Showing posts with label political opinions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label political opinions. Show all posts

Saturday, April 30, 2011

THE TIME TO TAKE ACTION IS NOW



Don’t bitch later that the Republican Teahadists destroyed your benefits

Attend a Local Town Hall


Bring your camera to a local town hall in your area and report back to us on what you see by e-mailing us at rapidresponse@dccc.org.

You can also print out a pledge card and ask your Member of Congress to declare their opposition to benefit cuts.
8.5" x 11" (PDF) | 21" x 36" (PDF)

Can't make it to a town hall?
Use our online form to send a letter to your Member of Congress >>

Thursday, April 28, 2011

NOW THE NEXT LOGICAL STEP FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA IS TO SUE THEIR COLLECTIVE ASSES



If I were the President I would sue Orly Taitz and those who followed her in their injurious allegations.

You see, we do have FREEDOM OF SPEECH in America and you can say almost anything short of yelling “FIRE” in a crowded theater…but injurious, libel, false accusations and lies about a person can ‘t be told without the risk of the injured party bringing a libel law suit against the person who said it.

If the court deemed in the past that Ms. Taitz’ law suits were “FRIVOLOUS” the courts should not stopped there…they should have fined her heavily for consciously lying and defaming the President. As far as Donald Trump is concerned; a vigorous law suit for $500 million dollars should be presented against him. Why? Because he knows that this birth certificate issue is just not fabricated but he is using it to defame and injure the President.

Of course, this is not surprising coming from these fringe-ultra right Republican-Teahadists who can’t win any arguments on facts because they have no grounds; so they attack the President on a personal level…by diminishing his character, his education, his origin they are also fanning the flames of racism…all very injurious not just to President Obama but for America.

PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/Orly%2520Taitz_birth%2520certificate%2520forehead.jpg&imgrefurl=http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2010/08/orly_taitz_says_shell_staple_o.php&usg=__pZ9UoLRYWqsecGVcIxrRMI0UfYg=&h=329&w=282&sz=29&hl=en&start=0&sig2=yv2ARSgD-T4lobFENdC10Q&zoom=1&tbnid=949s8Uz_ALTWNM:&tbnh=138&tbnw=118&ei=gnu4TeeGFsrr0gGz4Mz6Dw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dphotos%2Bof%2Borly%2Btaitz%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D982%26bih%3D544%26tbm%3Disch%26prmd%3Divnso&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=125&vpy=55&dur=1730&hovh=243&hovw=208&tx=142&ty=83&page=1&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0


President Obama releases long form birth certificate

Because this one was not good enough for BIRTHERS


Will this silence them? Nah…they will continue to live in never-never land and since they despise the President so much they will find a way to object or otherwise through Donald Trump or Glenn Beck discredit the disclosure.

I think that it is a sad day in America when the President of the United States is subjected to this kind of baseless, crass and disingenuous scrutiny; IT IS AN INSULT and it is clear it is racially motivated and just as the efforts our President has made to work on a bipartisan, logical, pragmatic way with those who disagree with him and have thrown a wrench on any and all efforts on his part…this too will become a continuing nuisance because birthers will not believe anything even if you were to hit them across the face with a 2X 4.




From http://www.dailykos.com/

Wed Apr 27, 2011

Obama releases long form birth certificate

By Joan McCarter

In the almost certainly futile attempt to put away once and for all questions about his birth, President Obama has released his long form birth certificate.

The President believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn’t good for the country. It may have been good politics and good TV, but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country. Therefore, the President directed his counsel to review the legal authority for seeking access to the long form certificate and to request on that basis that the Hawaii State Department of Health make an exception to release a copy of his long form birth certificate. They granted that exception in part because of the tremendous volume of requests they had been getting. President Barack Obama's long form birth certificate can be seen here (PDF).....

At a time of great consequence for this country—when we should be debating how we win the future, reduce our deficit, deal with high gas prices, and bring stability to the Middle East, Washington, DC, was once again distracted by a fake issue. The President’s hope is that with this step, we can move on to debating the bigger issues that matter to the American people and the future of the country.

Which is all true. But now that this fuel has been added to the flame, will it stop? Fat chance. From Think Progress, here's the headline from Fox News: "White House Releases What It Says Is The President’s Birth Certificate."

Monday, April 25, 2011

The Republican Party is dying

Demographics and pragmatism among younger Americans are killing it; the GOP’s attacks on Labor Unions, Women, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid as well as their blatent xenophobia and homophobia.

