The Republican Brotherhood

There's been a lot of controversy over  the Muslim Brotherhood's Muhammad Morsi's actions in Egypt. What a lot of people don't know about The Muslim Brotherhood is that it is severely conservative. It is a lot like the most conservative part of the GOP. That would be the American political equivalent. Some Republicans would find that very attractive, say a Republican like Grover Norquist. Norquist was the director of the Islamic Free Market Institute, which was partially funded by a group called the SAAR Foundation, it was dissolved after being raided by Federal agents because of it's ties to terrorist activities and The Muslim Brotherhood. Yeah, all American Norquist, Mr. Conservative, took money from an Arabian millionaire who was funding Al-Queda*. That's old news, so is the fact that Crossroads GPS, Karl Rove's non-profit donated  $4 million to Norquist's American' For Tax Reform fan club.
There's an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about Norquist and his tax pledge influencing American policy. He and Rove missed the message that voters sent in November along with his handmaidens, Boehner and McConnel who are in denial too. I guess they didn't miss the message, they just don't care. They would rather jump off a political cliff than raise taxes on the wealthiest 1%.
The U.S. rank  in income inequality is the extreme end along with Camaroon, Madagascar, Rwanda to name a few. Actually we are more on a level with China. Egypt's and Tunisia's revolts were really about income inequality. If something isn't done about this issue perhaps the United States will be next.
It makes me angry to know that Norquist, Rove, Boehner and McConnel are willing to destroy this country rather than raise taxes on the wealthy. We haven't had income disparity like this since 1774.
Kevin Drum wrote about the latest idea for revenue in Mother Jones about getting rid of tax brackets for the rich, which pretty much throws some rich people under the bus in order to favor the super rich. What's happening is that any way the Republicans can find to not say they raised taxes, to save face, that's what's they might go for. Basically this country is being held hostage by conservative ideology  despite the fact that most Americans don't agree with them. Meanwhile, these fake fiscal conservatives allow defense spending to skyrocket. Republican's are not going to raise taxes on the rich. They will let the Bush tax cuts expire, the easiest choice for them is to do nothing, it's easier for President Obama too. I guess it's doomsday and we're headed for the fiscal cliff.

*SAAR Foundation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You Can Get Anything You Want, At The Food Pantry

I torture my kids with Alice's Restaurant every year. We talk about Arlo and that usually leads to a conversation about Woody Guthrie. Then I start thinking about the Great Depression. Maybe we are luckier today then during that desperate time. As rich as this country is, we still have:

• In 2011, 46.2 million people (15.0 percent) were in poverty.
• In 2011, 9.5 million (11.8 percent) families were in poverty.
• In 2011, 26.5 million (13.7 percent) of people ages 18-64 were in poverty.
• In 2011, 16.1 million (22.0 percent) children under the age of 18 were in poverty.
• In 2011, 3.6 million (9.0 percent) seniors 65 and older were in poverty.
• The overall Poverty Rate according to the Supplemental Poverty Measure is 16.0%, as compared with the official poverty rate of 15.1%.ⁱⁱ

Under the Supplemental Poverty Measure, there are 49.1 million people living in poverty, 2.5 million more than are represented by the official poverty measure (46.2 million)
It is crazy to me that there is this much poverty in a country that can produce drones and unending war. No one talks about the war on poverty, not anymore. Which brings me to food insecurity. The biggest factor in terms of food insecurity is unemployment. The BLS says we have an unemployment rate of  7.9% which I believe, is a bunch of B.S. so many people are underemployed or so underpaid, that they need government assistance. (read Walmart, which gives employee's applications for foodstamps and medicaid) Some people are working 2 jobs, just to survive.
So lets all panic over the "fiscal cliff". What isn't acknowledged is how many Americans went over the "fiscal cliff" when the Great Recession started in 2008. Many, too many, are still unemployed. I have not heard of any comprehensive jobs legislation discussed by any Congressperson or Senator, or the President. As a matter of fact, there is a jobs bill for veterans, that is stuck in the Senate. It's a disgrace that these asses can't even pull it together for veterans. So I don't hold out much hope on the situation improving in the future, since we all can just magically pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, if you just work hard enough.....yada, yada, yada..Oh and we're broke. Whatever.
So, really, you can get anything you want, at the local food pantry, if they have it that is.
 I work with a girl who has three kids and she has to get food at a food pantry, her husband has been unemployed for so long, they can't make ends meet. Then there are all the people who have lost everything in the storm, waiting for FEMA to cut them a check, they lost all their food, that is if they didn't lose everything else. If you go grocery shopping, you know how expensive everything is. So a lot of people have nothing, through no fault of their own.
Can we stop the war, please and take care of our own? Can we stop whining that we are broke, because we are not. We spend American taxpayer money on all the wrong things. Our priority should be a jobs program for any one who wants to work. No one, in this country should have to go hungry, ever.
 Happy Thanksgiving.

