Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
Biden – Ryan in 4 Pics — BagNews
Biden – Ryan in 4 Pics — BagNews
If the thrust of the GOP’s critique is that Obama was overbearing or somehow condescending, after the way Romney rode roughshod two weeks ago, Biden had plenty of license to get aggressive. Wasn’t that a consistent Rove tactic, by the way: have your guy do it, then accuse your opponents of it? The “disrespect” charge doesn’t really stick, however, in the face of an opponent who alternately isn’t truthful or operates in generalities. Plus, this wasn’t Denver. Style/body language counts for a less in a more substantive exchange.
Joe calling malarky. Perhaps the most widely circulated scene of the night, attacking Biden for theatrics is like attacking Romney for being unwilling to change his mind.
Biden – Ryan in 4 Pics
If the thrust of the GOP’s critique is that Obama was overbearing or somehow condescending, after the way Romney rode roughshod two weeks ago, Biden had plenty of license to get aggressive. Wasn’t that a consistent Rove tactic, by the way: have your guy do it, then accuse your opponents of it? The “disrespect” charge doesn’t really stick, however, in the face of an opponent who alternately isn’t truthful or operates in generalities. Plus, this wasn’t Denver. Style/body language counts for a less in a more substantive exchange.
Joe calling malarky. Perhaps the most widely circulated scene of the night, attacking Biden for theatrics is like attacking Romney for being unwilling to change his mind.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Don Siegelman, U.S. Political Prisoner
Siegelman Blasts DoJ and Judge In 'Final' Reply Seeking Hearing
Read at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kreig/siegelman-blasts-doj-and_b_294164.html
Don Siegelman finally took off the gloves today against his prosecutors and ... the federal appeals court ordered the former governor
Yes the corrupt republican thugs that Bush appointed are still in office, still doing their dirty work. They are pissed that Siegelman has fought back every step of the way & are now trying to have him re-tried before the same crooked Bush judge. Additionally they are asking this judge to tack on an additional 20 yrs for a non-crime. Based on what I have read Judge Fuller is a corrupt, vindictive SOB at best. How obscene does this case have to get before our so-called justice dept decides to do something about the thugs that Bush put in office. Why hasn't Obama removed these attorneys? Why hasn't Holder paid the slightest attention to these cases? Entire families are being destroyed by these criminal U.S. attorneys and YES, Karl Rove! It could just as easily be you if our legal system continues to be used to prosecute & imprison political opposition.
Attorney General Eric Holder 202.514.2001; fax: (202) 307-6777; E-mail: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
White House 202-456-1111; toll free number: 800-833-6354; E-mail: www.whitehouse.gov
Email, phone, fax the whole damn Congress!
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ - Clicking on the state it will bring up a page with all elected members of congress, their phone, fax and email links.
Read at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kreig/siegelman-blasts-doj-and_b_294164.html
Don Siegelman finally took off the gloves today against his prosecutors and ... the federal appeals court ordered the former governor
Yes the corrupt republican thugs that Bush appointed are still in office, still doing their dirty work. They are pissed that Siegelman has fought back every step of the way & are now trying to have him re-tried before the same crooked Bush judge. Additionally they are asking this judge to tack on an additional 20 yrs for a non-crime. Based on what I have read Judge Fuller is a corrupt, vindictive SOB at best. How obscene does this case have to get before our so-called justice dept decides to do something about the thugs that Bush put in office. Why hasn't Obama removed these attorneys? Why hasn't Holder paid the slightest attention to these cases? Entire families are being destroyed by these criminal U.S. attorneys and YES, Karl Rove! It could just as easily be you if our legal system continues to be used to prosecute & imprison political opposition.
Attorney General Eric Holder 202.514.2001; fax: (202) 307-6777; E-mail: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
White House 202-456-1111; toll free number: 800-833-6354; E-mail: www.whitehouse.gov
Email, phone, fax the whole damn Congress!
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ - Clicking on the state it will bring up a page with all elected members of congress, their phone, fax and email links.