That pathetic cry of “they are taking away my America”

Is still resonating in our collective ears; not thinking that this is everybody’s America. It does not belong to a few privileged few at the top 2% of the food chain nor does it belong to the WASPHs any longer. (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Heterosexuals)

If there is a message that came loud and clear in these last November elections was that the Teahadist-Republicans don’t really have a clear mandate and that their party is being pushed to the extreme right when most of America is clearly in the middle. Don’t misinterpret it as a mandate to enact ultra-right wing legislation or to make it a referendum on President Obama. The signs are there if you look for them. The voters wanted government to work, they wanted jobs and the Republicans are hell bent on government to fail because of their inherited mantra “government is the problem”; also they are destroying jobs, not creating them with the dual purpose of making President Obama look bad and to get cheap labor…so that a lot of voters are beginning to have buyer’s remorse.

Wisconsin is a very good indicator of the buyer’s remorse as we have seen voters come out in staggering numbers to protest and now we also see very successful recall efforts. Wisconsin is just the tip of the iceberg…as Republicans push forward this right wing agenda it will spread nationwide.

Just like what has happened in California, it will continue to happen albeit piecemeal and gradually in other parts of the country.

Dante Atkins says: California progressives had been saying it for years: The California Republican Party had no future. It was simple math; at a time when younger voters were becoming increasingly progressive and non-white populations were becoming a larger and larger share of the electorate, a party whose base consisted increasingly of older, white voters would become increasingly marginalized--through demographics alone, if not by ideology.”

You see, the Democratic Party has no litmus test like the Republican Party does. We are not on a crusade to throw under the bus those who are moderates or not fitting the extreme end of the ideology spectrum. But we Democrats, seem to have a general consensus that progressive-liberals know that if we want progress we have to be progressive; if we want social justice we have to be open minded and liberal; if we want to have the free enterprise system work for everyone then it has to have regulations. And most importantly; we know that TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS doesn’t work, taking away from the poor and the middle class to give to the rich is downright immoral.

Lastly, Democrats celebrate diversity, we don’t repudiate it; we know that everyone has to be equal under the laws of our country and that racism and discrimination is wrong…that my friends are facts that none of your fellow American Teahadist-Republicans can “REFUDIATE”. So put that in your collective pipes and smoke it.

As John Boehner would say:

“SO BE IT”


A good article from Dante Atkins on Sun Nov 28, 2010

“Over at Calitics, my fellow Yes, the Republicans made large gains in the recent midterm elections--fueled by a combination of disaffected Democrats, soured independents and a highly motivated conservative base that sincerely believes that Barack Obama is not only responsible for the nation's economic woes, but is also a communist Kenyan Muslim. But while the GOP's gains were comparable in numbers to the 1994 sweep that ushered in the era of Speaker Gingrich, there are significant differences. Most notable is that in 1994, the GOP's gains could be considered the culmination of a gradual shift in the nation's ideology, as the party's gains were relatively evenly distributed across the country. 2010's wave, however, could hardly be considered such a shift, as it followed immediately upon two Democratic wave years. But perhaps more importantly, those gains were concentrated in areas with a particular demographic profile: older, white and working-class. And while the GOP celebrates its gains, these results should actually be the cause of some degree of alarm--especially when combined with the results from California.

Republicans made sweeping gains in Congress, but also in legislative seats and governorships across the country. In California, however? No such luck. No victories in any of the statewide offices. No Congressional seats. No Senate pickup. In fact, Democrats even managed to pick up a seat in the State Assembly. A chief reason why was the prominence of the Latino electorate, which voted strongly for the Democratic ticket in large part because of Meg Whitman's issues with her undocumented housekeeper and her opposition to California's DREAM Act:

One answer lies in the voting patterns of non-whites, who overwhelmingly supported the Democratic ticket. While Democrats weren't the most effective at the national level in inspiring their traditional minority constituencies to come to the ballot box anywhere else, it was a different story in California, where Latinos comprised a whopping 22 percent of the state's electorate, according to the Los Angeles Times. And they voted overwhelmingly Democratic, supporting Brown over Whitman by a margin of 55 points. Whitman said she wanted to be "tough as nails" on undocumented immigrants; her campaign chair was Pete Wilson, who is still persona non grata because of the odious Proposition 187, which denied all public services to undocumented immigrants; she gave a callous and condescending debate response to an undocumented student who inquired as to her position on the DREAM act; and if that weren't enough, the scandal regarding the treatment of her undocumented housekeeper whom she unceremoniously fired after many years of service perpetuated the existing narrative about Whitman's hostility to Latinos, and towards lower-income people in general.

