So sad......Thoughts and prayers to all who were affected....... by Pam Rappleyea Vredenburgh
Margaritaville
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
The Pledge of Allegiance
Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go!
08/21/2011
In other news, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is planning to nearly quadruple the size of his 3,009 square foot home in San Diego, valued at $12 million, by bulldozing it and replacing it with a 11,062 square foot home.
That darn Obama sure has wrecked the economy of Mitt Romney and other wealthy businessmen who made their fortunes by firing people.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
The Driver Seat
Joy Drive
Copyright ©2011, Chattanooga Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
Monday, July 25, 2011
The GOP Is Out To Destroy Government, Not Reduce the Deficit
Saturday, July 23rd, 2011
On Friday evening, the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, officially ended negotiations with President Obama over the debt ceiling by walking out of the talks and then refusing to take phone calls from the White House. In a letter released after he walked out of the talks, Boehner claimed that President Obama was refusing to agree to real spending cuts and was asking for too many tax increases. But in reality, President Obama offered more than $1 trillion in cuts to discretionary spending (including military spending), and $650 billion in reductions in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security spending, and asked for $1.2 trillion in increased revenue coming from closing loopholes and subsidies but not increasing tax rates. And this proposal followed others that were similarly tilted toward the conservative position. In fact, the offers being made by President Obama were so tilted that a number of conservative commentators thought it ridiculous that the House GOP was refusing to accept the deal.
So, what gives? Why is the GOP refusing to accept a deal that is more than favorable to their claimed interest in reducing the deficit? The answer is simple – today’s Republican Party does not actually believe in deficit reduction, but instead is holding our country’s fiscal solvency hostage in order to achieve radical ideological and political goals.
The ideological motivation for conservatives here is that they think they finally have within their grasp their dream of drowning in the bathtub any portion of government that benefits the middle class, working class, or poor. They have long wanted to destroy Medicare, Social Security, investments in infrastructure and education, and the social safety net, but they know that such steps would be politically disastrous for them. So, Republicans have spent the past 30 years driving up deficits in order to create a situation where voters feel that we “must” destroy government programs in order to restore fiscal sanity.
That is why the Republicans drove the deficits up during the Reagan and W. Bush Administrations. That is why Rep. Paul Ryan’s Path to Poverty plan devotes all of the “savings” from abolishing Medicare and cutting social programs to further reductions in taxes for the wealthy, rather than to deficit reduction. That is why the GOP opposes President Obama’s to rationalize health care spending, cutting corporate subsidies, or reining in military spending. And that is why the Republicans are opposing a balanced approach to deficit reduction that involves both spending cuts and revenue increases and, instead, pushing for a “Cut, Cap, and Balance” approach that involves $5.5 trillion in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and discretionary social spending, and zero in new revenue. Their priority is destroying government, not reducing the deficit.
The GOP’s pathological intransigence is also motivated by the cold economic calculation that a bad economy bodes well for their desire to defeat President Obama in 2012. That is why from the day that President Obama took office in January 2009, the Republicans have done everything they can to prevent job creation, including weakening the stimulus bill, filibustering TANF and extended unemployment benefits, refusing to approve non-controversial appointees to important positions in the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve, and opposing tax relief to small businesses and a temporary cut in payroll taxes that they supported before Obama was President. And in 2010, the GOP campaigned on jobs, but they still have yet to propose any legislation that would create actual jobs. And now they are already rattling the economy and the markets by pushing our nation to the brink of having to default on its debt. As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has made clear, the Republicans’ number one priority is not job creation or economic recovery but, instead, is to try to ensure that President Obama is defeated in 2012. Holding the debt ceiling increase hostage in the name of dismantling our government is a critical part of the GOP’s attempt to achieve that goal.
In short, the GOP has walked away from the debt ceiling negotiations because their goals are destroying government and defeating President Obama, not because they want to reduce the deficit. It is sad that today’s GOP has put their ideological hatred of government that helps anyone but the rich, and their dislike of our President, ahead of the good of our nation. But the reality is that the GOP has, which makes it necessary for all of us to make sure those folks do not have any significant political power after the 2012 elections. Help rescue America from the Republican hostage takers by “Sharing” this post and by writing a letter to your local newspaper editor.
