While You Weren't Looking...

While the national media has been inundated with the antics of the Donald and the Royal Wedding, the House Republicans have been very busy while we have been distracted.

It seems GOP politicians have made the defunding of what they term Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) their primary focus of late, seeking to dismantle it piece by piece since they couldn't take it down through a complete repeal.A Reuters article posted on NewsDaily.com reported the House of Representatives passed a bill two weeks ago that would remove funding for a prevention and public health fund.  As early as next week another bill to defund grant money for school-based health centers will also be coming up for a vote.

Next week the House also will vote and probably pass a bill that would remove $1.9 billion in grants to states to fund the creation of state insurance exchanges so that individuals could buy affordable health insurance in their respective states.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that  eliminating grant funds to States would only reduce the deficit by about $1.5 billion per year over the next 9 years, but this would not eliminate the exchanges. The result of this action would shift the creation of exchange marketplaces to the federal government, which could cause an inflation of U.S. costs. Not much cost savings there. It appears to be only a temporary band-aid treatment.

So let's see what House Republicans have been accomplishing this year so far:

• Extension of Bush Tax Cuts for the rich (passed)
• Voted to extend Patriot Act (Congress passed a 90 day extension that will expire in May)
• voted to block FCC's net neutrality rules (expected to fail in the Senate)
• voted to block funding for IPCC (the definitive research institution for gathering information about the state of the climate)(expected to fail in Senate)
• Voted to Cut Environmental Programs (failed in Senate)
• Voted to cut spending by $61 billion (failed in Senate)
• Voting to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act (failed in Senate)

Hmmm...so far, not so good.

And coming up, more attempts at dismantling Affordable Health Care with an almost certain failure at the Senate/Presidential level.  What have the Republicans done about jobs?

Hey Republicans...where's the jobs?

Profits Pressure Politicians: Profiteering oil industry "extorts" political support through coersion at the pump

Oil companies reported big profits in the first quarter of 2011 with a whopping gusher profit increase of 69% for Exxon and Royal Dutch Shell reporting increased profits of 40%. Public campaign money data reported by the Federal Election Committee revealed the four largest oil companies, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and BP, combined gave $285,000 to politicians in the first quarter of 2011.

According to Politico.com, "The top five recipients are Republicans:

Speaker John Boehner: $15,000
Sen. John Barrasso: $12,000
House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy: $10,000
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton: $10,000
Rep. David McKinley: $8,000"

Amidst these stellar profits, the greed of the oil companies persists and grows when we are seeing almost record gas prices.  Is it just my imagination or did the increase in gas prices really start going crazy about the time politicians started seriously considering cutting subsidies to oil companies?

The Public Campaign Action Fund's national campaigns director David Donnelly stated,

“There’s no real good explanation for why these subsidies are continuing when you look at the size of these profits and the price of gas right now. The only answer is the irrational campaign finance system that leads lawmakers to listen more to donors than to common sense,”

Will GOP politicians still continue to pander to large corporate interests in light of the recent public scrutiny of the Ryan Budget Plan adopted by the Republican House whereby making the rich richer through support for profiteering corporations and stealing services from hard working Americans?  This seems to be the Hood Robin plan of Right Wing politicians.

As always, contact your elected officials to weigh in on this topic.

Find your elected officials here.

Trump: Republicans' Hired Gun? Questions about President Obama's birth certificate answered

This morning, the White House released the long form of President Obama's birth certificate in order to put the issue of his place of birth to rest.

The long form birth certificate states that Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and confirms his legitimacy as a United States President.  The former short form, the "Certificate of Live Birth", released earlier was in fact a legal document issued by the State of Hawaii for purposes of demonstrating live birth in Hawaii.

The "birther" movement has gained momentum recently due to the efforts of the Donald who made this fake issue a central theme of his delegitimization efforts toward President Obama.  Obama, in a brief appearance this morning said, "We do not have time for this kind of silliness,"  further stating, "I've got better stuff to do"  In a remark to reporters he said he could not constantly walk around with his birth certificate plastered to his forehead to assure the public that he was in fact born in the United States.

Donald Trump, a potential 2012 presidential contender, has been using the question of Obama's birth place as a way of pressuring him to produce the "official" birth certificate.  Upon the response of the White House, a true-to-form egotistical Trump declared he was able to get something done that no-one else has been able to do. In an impromtu press meeting in New Hampshire, he stated he was very proud of himself, “I’m taking great credit.”