As Robert Cruickshank noted shortly after the election, Whitman defeated Brown among white voters, and among voters age 65 and older. A political party looking for long-term viability would realize that this is not a formula for long-term success in a state--or a country--where non-white voters are becoming an increasingly large share of the electorate. Republicans of all stripes are coming to this realization: the California Republican Party is dead. After all, if you're a Republican and you can't win in the environment that led up to 2010, you probably can't win at all. The question is how to revive it--and this is already leading to a fascinating civil war, as exemplied in Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton's latest column. The conservative wing of the party is hankering for a retreat from the so-called "moderates" such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Meg Whitman and outgoing Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado, who have defined the Party in recent years:

I called Jon Fleischman, a conservative blogger — Flash Report — and Southern California vice chairman of the Republican Party. "Political parties are defined by office-holders and candidates," he says.

"We have been defined by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Meg Whitman. And I don't know that anyone could tell you what the California Republican Party stands for anymore....

"We've watched our brand name get ruined and the party destroyed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Hopefully we can develop a better brand once he's gone."

The problem, of course, is that going hard-right--especially on social issues and immigration--is substantially what cost the GOP the election in California in the first place, because an increasingly Democratic and increasingly non-white electorate is not ready to accept those positions and there is no "silent majority" out there just waiting to be activated by the second coming of Ronald Reagan. And the establishment wing of the party recognizes this as well:

"The Republican Party is now a regional party, not a statewide party, mainly because Republicans no longer are capable of getting people of color to vote for them," says Allan Hoffenblum, a former GOP consultant who publishes the Target Book, which handicaps legislative races.

Everyone who isn't in denial knows what the California GOP must do to survive:

Drop the demagoguery about illegal immigrants because it scares off the fast-growing Latino electorate.

The main problem, of course? The establishment wing of the GOP no longer has a choice in the matter; the Tea Party and the conservative wing are uniting to take stances that will ultimately result in the total marginalization of the Republican Party and of conservative candidates in California. Arizona's draconian and unconstitutional immigration law, SB1070, was a massive motivator of the Latino electorate across the entire West--a factor which aided California's statewide sweep for Democrats, but also ensured that endangered Democrats in other states, such as Harry Reid in Nevada, hung on to win despite a climate in which they might not have been reelected under other circumstances.

Some California conservatives haven't learned from that experience, and are seeking to replicate it. Unlike in Arizona, a law similar to SB1070 could never pass through the heavily Democratic legislature--but California has a popular referendum process, and some Tea Party groups are spearheading an effort to place a similar law on the ballot in California. If they do qualify it in time, the timing couldn't be worse for the GOP, as the initiative would likely appear on the 2012 Presidential Primary ballot. This, in turn, would force the Republican candidates into the same difficult position that they found themselves in over SB1070 earlier: support it to bolster their conservative credentials among the older white male Republican electorate and damage their popularity among the Latinos that they would need to win key Western battleground states, or oppose it to blunt the general election attacks while enraging the Tea Party primary voters.

It's a stark choice. Of course, if Rep. King gets his way and makes even more noise about his unconstitutional bill to overturn the 14th Amendment, it may be a moot point”

SOURCE: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/11/28/922563/-The-California-Republican-Party-is-dead?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29

Friday, April 22, 2011

THE 2009 TOWN HALL MEETINGS GOT PRETTY UGLY…DO YOU REMEMBER?

Sean Duffy

Now the shoe is on the other foot…but there are major differences.

When you look at the origin and the motivation of those who went in to interrupt public discourse, to actually sabotage any attempt at having an elected official interface with the constituents we come up with the fabricated Tea Party. Yes, they were organized and funded by special interests and got their fuel from them. There were professional organizers who got paid to get all these gullible and otherwise ignorant people to show up in the name of freedom and to defend Democracy…at least that what they thought they were doing.

But who can forget the sobbing, pathetic female who said: “they are taking away my America” not realizing that it is everybody’s America. But these uncouth and uncivil persons were so pissed that a black man was in the White House that they felt threatened and thus their need to vent out their frustrations at these meetings.

Fast forward now to what happened recently at a Town Hall Meeting where Representative Sean Duffy got asked questions and his answers were not just satisfactory, the majority of the people in the meeting even booed to express their disagreement with the way the Congressman voted.