Copyright 2011 Winning Progressive
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Tea Party Nation Targets John Boehner, Mitch McConnell On Debt Ceiling
7/19/11
As contentious negotiations continue on the issue of raising the nation's debt limit in Washington, a Tea Party group is accusing House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of "betraying" the coalition of conservative activists with their actions in the ongoing debate.
Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips said in astatement, “Boehner and McConnell are the predatory credit card issuers of the Entitlement State, they’re about to renew Obama’s cancelled Mastercard, and they want to saddle America’s grandchildren with all of the bills.” He warned of efforts on the right to recruit conservative challengers to take on "House GOP RINOs" in primary races in the next election cycle. According to Phillips, the issue of who will be targeted comes down to one simple question: "Did the member vote for the McConnell-Boehner cave-in or for any cheap giveaway of more national debt?”
The AP reports on the state of talks to raise the debt ceiling as of midday Tuesday:
House Republicans pushed ahead Tuesday toward a vote on legislation that would raise the nation's debt limit in exchange for trillions of dollars in federal spending cuts and congressional approval of a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget.
But with the measure facing a veto threat from the White House, Speaker John Boehner said he was exploring other alternatives to avoid a government default threatened for Aug. 2."I do think it's responsible for us to look at what Plan B would look like," he said at a news conference a few hours before the opening of debate on the legislation backed by conservative lawmakers.
Reuters reports on a contentious proposal to raise the deficit limit put forth by McConnell:
McConnell's plan to avert an imminent U.S. debt default could lead to a day of reckoning for his Republicans as they weigh the prospect of fiscal disaster against the demands of Tea Party activists.
With other efforts to raise the federal government's debt ceiling at a standstill, McConnell's "Plan B" to avoid default is increasingly seen as "Plan A" in Washington.The proposal by the top Republican in the Senate would dump the task into the laps of President Barack Obama and his Democrats, forcing them to back a $2.4 trillion increase in borrowing before the November 2012 elections as recession-weary voters worry about the country's growing mountain of debt.
A small bipartisan group of senators is also working to advance a plan to raise the debt ceiling.According to the Treasury Department, the United States is set to begin the process of defaulting on its debts on August 2.
(Click here for the latest developments to unfold in the deficit debate. )
Below, the statement released by Tea Party Nation on Tuesday.
TEA PARTY RIPS “BOEHNER-McCONNELL RINOS” FOR DEBT CEILING CAVE-IN
TEA PARTY NATIONAL CONVENTION
TO RECRUIT HOUSE GOP PRIMARY CHALLENGERSCandidate Scorecards: “Zero or 100%, nothing in between.”(WASHINGTON, DC – July 19) As House Republicans prepared a Tuesday vote for $2.4 trillion in new national debt, Tea Party leaders ripped Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for betraying the movement that put Republicans in charge of the lower chamber last year.“Boehner and McConnell are the predatory credit card issuers of the Entitlement State, they’re about to renew Obama’s cancelled Mastercard, and they want to saddle America’s grandchildren with all of the bills,” said Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation (www.teapartynation.com), the country’s oldest, largest and most active Tea Party umbrella group.Phillips said the Tea Party National Convention he’s chairing this fall “will focus on recruiting conservative primary challengers to House GOP RINOs and frosh complicit in any giveaway of more borrowing authority to President Obama.The Tea Party’s 2012 scorecard for this Congress will have just one issue: Did the Member vote for the McConnell-Boehner cave-in or for any cheap giveaway of more national debt?” In Tea Party parlance, “RINO” means “Republican-In-Name-Only.”Allen Unruh, founder of Tea Party South Dakota and director of the Tea Party Founding Fathers, added that “RINOs voting wrong will win a big, fat zero on their Tea Party credit rating. Their FICO scores will crash along with their careers as we push Tea Party-backed opponents in the primary, the general election or both. Meanwhile, Members who don’t vote wrong will win a 100% score plus the fervent loyalty of our people in their district. It’s zero or 100%, nothing in between.”Phillips announced that the 2011 Tea Party National Convention, originally scheduled for Kansas City, KS with his support, has been reset for a new state based on strategic electoral considerations and the desires of a new group of funders. Phillips said, “We and our capital sources felt that Kansas was the wrong place for our movement to gather this fall because it’s not an early primary state, not a swing state, and not blue-state territory where Tea Partiers might recapture turf from the left. Instead, the new, currently-secret location we’ll soon be announcing for our late fall event will empower our movement to slingshot into 2012 for the same kind of impact we had in 2010.”Phillips said, “House Republicans can’t let Obama keep borrowing 40 cents on each dollar of federal spending. The ratings agencies have clearly said Congress must cut back on the federal credit card.” He said Tuesday’s planned House vote to condition a debt hike on sending a constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment to the states was good, but that “voting for the ‘Cut, Cap and Balance’ plan won’t save you from the Tea Party’s wrath if you ultimately vote for a cheap giveaway of more debt to Obama, as McConnell and Boehner are planning.