Monday, August 24, 2009
A Modest Medicare Proposal by Thom Hartmann
Dear President Obama: A Modest Medicare Proposal
by Thom Hartmann, Monday, August 16, 2009, CommonDreams.org
Dear President Obama,
I understand you’re thinking of dumping your “public option” because of all the demagoguery by Sarah Palin and Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich and their crowd on right-wing radio and Fox. Fine. Good idea, in fact.
Instead, let’s make it simple. Please let us buy into Medicare.
It would be so easy. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel with this so-called “public option” that’s a whole new program from the ground up. Medicare already exists. It works. Some people will like it, others won’t – just like the Post Office versus FedEx analogy you’re so comfortable with.
Just pass a simple bill – it could probably be just a few lines, like when Medicare was expanded to include disabled people – that says that any American citizen can buy into the program at a rate to be set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) which reflects the actual cost for us to buy into it.
So it’s revenue neutral!
To make it available to people of low income, raise the rates slightly for all currently non-eligible people (like me – under 65) to cover the cost of below-200%-of-poverty people. Revenue neutral again.
Most of us will do damn near anything to get out from under the thumbs of the multi-millionaire CEOs who are running our current insurance programs. Sign me up!
This lets you blow up all the rumors about death panels and grandma and everything else: everybody knows what Medicare is. Those who scorn it can go with Blue Cross. Those who like it can buy into it. Simplicity itself.
Of course, we’d like a few fixes, like letting Medicare negotiate drug prices and filling some of the holes Republicans and AARP and the big insurance lobbyists have drilled into Medicare so people have to buy “supplemental” insurance, but that can wait for the second round. Let’s get this done first.
Simple stuff. Medicare for anybody who wants it. Private health insurance for those who don’t. Easy message. Even Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley can understand it. Sarah Palin can buy into it, or ignore it. No death panels, no granny plugs, nothing. Just a few sentences.
Replace the “you must be disabled or 65″ with “here’s what it’ll cost if you want to buy in, and here’s the sliding scale of subsidies we’ll give you if you’re poor, paid for by everybody else who’s buying in.” (You could roll back the Reagan tax cuts and make it all free, but that’s another rant.)
We elected you because we expected you to have the courage of your convictions. Here’s how. Not the “single payer Medicare for all” that many of us would prefer, but a simple, “Medicare for anybody who wants to buy in.”
Respectfully,
Thom Hartmann
by Thom Hartmann, Monday, August 16, 2009, CommonDreams.org
Dear President Obama,
I understand you’re thinking of dumping your “public option” because of all the demagoguery by Sarah Palin and Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich and their crowd on right-wing radio and Fox. Fine. Good idea, in fact.
Instead, let’s make it simple. Please let us buy into Medicare.
It would be so easy. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel with this so-called “public option” that’s a whole new program from the ground up. Medicare already exists. It works. Some people will like it, others won’t – just like the Post Office versus FedEx analogy you’re so comfortable with.
Just pass a simple bill – it could probably be just a few lines, like when Medicare was expanded to include disabled people – that says that any American citizen can buy into the program at a rate to be set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) which reflects the actual cost for us to buy into it.
So it’s revenue neutral!
To make it available to people of low income, raise the rates slightly for all currently non-eligible people (like me – under 65) to cover the cost of below-200%-of-poverty people. Revenue neutral again.
Most of us will do damn near anything to get out from under the thumbs of the multi-millionaire CEOs who are running our current insurance programs. Sign me up!
This lets you blow up all the rumors about death panels and grandma and everything else: everybody knows what Medicare is. Those who scorn it can go with Blue Cross. Those who like it can buy into it. Simplicity itself.
Of course, we’d like a few fixes, like letting Medicare negotiate drug prices and filling some of the holes Republicans and AARP and the big insurance lobbyists have drilled into Medicare so people have to buy “supplemental” insurance, but that can wait for the second round. Let’s get this done first.
Simple stuff. Medicare for anybody who wants it. Private health insurance for those who don’t. Easy message. Even Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley can understand it. Sarah Palin can buy into it, or ignore it. No death panels, no granny plugs, nothing. Just a few sentences.