The difference here is quite obvious: back then it was a bunch of rogue maladjusted and ignorant people who went and made discourse impossible. They were saboteurs of one of the most precious rights we have: Freedom of Speech and assembly. Now it is quite different because the people attending these meetings are not there to interrupt but to ask questions, to confront those who want to end the American way of life and these people are no dummies, they are smart and articulate and the Congressman in this case was not just baffled, he was stumped.

There will be more of those in the weeks and months to come. Republican elected officials would be hard-pressed to hold TOWN HALL MEETINGS for fear of being exposed for what they are: traitors to the middle class and the poor. But that also may extend to their political rallies when it is conceivable that the demonstrators could outnumber the supporters. A brand new day is coming to America: These hypocrites, these bought and sold politicians will no longer be able to hide in their Capitol Hill offices.

Rep. Sean Duffy confronted by constituents over Medicare, taxes

by Joan McCarter Fri Apr 22, 2011

Rep. Sean "I can't live on $174K a year" Duffy (R-WI) is among those Republicans getting some heat from constituents over his vote to end Medicare and keep tax cuts for the rich. He's also getting an education on what exactly it was he voted for.

CONSTITUENT: I hear you saying two contradictory things about taxes. One you want to reform the tax code so that corporations to pay more, and two you don’t want corporations to pay so much so that they’ll somehow stimulate business. So I don’t understand that contradiction. The CBO […] the Ryan program proposes to turn Medicare into a voucher program.

DUFFY: It doesn’t, No it doesn’t.

DIFFERENT CONSTITUENT: Yes it does.

DUFFY: No, it doesn’t there’s no voucher.

CONSTITUENT: That’s what my understanding of what it is.

DUFFY: No.

CONSTITUENT: They count the cost to seniors if it goes into a voucher program, it’s going to be trillions of dollars for those young men like this guy in front.

DUFFY: It’s a premium support it’s not a voucher. The bottom line is if we do nothing, if we do nothing, you can all say this is all fine and dandy, you can get it and I know any young people here you can all get this program.

CONSTITUENT: I agree that if we do nothing we’re in trouble, that’s why we have to raise taxes on the rich, and raise taxes on the corporations who have never been richer than they have now. And you guys just cut their taxes again.

ANOTHER CONSTITUENT: Oh, Yeah!

DUFFY: When you say cutting taxes, if taxes maintain the same level and rate is that a tax cut.

CONSTITUENT: To maintain the same level that was long ago, that was sold on the premise of creating jobs by giving more money to the wealthy.

OTHER CONSTITUENTS: Yeah! [inaudible]

You should watch the tape…now it is the Republicans who are in the hot seat but rightfully so, wanting to end SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE, MEDICAID, LABOR UNIONS, PUBLIC EDUCATION does not sit very well with middle of the road Americans.

PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/assets_c/2011/03/sean-duffy-new-blue-cropped-proto-custom_2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/04/new-dem-pac-launches-attack-ads-against-gopers-who-voted-to-end-medicare-audio.

SOURCE: http://www.dailykos.com/


NBC TO DONALD TRUMP: “YOU ARE FIRED”

Has it occurred to anybody that the NBC Network is vacillating in their renewal of Trump’s contract?

There are indications that this is something that could be plausible. If the network executives fear that all this negative publicity Donald Trump has brought to himself will not only be counterproductive but also will pin the network as pro-racism.

Then there will also be serious questions as to Donald Trump’s following because other than those die-had birthers who will not back down even if you were to show them the President’s birth certificate while hitting them on the head with a 2 X 4; the rest of America is simply fed up with Donald Trump’s circus act.

Speculation has it that if Trump does not get the contract renewed he will have no choice but to run for President…Goodie, yeah! Then the American voter will have the chance to tell the Donald “YOU ARE FIRED”

SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1379202/Jerry-Seinfeld-angers-Donald-Trump-cancelling-benefit-appearance.html

http://gothamist.com/2011/04/21/timeless_political_moments_meghan_m.php

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

“SHAKE DOWN OF BP” REPUBLICANS WERE SAYING WHEN THEY GOT THEM TO AGREE ON 27 BILLION


Now, a year later, we find out that these same people who destroyed our environment, caused the death of 11 and the loss of livelihood of hundreds of thousands Republicans even apologized to them for their negligence and now BP is getting a tax write-off…how convenient!