“A failed CCB bill gets you no cover. The ONLY way any Republican may get forgiveness from us is if he obtains a high price tag like $500 billion in 2012 first-year cuts, defunding of Obamacare and Planned Parenthood, sweeping reform of all health care entitlements such as Medicare, and actual Congressional passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment,” Phillips said.Phillips founded the country’s first Tea Party umbrella group in early 2009 and hosted Sarah Palin at the original Tea Party National Convention at Nashville in February, 2010. According to web metrics from Alexa, Tea Party Nation’s website leads all other Tea Party websites for traffic. Phillips said he is inviting William Temple, chair of the Kansas-planned event, to serve as a spokesman for the 2011 Tea Party National Convention now to be held elsewhere. “Upon final approval of this strategic new location by our funders and convention board,” said Phillips, “we’ll be unveiling an amazing, technology-based strategy for hunting RINOs and defeating Democrats in 2012, starting with this fall’s Tea Party National Convention.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/19/tea-party-debt-ceiling_n_903597.html
Copyright © 2011 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Serious People Reject Unserious Eric Cantor
Bob CescaBob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go!
07/14/2011
Behind the scenes, leading members of both parties have concluded that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is an impediment to resolving the debt limit standoff, and should back down. Now, Democrats are publicly calling for him to get real or go home.“House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has shown that he’s shouldn’t even be at the table,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in a blistering floor speech Thursday morning. “And Republicans agree.”
Oh yeah. Cantor belongs with the Crazy Caucus (Steve King, Michele Bachmann, Louie Gohmert), not in a negotiation where the entire American economy is at stake — an economy he’s personally betting against by short selling t-bills. That alone should have disqualified him from the beginning.
Copyright 2011 Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go!
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
A Hand In The Talks
“Republicans need to accept the need to raise more revenue.” Bill O’Reilly
When Republicans lose O’Reilly, they should probably begin to panic.
JM Ashby
Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go!
July 13, 2011
Artist – Dave Granlund
When Republicans lose O’Reilly, they should probably begin to panic.
Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go!
July 13, 2011
In other news, Congressman Ron Paul has announced that he is retiring from congress and will not seek reelection, and a city clerk in New York decided she would rather quit her job than be forced to sign a single same-sex marriage license. Good riddance to both.
Copyright 2011 Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go!
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Pathetic Republican Children
Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go!
07/10/2011
The other day on the podcast, I said the Republican will not compromise in any way shape or form. And two days later…
WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner is rejecting President Obama’s offer to make historic cuts to the federal government and the social safety net, saying in a statement Saturday evening that he can not agree to the tax increases Democrats insisted on as part of the bargain. [...]Obama had proposed to Republicans a “grand bargain” that accomplished a host of individual things that are unpopular on their own, but that just might pass as a huge package jammed through Congress with default looming. Obama offered to put Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts on the table in exchange for a tax hike of roughly $100 billion per year over 10 years.
They know the president will be a grownup and try to reach an agreement in order to avert disaster. And they’re using it against him in order to get what they want — everything. The president’s only recourse here is to stonewall and give them nothing.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Not Even Hiding It Anymore
Broadway Carl's Blog-O-Mania!
Friday, July 8, 2011
If there was any doubt that the Republican Party has no problem with sacrificing the American economy, the American people, the unemployed and underemployed in the country, and possibility of sending the world into a global recesssion, then look no further than at one of its shining stars. They're not even trying to hide the notion that they're selling America down the river solely for political gain.