Farcical Fiscal Fairytales

Accurate Portrait of George Bush By Daily Kos

The Senate and Congress are on Thanksgiving break. I am guessing that there's not much negotiating going on over the "Fiscal Cliff". I would like to know who is going to back away from the edge? The President campaigned on extending the Bush tax cuts for families that made less than $250,000.
Republicans say that tax increases inhibit job growth. (Like all the jobs haven't been outsourced during the last ten years.)
This sounds like a job for "continuing resolutions".
In other words, just stall. This has been the tactic that has been used since the President was elected four years ago.
Some people were deeply disappointed by "The Grand Bargain" the President made last year, that would have changed what we know as Social Security and Medicare.
Paul Ryan essentially wants Social Security to be turned into private accounts. Which would leave the poor and the orphaned in poverty. This is where we are heading if the Republicans get their way.
I have a question. Where did the 2.7 trillion dollars in the self-funded Social Security fund go? Apparently someone writing for Forbes wondered the same thing.
I want to go a step further. The Republicans like to say that Social Security is "broke", but no one really explains how it got that way. In 1983 Reagan started the looting of Social Security. By 2005 Bush was pushing to privatize Social Security and told Americans there were no funds in the Social Security Trust Fund. "Just a bunch of IOU's".
Congress decided to start "borrowing" the Social Security money, trading it for special Treasury bonds.
Remember, this happened under the sainted Reagan Administration.You didn't hear any Republicans crying about deficits back then. But apparently Reagan was spending so much money, they had to borrow it from Social Security. Make sense? Hell no. 
Now that we don't have a surplus in Social Security like we used to, we have to use these bonds, in order to borrow money from China or elsewhere to keep our government running.
That is just part of the "Fiscal Cliff". The other part being our Department of Defense, endless wars, that have cost us over a trillion dollars.You don't hear McConnell or Boehner crying about that. However,  they do cry that we're broke and poor people, old people, disabled people and our veterans can just suck it. Remember this, when the President wants the bill that passed the Senate last July, to get pushed through Congress. This will extend the tax cuts for families making under $250,000 and let the tax cuts expire for the wealthy. “If we get that in place, we are actually removing half of the fiscal cliff,” Obama said this week. “Half of the danger to our economy is removed by that single step.” I am betting they won't do it. With the stupid Grover Norquist pledge, the Republicans won't pass anything and we will go right over this "cliff". That  means over $55 billion will be cut from the Defense budget every year till 2022. Meaning all those lobbies and their corporate interests can just suck it. Both Boehner and our President get political contributions from corporations like Raytheon .

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83953.html#ixzz2CaWTS4xi

So I say let's jump. I have had enough of spending money on useless wars. I'm tired of the lies about Social Security. The moral of this story is greed. The theft of the funds from Social Security. The profit driven war machine that squanders lives and is bankrupting this country. It needs to stop and so does all the crying that John Boehner is famous for.