“I’ve accomplished something that nobody else has been able to accomplish,” he further said, “I want to look at it, but I hope it’s true so we can get onto much more important matters so the press can stop asking me questions.”

President Obama is hoping to put this birther issue to rest and get on with the business at hand, but it appears the Donald has already moved on to another vilification, questioning the validity of Obama's education.  This appears to be the next item on the Republican hit list for Trump to run with.

Pat Buchanan, as a guest on msnbc's Hardball, gave us a hint as to the next step in the Republican agenda to de-legitimize the President in a blatant display of racism (see the video below), which leads this author to believe this strategy on the President's education has already surfaced as another preconceived GOP item on their play list.  Buchanan's assertion was that Obama, in is attendance to Harvard and Columbia, benefited from Affirmative Action and that he should make his grades public, inferring that President Obama did not (or could not) earn his education on merit [because he was black].  The Donald is probably going to make this the next issue and run with it.  If anything, this is a success story for the efforts by Affirmative Action, if in fact Obama was a beneficiary.  If the GOP is going to adopt this issue to further delegitimize the President, it will virtually assure another large turn-out of black voters.

Trump's Manchurian Candidate

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This is clearly a distraction orchestrated by the Republicans and executed by a circus clown "candidate" who has nothing to lose and a lot to gain from the publicity...or maybe not.

The Corporate Obesity Problem: It's time for a diet

For those of you who would like to see life return to the way it was many years ago, where you owned your little house, could walk to the corner drug store to get your newspaper, bought your meat at the local butcher shop, bought your appliances from Joe’s appliance store, and kids could play outside in safe neighborhoods, these pleasures of life are being annihilated by corporations. The are taking away private entrepreneurship (read: Harms Big Box Retail), and taking away our safe neighborhoods.  When corporations, in meeting their bottom line goals, lower wages and remove programs for the poor, disabled, and aged you will see increasing crime, blight, and suffering.

Corporations are taking over our politicians, government, economy, and country. They have even acquired the power to overturn laws, such as in the case of the Citizen’s United ruling in the Supreme Court allowing corporations to make political contributions for political advertising, and now they are moving into the arena of entitlement programs in order to privatize and ultimately kill off both the programs and the people who rely on those programs. Why?

1.) to make as much profit as possible before they kill off the programs,

2.) to eliminate payroll taxes to the tune of 7.65% (matching funds for FICA and Medicare).

The corporations buy off politicians to accomplish their goals. For example: the Koch Brothers who bought off the Republican politicians in Wisconsin. Why?

1.) to reduce their payroll by eliminating union support for higher wages and salaries.

2.) to reduce and/or eliminate benefits by eliminating union support for benefits.

3.) to eliminate unions in order to take their competing political power off the table.

Everything about corporations are about the bottom-line at the expense of humanity. It reminds me of the conflict between science and spirituality. The mentality of the hard-core science community is that if it cannot be proven, it is not valid or doesn’t exist.  Likewise in the corporate mentality, if it doesn't improve the bottom-line, it is useless and should be eliminated. 

Taxes?  What are those?

Below are a list of the top 10 corporations who either did not pay taxes, not much, or got a refund (compiled by Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent from Vermont):

10. Carnival Cruise Lines:$11 billion in profits, federal income tax rate:1.1 percent.

9. ConocoPhillips: $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, $451 million in tax breaks.

8. Citigroup: $4 billion in profit, paid no federal income taxes.

7. Goldman Sachs:$2.3 billion in 2008 but only paid 1.1 percent in taxes.

6. Valero Energy: $68 billion in sales last year got a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS.

5. Boeing: $124 million refund from the IRS last year.

4. Chevron: $19 million refund from the IRS last year after earning $10 billion in profits in 2009.

3. General Electric: $26 billion in profits over the last five years, paid no federal income tax, $4.1 billion refund.

2. Bank of America: $1.9 billion tax refund last year, profits of $4.4 billion.

1. Exxon Mobil: $19 billion in profits, paid no federal income taxes. $156 million rebate from the IRS.


How do we change corporate behavior?

Although I hate to see people hurt in the process, I am heartened to see the citizenship of countries rising up to reclaim their country from corrupt dictators.  I am also heartened to see citizens of this country rise up against the dictatorship of corporations (the union uprisings and recalls).  It is time to start purging the gluttony of corporations and put it on a diet.

As long as corporations have the stronghold in this country, or even world-wide, it ain’t gonna get better. It will only get worse.  So what do we do to change this pernicious situation that threatens to destroy this country?