Replace the “you must be disabled or 65″ with “here’s what it’ll cost if you want to buy in, and here’s the sliding scale of subsidies we’ll give you if you’re poor, paid for by everybody else who’s buying in.” (You could roll back the Reagan tax cuts and make it all free, but that’s another rant.)
We elected you because we expected you to have the courage of your convictions. Here’s how. Not the “single payer Medicare for all” that many of us would prefer, but a simple, “Medicare for anybody who wants to buy in.”
Respectfully,
Thom Hartmann
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Heckuva job, Brownies.
"As our former president might put it, Heckuva job, Brownies."
This writer nails it! By the way, aren't "blue dog Democrats" what we used to call "fence sitters"? I prefer fence sitters in any case. Why insult dogs by tying them to these useless appendages?
The Can't-Do Blue Dogs
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/21/AR2009072102712.html
Every other nation with an advanced economy long ago secured universal health care for its citizens -- an achievement that the United States alone finds beyond the capacities of mortal man. It wasn't ever thus. Time was when Democratic Congresses enacted Social Security and Medicare over the opposition of powerful interests and Republican ideologues. In fact, our government used to actually pave roads, build bridges and allow for secure retirements by levying taxes on those who could afford to pay them......
But the big picture here, of which the resistance to reforming health care is just one element, is our growing inability to meet our national challenges. Almost all of the major nations with which we trade, for instance, have quasi-mercantilist policies that lead them to champion their own higher-wage growth industries, often in manufacturing. In America alone are such policies considered anathema. In consequence, as the Alliance for American Manufacturing reports in a new book, we shuttered 40,000 factories from 2001 through 2007 -- the years, ostensibly of prosperity, between the past two downturns. The diminution of manufacturing, which employs just 11 percent of the U.S. workforce, may please Wall Street, which looks with disfavor on decent-wage domestic production, and Wal-Mart, which tripled its purchases from China (from $9 billion to $27 billion annually) during roughly the same years those American factories closed, but it poses a clear threat to the nation's economic, and even military, power.
But act on behalf of the nation as a whole, even if it means goring Wall Street's or Wal-Mart's oxen? Perish the thought. Pass a health-reform bill that will cover 45 million uninsured Americans and slow the ruinous growth of health-care spending? Not if somebody, somewhere, actually has to pay higher taxes. Hey, we're America -- the can't-do nation.
As our former president might put it, Heckuva job, Brownies.
meyersonh@washpost.com
This writer nails it! By the way, aren't "blue dog Democrats" what we used to call "fence sitters"? I prefer fence sitters in any case. Why insult dogs by tying them to these useless appendages?
The Can't-Do Blue Dogs
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/21/AR2009072102712.html
Every other nation with an advanced economy long ago secured universal health care for its citizens -- an achievement that the United States alone finds beyond the capacities of mortal man. It wasn't ever thus. Time was when Democratic Congresses enacted Social Security and Medicare over the opposition of powerful interests and Republican ideologues. In fact, our government used to actually pave roads, build bridges and allow for secure retirements by levying taxes on those who could afford to pay them......
But the big picture here, of which the resistance to reforming health care is just one element, is our growing inability to meet our national challenges. Almost all of the major nations with which we trade, for instance, have quasi-mercantilist policies that lead them to champion their own higher-wage growth industries, often in manufacturing. In America alone are such policies considered anathema. In consequence, as the Alliance for American Manufacturing reports in a new book, we shuttered 40,000 factories from 2001 through 2007 -- the years, ostensibly of prosperity, between the past two downturns. The diminution of manufacturing, which employs just 11 percent of the U.S. workforce, may please Wall Street, which looks with disfavor on decent-wage domestic production, and Wal-Mart, which tripled its purchases from China (from $9 billion to $27 billion annually) during roughly the same years those American factories closed, but it poses a clear threat to the nation's economic, and even military, power.
But act on behalf of the nation as a whole, even if it means goring Wall Street's or Wal-Mart's oxen? Perish the thought. Pass a health-reform bill that will cover 45 million uninsured Americans and slow the ruinous growth of health-care spending? Not if somebody, somewhere, actually has to pay higher taxes. Hey, we're America -- the can't-do nation.