Miscarriage Of Justice

Whatever you do, don't have a miscarriage in Ireland. Whether you,  personally are Catholic or not, you can't have an abortion. Even if it's medically necessary. Even if it would save your daughters life, your sisters life, your wife. The lives of women are worth less than an unborn fetus.
There is going to be an inquiry investigating how this woman could have died of blood poisoning, being repeatedly refused an abortion, after having been told her 17 week old fetus would not survive.
It sounds like the Catholic Taliban is running Ireland.
This is just another example of how deadly religion can be.
The woman who died, her name was Savita Halappanavar.  She was of Indian descent. Guess what? Not a Catholic! That doesn't matter. She might have been better off going to Belfast. Belfast does have an abortion clinic. However the Abortion Act of 1967, does not extend to Northern Ireland. If you need an abortion, get the hell out of Ireland. They really go Medieval on it.
Methinks there is going to be a great big lawsuit over this. But will anything actually change? It sounds like Rick Santorum is the Chief  of Gynecology and Obstetrics over there. How many woman have died in this country of Catholics, because they medically needed an abortion?  I wonder if any women will be in the "independent investigation"? Since it's a "Catholic country" I guess only Catholics will be investigating. Sounds ludicrous, but there you have it. Science and Biology don't seem to count for much, since religion and the sanctity of the womb, trumps sanity. Withholding medical treatment on religious grounds, usually, this happens when a parent prevents their child from receiving medical treatment. In this case, the patient requested medical treatment and was denied by the doctors, in a wierd religious reversal, that cost this woman her life. Maybe some doctors will lose their jobs, maybe the hospital will lose a lot of money. Because of their inaction a family lost a daughter, a wife, a sister, a niece. A 17 week old, non-viable fetus, was more valuable than the life of this woman.

RIP Savita

General Betrayus

Some women can't resist a man in uniform.

Oh wow, General "Betrayus" had an affair. Guess what? No one cares. There sure is a lot of outrage though, especially in the media, I guess they don't have much to report on now that the election's over. Rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy, well, that's kind of boring, who wants to watch someone throw all their crap to the curb and wait for FEMA? Not American journalists, especially when there is scandal in the air. When something so absurd, like a married guy having sex with someone besides his wife is headline news, it makes me wonder what we should really be looking at.
There is a real scandal, it's called Afghanistan.
Back in 2010 General Petraeus sure had a hard on for the U.S. strategy for Afghanistan stating that it was, "fundamentally sound"
Does anyone remember this? On April 23, 2008, Secretary of Defense Gates announced that President Bush was nominating General Petraeus to command U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM)*
I wish I knew why a Bush appointee is head of the CIA, but President Obama, for some unforeseen reason has kept a lot of Bush cronies in his administration.
The General is the leading expert on counter-insurgency terrorism in the country. Weird, that the General is now terrorized by this scandal that will probably ruin his career.
But, I digress.
I know, now we have an exit plan for the war Bush started, that never should have happened. American men and women are still dying, but all the attention is focused on this stupid affair. No one is outraged by another unfortunate American son or daughter who dies on Afghan soil. That war was barely mentioned in the elections. It's like it's already over, except for the people who are still fighting it, and the veterans who live with the consequences every single day. We just passed Veterans Day, with gratitude to the people who fought and still fight for our country. Our gift to our veterans? A leader who's a disgrace, not because he had an affair, but because he was Bush's puppet, parroting strategies that were and still are wrong. But no one is going to acknowledge that. The MSM is all over pointing out how wrong the Generals behavior is, in their puritanical war on sex. The real scandal is the death and destruction going on in Afghanistan. In America, war means never having to say your sorry.
*Wikipedia

Republican Civil War

The scariest thing about this guy? He is third in line to the White House. He doesn't care that President Obama was re-elected and the American people have spoken. He wants to keep the American economy from improving, by saying no to everything the President wants to do, in an effort to keep Republicans in office or elect new ones in 2014.
The last time the "fiscal cliff" leaped to our attention, President Obama wanted to use Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to induce the Republican Party to compromise. A Democrat, actually wanted to cut what is left of the social safety net. All in an effort to get a party that will not negotiate, to agree to Obama's "Grand Bargain". I do not have much faith that the President will not do this again.
President Obama does not have to agree to anything Boehner or McConnell suggest.

It's called an Executive Order. He has used it 139 times. George W(orst President Ever) used it a total of  291 times and neither Boehner or McConnell cried about it. They didn't cry about the deficit either. Both of these scumbags have no problem with the supposed end of the world apocolypse of "the fiscal cliff". This supposed fiscal fiasco is due to the GOP catering to the wealthy and corporations who are sitting on billions of offshore money that is not taxed. Then there are the Bush tax cuts that favor the 1%.
The only thing that the GOP WILL do, is create a way for the middle class to pay more taxes, while privatizing Social Security, the banks can't wait to get their greedy hands on it.  If anything like this happens, then we will know who President Obama is really working for.
It seems to me, the only thing that the GOP could agree on was getting rid of President Obama, they failed, at a cost to the American people when they could have accomplished something during an economic crises. Why in the world do these twits keep getting elected?
There is a lot of speculation that there is some kind of internal Republican civil war going on, since they had such an epic fail this past election. I don't care about that, they deserve to implode. What concerns me the most is the outright rebellion and traitorous behavior to this country these two men preside over. It is not going to end just because the American people spoke. The only thing they care about is money and the next election.
Lets see if President Obama will do the right thing and stop compromising with people who do not put our country first, who would see it destroyed, rather than allow the President to have any success moving this country forward. I am afraid, with McConnell and Boehner in office there will be little chance of that happening.