“Does it strike you that as the unemployment rate goes up, your chances of winning office also go up?” host Carl Quintanilla asked. “Well, that could be. Again, I hope so,” Bachmann replied.
http://www.broadwaycarl.com/2011/07/not-even-hiding-it-anymore.html
Copyright 2011 Broadway Carl's Blog-O-Mania!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Big Oil Welfare
Progress Reports | ThinkProgress
July 6, 2011
GOP Tax Giveaway of the Day: Big Oil Subsidies
Oil from a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline is coursing through the picturesque Yellowstone Riveras we speak, but Big Oil’s real gusher is located on Capitol Hill. Big Oil’s best friends in Congress make sure that year after year, billions of dollars in taxpayer funds flow into the coffers of the most profitable companies the world has ever known. In return, Big Oil spends millions each year to make sure that its friends keep their seats.
Here’s why it’s time to make the easiest of all choices — the one to end taxpayer-funded giveaways to Big Oil.
WHAT: Wasteful and unnecessary taxpayer subsidies for oil companies
HOW MUCH THEY WASTE: $77 BILLION from 2011-2021
WHO BENEFITS: Oil companies large and small, including the five largest oil companies who raked in $32 BILLION in profits in just the first quarter of 2011. ExxonMobil alone made nearly $11 billion in profits during the first quarter of this year.
WHO ELSE BENEFITS: Big Oil’s friends in Congress benefit from millions in campaign cash from the oil and gas industry. During the 2010 election cycle alone, the oil and gas industry pumpedmore than $21 MILLION into congressional campaign accounts — more than three-quarters of which went to Republicans. These same Republicans have voted repeatedly — and nearly unanimously — in favor of keeping oil subsidies over the past several months. In addition to lavish spending on direct campaign contributions, the oil and gas industry also spent awhopping $145 MILLION last year to lobby Congress.
DINNER TABLE FAST FACTS:
- The average American pays an effective federal income tax rate of 20.4 percent, while ExxonMobil had an effective tax rate of just 17.6 percent over the past three years. That is of course far below the statutory corporate tax rate of 35 percent.
- Even Big Oil CEOs themselves admit that they don’t need the subsidies. ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva told Congress: “With respect to oil and gas exploration and production,we do not need incentives.”
IN ONE SENTENCE: Instead of ending Medicare to pay for more tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and huge corporations, we need to end the billions in taxpayer giveaways to Big Oil.
IN ONE CHART:
NOTABLE QUOTABLE — former President George W. Bush: “I will tell you with $55 oil we don’t need incentives to the oil and gas companies to explore. There are plenty of incentives. What we need is to put a strategy in place that will help this country over time become less dependent.” (Bush said this in 2005 when oil was around $55 a barrel; oil is currently hovering around $95 a barrel.)
Evening Briefing: Important Stories That You May Have Missed
Republicans have officially unveiled a slash-and-burn budget plan for the environment, with drastic cuts to environmental agencies and numerous riders to exempt polluters from science-based regulation.
The Republicans’ proposed increase in military spending over the next six years is almost as much as their proposed transportation budget in total.
What’s wrong with the Obama administration’s Medicaid cuts.
Ten ways for the new Arab democracies to not make American mistakes.
U.S. military presence worldwide 1950-2007.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claims a U.S. presence in Iraq past 2011 wouldn’t necessarily comprise “combat troops.”
If only 25 of the nation’s top hedge fund managers lost their tax loophole, the U.S. governmentwould get $4 billion a year in extra revenue.
The only reason GOP presidential hopeful Michelle Bachmann got a law degree was becauseher husband told her to do it, and because God told her to listen to her husband.
Alto, a Texas town with a rising crime rate already above the state average, laid off its entire police force due to budget cuts, leading some residents to carry guns around.
Georgtown professor Hans Noel suggests in an interview with Columbia Journalism Review that political journalists should zoom out at look at the party rather than the candidate, which Matt Yglesias thinks exposes a Michele Bachmann weakness.
Reflecting on a photography show about contemporary Vietnam he saw, Philip Weiss looks to the Middle East and hopes that U.S. and other conflicts there need not create resentment forever.
© 2005-2011 Center for American Progress Action Fund
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