As our former president might put it, Heckuva job, Brownies.
meyersonh@washpost.com
Friday, May 08, 2009
Bristol Palin Really Is the Perfect Ambassador for Abstinence Education
OK, I have to ask: How on earth does Bristol Palin find time to fly around singing the praises of sexual abstinence, between pursuing that elusive high school diploma, and caring for the son she and Levi Johnston had as...well...teenagers not practicing sexual abstinence? And second of all, why is the daughter of Alaska's increasingly unpopular governor still in the news at all?
Do as I say, not as I do. Yoo betcha.
http://www.alternet.org/story/139912/
Do as I say, not as I do. Yoo betcha.
http://www.alternet.org/story/139912/
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Please sign by sending Email to jtmpinfo@comcast.net
From: David Swanson [mailto:david@davidswanson.org]
Please sign by sending Email to jtmpinfo@comcast.net
Attorney General Eric Holder April 13, 2009
Department of Justice
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Attorney General Holder:
Thank you for taking the necessary steps to vacate the conviction of Senator Ted Stevens because of misconduct by federal prosecutors. We now ask that you quickly do the same for all Bush-era politically motivated cases, starting with Don Siegelman and Paul Minor. Such action is necessary to restore public confidence in the rule of law and the Department of Justice ("DOJ"), and to rectify a vast and manifest injustice. You must act soon because the victims of such prosecutions are now suffering—some of them cruelly. It is unacceptable that any one of them should have to endure imprisonment, financial ruin and even loss of family while courts ponder whether trial error occurred.
It is well established that the previous DOJ was controlled by partisans who misused their authority by targeting Democrats and others with viewpoints different from their own. As a result, people have been variously wronged, either by (1) rejection for employment at DOJ, (2) dismissal from positions there, or (3) trumped-up and/or partisan-targeted criminal prosecution. Under your leadership, the DOJ has moved toward ending such abuse. With your investigations of the hiring practices at DOJ and the US Attorney firings, you have begun to take concrete steps to deal with Points (1) and (2). As to Point 3, however, not enough has been done. Other than early, still-cursory DOJ investigations of problems with the prosecution of Don Siegelman and Paul Minor, your office has announced no action or intention to redress well-documented allegations of selective criminal prosecutions carried out by the Bush administration.
A preponderance of evidence demonstrates that zealous partisans in the Bush White House and DOJ played favorites with some, while targeting other enemies based on their party's ideology. Certain politicians, such as Governor Siegelman, were seen as a threat to hoped-for Republican electoral gains, and certain jurists and attorneys, such as Oliver Diaz and Paul Minor, were also deemed dangerous to the interests of Republican allies in big business.
As Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Brendan DeMille recently reported, while urging the release of Paul Minor, a study by University of Missouri professors Donald Shields and John Cragan, showed that "eighty percent of the Bush DOJ's political investigations targeted Democrats -- 5.6 Democrats for every Republican investigated by U.S. attorneys for political misconduct. Shields noted in Congressional testimony that 'such selective investigation and prosecution rates' represent a clear bias in the severely disproportionate 'political profiling' of Democrats under Bush."
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld most charges against Gov. Siegelman, with everyone involved deliberately ignoring the huge elephant in that courtroom—i.e., that post-trial revelations, deemed inadmissible by the appellate judges, pointed to serious political concoction as well as prosecutorial abuse. The governor should not have to wait months, or years, for a court to address these issues when you have the authority to do so at once.
And then there is Paul Minor, an attorney now in federal prison for a "crime" related to the funding of Democratic candidates and causes. Minor's wife is dying of breast cancer in a hospital in Baton Rouge. Last month, he was given a three-hour pass to spend a moment with her (under supervision), but she had no chance to talk to him, because she had been given her pain medication, and lay fast asleep throughout his visit. Why should this man have to spend another hour away from his wife's bedside, awaiting the decision of some court, when the clear partisan motivations behind his prosecution should lead your department to withdrawing charges, just as you did in the Stevens case.