Stuff It, Bill O'Reilly! Rove Is Crying!

People want "things". Yeah it's true! They want "things" Like decent, affordable healthcare. They want "things" like food stamps and Medicaid for our fellow citizens that are less fortunate. We want the same rights for the LGBT community that everyone else has. We want kindness and acceptance for the immigrants who come to this country. We want you to stay out of our vagina's.
So good bye, Old White Man and your outdated, outmoded way of thinking. Now, if only we could vote Fox News out of existence. That "stuff" needs to go. I don't want any of that "stuff"!
 Oh dear, white man Karl Rove couldn't believe that Obama won Ohio! Guess your assault on voters rights didn't work out to well.

Whether Fox New's believes it or not, ROMNEY LOST!  The "Decision Desk" even said so, but Rove was still crying because his numbers weren't adding up, not only do Republicans not believe in science, they don't believe in math either. Fail Karl Rove, when you said "there's only 900 votes in it" and literally 5 minutes later the update comes in saying Obama is 30,000 votes ahead. I hope that Rove's career is over after spending over $300 million on a losing candidate. "A cautionary note" for Rove, surely. Now would you please crawl back under the rock you came out of and leave civilization to pick up the pieces of your 2 corrupt administrations of George "Worst President Ever" Bush. O'Reilly can follow you with his lily white tail between his legs.

For What It's Worth.

I just got done dropping off bottles of bleach, sponges, anything to help the devastation in my area. There  is looting  going on and people are sitting in whats left of their houses with guns. There is a presidential election going on. Yes, people got out and rocked the vote. But what I would have liked to see, is both candidates donate all their money, from both the RNC and the DNC, to the devastation I am walking through daily in New Jersey, or New York. Billions of dollars that could help so many victims. For what it's worth.

pic from APP Press.

                                                       Look whats"s going down.
Stephen Stills for what it's worth http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/stephen-stills-on-mitt-romney-i-never-thought-id-see-a-creepier-politician-than-nixon-20121029

This Land Is 1% Land Or How Hurricane Sandy Took Back Her Beach.

I live in Ocean County, New Jersey. About 20 minutes from Long Beach Island. It may be months before residents can return there. They shut down the gas line. There is no power. Authorities don't know when they will be able to restore it. There has been a lot of coverage on this tragedy. Many people lost everything.
Here's an article from The Atlantic City Press, specifically about my town. Nothing could prepare Tuckerton Beach residents to see the devastation, one says - pressofAtlanticCity.com: Ocean County News
The devastation IS unbelievable. The Press interviewed one home owner from Old Tappan, Bergen County. There is another homeowner, from Wycoff, Bergen County. The point I want to make is these are people's second homes. They watched the hurricane from safer places in Northern New Jersey. They were not evacuated, unlike the people in this community who live here and that is the only home they have, or had. In the article, it stated that people with these summer homes will rebuild, if FEMA gives them the money. Also many of them had no flood insurance. Building houses on the water can be costly in so many ways.

