key sentence in Rich's column.

The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House - topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman - would sow fears of disenfranchisment among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play.

Rich points out that these are the people Tea Partier's want to "take our country back" from.

Is this racism, sexism, bigotry? I don't know. But the white anglosaxon protestant needs to realize that the demographics of the US is changing. Most young people are no longer racist or intolerant. The mostly white and republican Tea Party members need to understand that they are rapidly becoming a minority group, at least by race.

Rich also pointed out something I didn't know.

The Republicans haven't had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have only had three in total since 1935 (my emphasis)

No, the rage is not about health care, or taxes, or spending. It's about the fear of becoming a minority. It's about race.