1.)  More transparency:  Thanks to Bernie Sanders, we have an illustration of legal corporate thievery through loopholes in the taxation code.

2.)  Become informed through non-partisan media sources in newspapers, on the internet, and/or on TV (that one is hard to find) such as www.opensecrets.org or www.bbc.co.uk.  If you watch partisan news, be sure to watch both sides, then do www.factcheck.org to check the accuracy of what is being said...or just make your own analysis.

3.)  Get the word out.  Talk to people, email people, start a blog, start a movement.

4.)  Contact your elected officials and tell them what you think (find out who they are by clicking here).  Volunteer for your candidates.

5.)  VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

A friend of mine sent me this YouTube video that says it all.



There you have it.  Let's work together to make this a gentler, kinder country and take back your freedoms and liberties from corporate interests.  The time is NOW!

Who Is Your God? An interactive question with telling answers

"...one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all".  How many of us have stood with our right hands over our hearts and recited the "Pledge of Allegiance?"  What does it really mean to us, if anything at all?

Are we one nation under God?  Whose God?  A God for some and not for others?

Here are some questions you need to ask yourself, and if you are honest, you will find out who your God is and upon whose guidance you follow:

• Is your God one of discrimination, hate, and/or greed?

• Is your God a "me-first" God? 

• Would your God aspire to take away the basic life-sustaining underpinnings so that those who have the most can have more, such as trying to cut programs from Medicare designed to help seniors pay for health care they could not otherwise afford, or slashing programs providing food and medical care for children?

• Would your God help the wealthiest people get wealthier through tax cuts, or subsidizing already profitable oil companies at the rate of $3.1 billion per year while taking away funding for programs designed to help create jobs, making sure all people had access to health care, and providing basic food and necessities for the poor and struggling?

• Would your God let people die for the sake of balancing a budget; such as the state of Arizona who cut off life-saving organ transplants from people who needed them but ended up dying when denied these services so they could save money? 

• Would your God put hardships on people trying to support their families, such as hard working low-income parents who rely on Headstart to not only prepare their children for entering school but also provide help with day-care, whose expense could otherwise drive them into a welfare system because they could not afford to pay?

• Would your God rule out of fear and blackmail so that he and his minions could reap huge profits such as the likes of health insurance companies who continually drive up their prices while perpetually offering less, yet threatening that without them you will either go bankrupt or die, or both, depending on whether you take treatment or not?

So ask yourself:  In what "one nation under God” are you residing, and in whose image and likeness were you made after?  Are you staying true to the image of your God?

Are we indivisible? 

Does the law making body of our country work for the good of all?  What about that party of "NO"?  Did they work for the good of the people?  Did they work at all?  Whose interests did they have in mind?  Did they care that millions of people were out of work?  Did they propose anything that would help people find jobs?  Did extending tax cuts for the wealthy justify cutting programs for job creation and cutting basic programs for the poorest, most downtrodden people in our nation?  Did the party of "NO" care that people were being denied health care because of pre-existing conditions?  Does the Tea Party realize they are making “cutting spending” a bigger priority than the health and welfare of the citizens of this nation?

And what about "with liberty and Justice for all"?

Does the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court actually take away (or mute) the free speech of the individuals who can't contribute the same megalithic amount of campaign advertising funds as Corporations, who have now been given permission to hijack the whole election process?  Have Union workers had their right to free speech taken away by the immoral actions of Republican Governors to de-fund, thus diminish the size of unions and union jobs?  Do you really want a government in the business of "demoting and diminishing" employees for the benefit of the Koch Brothers and other large corporate interests who would rather have oppressive business practices along with low wages?  Does liberty and justice mean that in order for you to have freedom it means less government, even if it devastates others?  Who gets the liberty and justice?  Doesn't that also come with responsibility for the "for all" part of that pledge?

Does that mean that those of you on Medicare would be willing to give up that “socialistic” program or would you be willing to have it extended to everyone?  Should all others either be victims of the insurance blackmail scam or die of their own diseases and despair borne of abject poverty?  Would you be willing to pitch in an extra 1% of your income to help your country out of this economic quagmire whether you are suffering from the effects of it or not (by the way, you are or will be suffering from it shortly because of skyrocketing prices).  Did your God teach you to only watch out for yourself?  What if Jesus had done that? 

So let me ask you again....Who is Your God?  Only you can answer that question, and you have to be able to live with your answer.

Amen.