If you go to Long Beach Island, you will see signs like this. These signs are not legally enforceable, but a lot of the people who have summer homes on LBI, want to keep the Riff Raff, off "their" beach. The irony is that they can't even get onto the island now.
No amount of their hedge fund money is going to change that fact.
Barbara Ehrenreich wrote an excellent book, "This Land Is Their Land" which explains the inequality that is New Jersey. "If a place is truly beautiful, you can't afford to be there." You pretty much can't if you are an hourly employee from the middle or lower class or a fisherman trying to eke out a living in Barnegat Bay. Why?
 Because New Jersey has the highest tax rate in the country, it is double the national average. This land will not belong to you and me. We won't be able to afford it. There are many people who live on LBI and in my community who are just plain hard working people who live in poverty thanks to Walmart wages.
 The Tea Party is big here, as you can imagine with the tax situation being what it is.
It is going to be interesting to see who is going to be able to rebuild in New Jersey.
Is anyone going to ask how we should rebuild? Is it really a good idea to be building houses on barrier islands or right on the water and then wonder why everything has been swept away? Will there even be a conversation about green technology? I live 18 miles away from Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant. This ancient behemoth was designed by the same engineers that built Fukishima. It is the oldest nuclear power plant in the country. It is scheduled to shut down with in the next 10 years. As far as I know, there's no plan to do anything to replace that source of energy. We need to be a lot smarter about how this is going to be done and how affordable it will be.
I have been told that FEMA trailers will be available, for 500 residents that are still at the local high school. They have no winter home in Florida to go to or a mansion in North Jersey. When people start crying about losing their summer home, I don't have any pity. I wonder if they will even think of the waitress who served them dinner on a balmy summer evening, or the cashier at the store where they purchased their beach toys? The people who lost the only home they had. These are the people the 1% don't want on "their" beach, I think Sandy just took "their" beach back.

Shelter From The Storm, Bush In The Cayman Islands

Oh gee, who was giving a speech in the Cayman Islands Thursday night? George Gilligan Bush.
My bad, looks like he actually can leave the country.
Bush really has an uncanny knack for escaping natural disasters by taking to the skies and when he decides to come back to earth, it's never good. It does come to mind that Mitt Rmoney's Cayman Island offshored accounts have been out of the spot light lately.
Tax shelters, Swiss bank accounts and where exactly are those tax returns anyway?
Never mind!
George W. Bush submitted 9 years of tax returns. John McCain? only 2. It doesn't take a mathematician to add up the tax benefits from the 8 years of the Bush administration and why there isn't much financial information from Romney either. Oh the benefits of an island jaunt, not just for you, but your cash too.
Maybe George "Worst President Ever" needed to escape the horrifying memories of Katrina as the U.S. tried to deal with the wreckage of Sandy. A trip to sunnier skies and $4,000 a plate dinners were just the ticket. While "Shrub" sips Champagne (whoops! he's not allowed to do that!) and nibbles on Fois Gras, I imagine his thoughts wander to the little people in New Jersey and New York. Yeah Right!
Just like he flew away from 9-11 and flew over Katrina and finally landed to pat "Heckuva Job Brownie" on the back. He flew away from another natural disaster, in search of friendlier skies.

Fema Trailers And Government Failure, "Heckuva Job Brownie!"

"Heckuva Job Brownie" has opened his pie hole to criticize President Obama for responding too quickly to Hurricane Sandy. That's like calling 911 and saying the responders showed up too fast.
According to Brownie, "at some point somebody, somewhere, is going to ask why Obama showed up so fast". What was President Obama supposed to do? Show up too late? Like George "Worst President Ever"? Do the people in New Jersey think the President showed up too quickly? Only Fox business news would give this douchebag any credence, as if his opinion is worth anything, proving that Fox News is broadcasting from an alternate universe.
Actually, this guy has a lot in common with Queen Anne Rmoney, Brownie's background is horses, he was the head of the Arabian Horse Association, which he left after a series of lawsuits against him.
He was hired by a guy named Joe Albaugh to work for FEMA. This guy was a close associate of Karl Rove, he worked on Bush's 2000 campaign and FEMA was the prize, so Albaugh threw a bone to Brownie as they were both political associates from Oklahoma.
So Brownie knows all about responding to a crises? I am not sure how his ridiculous comments are supposed to help Romney. As a matter of fact Chris Christie, seems to think the President has been very supportive. The rumor going around here in New Jersey is that Romney wanted to come and have a photo-op, but Christie told him to stay away.
 Brown nose has no shame, no memory of the people who lost their lives on his watch.
I think Brownie would be way more effective shoveling out stalls while living in a FEMA trailer. He is the perfect example of government failure.
Romney was asked fourteen times yesterday by reporters if he was going to get rid of FEMA, and never answered.
"Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better." This is Romney's idea for FEMA, privatize it.
Hopefully, Brownies idiotic comments will help cost Romney the presidency. I guess Trump is too busy moving to higher ground and not available for comments, so they had to drag Brownie out of the woodwork. Can't wait to see what lame assclown they pimp out next for Rmoney