Selective prosecution based on impermissible political considerations constitutes prosecutorial misconduct at least as egregious as that found in Senator Stevens' case. We therefore ask that you immediately order the dismissal of charges against Don Siegelman and Paul Minor, and move quickly to investigate and identify other cases mounted by the Bush Administration for political advantage and, where appropriate, vacate them immediately. Only through such righteous action, which is wholly in your power, can we be sure that justice will, at last, be done, and the public's confidence in our great legal system can begin to be thoroughly restored.
Sincerely,
Brad Friedman
David Swanson
Attorney General Eric Holder April 13, 2009
Department of Justice
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Attorney General Holder:
Thank you for taking the necessary steps to vacate the conviction of Senator Ted Stevens because of misconduct by federal prosecutors. We now ask that you quickly do the same for all Bush-era politically motivated cases, starting with Don Siegelman and Paul Minor. Such action is necessary to restore public confidence in the rule of law and the Department of Justice ("DOJ"), and to rectify a vast and manifest injustice. You must act soon because the victims of such prosecutions are now suffering—some of them cruelly. It is unacceptable that any one of them should have to endure imprisonment, financial ruin and even loss of family while courts ponder whether trial error occurred.
It is well established that the previous DOJ was controlled by partisans who misused their authority by targeting Democrats and others with viewpoints different from their own. As a result, people have been variously wronged, either by (1) rejection for employment at DOJ, (2) dismissal from positions there, or (3) trumped-up and/or partisan-targeted criminal prosecution. Under your leadership, the DOJ has moved toward ending such abuse. With your investigations of the hiring practices at DOJ and the US Attorney firings, you have begun to take concrete steps to deal with Points (1) and (2). As to Point 3, however, not enough has been done. Other than early, still-cursory DOJ investigations of problems with the prosecution of Don Siegelman and Paul Minor, your office has announced no action or intention to redress well-documented allegations of selective criminal prosecutions carried out by the Bush administration.
A preponderance of evidence demonstrates that zealous partisans in the Bush White House and DOJ played favorites with some, while targeting other enemies based on their party's ideology. Certain politicians, such as Governor Siegelman, were seen as a threat to hoped-for Republican electoral gains, and certain jurists and attorneys, such as Oliver Diaz and Paul Minor, were also deemed dangerous to the interests of Republican allies in big business.
As Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Brendan DeMille recently reported, while urging the release of Paul Minor, a study by University of Missouri professors Donald Shields and John Cragan, showed that "eighty percent of the Bush DOJ's political investigations targeted Democrats -- 5.6 Democrats for every Republican investigated by U.S. attorneys for political misconduct. Shields noted in Congressional testimony that 'such selective investigation and prosecution rates' represent a clear bias in the severely disproportionate 'political profiling' of Democrats under Bush."
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld most charges against Gov. Siegelman, with everyone involved deliberately ignoring the huge elephant in that courtroom—i.e., that post-trial revelations, deemed inadmissible by the appellate judges, pointed to serious political concoction as well as prosecutorial abuse. The governor should not have to wait months, or years, for a court to address these issues when you have the authority to do so at once.
And then there is Paul Minor, an attorney now in federal prison for a "crime" related to the funding of Democratic candidates and causes. Minor's wife is dying of breast cancer in a hospital in Baton Rouge. Last month, he was given a three-hour pass to spend a moment with her (under supervision), but she had no chance to talk to him, because she had been given her pain medication, and lay fast asleep throughout his visit. Why should this man have to spend another hour away from his wife's bedside, awaiting the decision of some court, when the clear partisan motivations behind his prosecution should lead your department to withdrawing charges, just as you did in the Stevens case.
Selective prosecution based on impermissible political considerations constitutes prosecutorial misconduct at least as egregious as that found in Senator Stevens' case. We therefore ask that you immediately order the dismissal of charges against Don Siegelman and Paul Minor, and move quickly to investigate and identify other cases mounted by the Bush Administration for political advantage and, where appropriate, vacate them immediately. Only through such righteous action, which is wholly in your power, can we be sure that justice will, at last, be done, and the public's confidence in our great legal system can begin to be thoroughly restored.
Sincerely,
Brad Friedman
David Swanson
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)