One year ago today, BP's oil began to pour into the Gulf of Mexico. It did not stop for 87 days.

Today, economic and environmental devastation remain. Thousands of Gulf coast residents cope with massive health problems from oil and toxic dispersants.

BP, on the other hand, just scored a nearly $10 billion dollar tax credit, by writing off its "losses" incurred from the tragedy.1

$10 billion is the entire annual budget of the EPA, whose funding was just slashed in the continuing resolution. It is almost one third of all the cuts in the continuing resolution.

Americans shouldn't have to endure massive budget cuts because BP took a $10 billion tax deduction for destroying our gulf. Tell BP: Amend your tax return and pay your fair share. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Responding to BP's monumental catastrophe cost a massive amount of resources from local, state and federal governments. Now, BP is dealing another massive blow to our nation's tax revenue.

The $10 billion savings comes after BP wrote-off the $32.2 billion it set aside to cover clean-up costs, fines, and a $20 billion victim compensation fund (which has been notoriously slow and stingy in responding to claims, paying out less than $4 billion so far.2)

But there is an excellent precedent that says BP did not have to deduct these costs for tax advantages. Last year, Goldman Sachs waived a tax deduction it could have claimed from having to pay $500 million in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission for giving bad information to mortgage investors.3

BP's $10 billion tax credit slashes its liability by one third — at every US taxpayers' expense.

BP has cost our nation enough already. Tell BP it shouldn't be rewarding itself with huge tax savings. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Over the weekend, I was in Washington D.C. for the Powershift conference, attended by 8,000 young climate activists.

Hundreds attended from the Gulf Coast, and I heard their stories of oil still remaining on beaches, of its smell still permeating the air, of legions of dead dolphin, turtles and fish, of neighbors who are sick or jobless. I heard them say that BP hasn't done nearly enough to make it right.

Meanwhile in Washington, BP just restarted political contributions to the Republicans who continue to push for expanded offshore drilling,4 oppose lifting oil spill liability caps,5 and do everything in their power to keep our nation addicted to dirty crude, as millions of Americans literally drain their paychecks into their gas tanks every day.

To take our nation off of dirty, dangerous, expensive fossil fuels, we must force polluters to pay for the damage they do.

One year ago, BP brought us what would become the worst environmental disaster in our nation's history. We don't owe BP a tax-credit. BP owes us our gulf back. The least it could do is pay its fair share.

Click here to automatically sign the petition to BP.

Thank you for holding polluters accountable.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. "BP Scores $10B Tax Credit by Offsetting Cash," CBS News, July 27, 2010
2. "
Gulf-Spill Fund Pays $3.8 Billion; Total May Be 'Higher'," Bloomberg, April 18, 2011
3. "
Goldman Waives Tax Deduction on SEC Settlement," Bloomberg, July 16, 2011
4. "
A year after spill, BP gives political contributions to GOP leaders," The Hill, April 19, 2011
5. "
A Year After Gulf Tragedy, Offshore Oil Companies Still Shielded by Liability Limits," ProPublica, April 19, 2011


PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/gulf-disaster-one-year-later/article1992414/

Conservatives at the national and state levels are doing their best to dismantle America’s relatively weak social assistance and security




Paul Ryan has the nerve to call this budget crap “The Path to American Prosperity” Prosperity for whom? It is a certain path to ruin and the further decimation of the middle class.

Corporations should be under small 'd' democratic control

by Meteor Blades Tue Apr 19, 2011

At In These Times, senior editor David Moberg, one of the few remaining labor reporters in America, writes The Debate That Wasn't:

Under the guise of budget-balancing austerity, conservatives at the national and state levels are doing their best to dismantle America’s relatively weak social assistance and security policies. They continue to divide workers with issues like immigration and abortion. Now conservatives’ central project is attacking public workers’ living standards, their unions and their right to bargain collectively—and the public sector itself. This is simply the latest inning of a game plan played out over several decades to redistribute income and both political and economic power to the rich, starting with attacks on blacks and the poor.

Business cycles and periodic crises are endemic to capitalism. But this near-collapse exposed how much finance capitalism and its many interrelated industries—banking, insurance, mergers and acquisitions, derivatives and “risk management”—dominate our lives, as Stephen Lerner argues. The solution involves establishing more democratic control over the finance sector, including breaking up the big banks, making finance less complex and more transparent, and establishing competing public institutions, like insurance providers. (The problems with mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not that they are public but that Congress partly privatized them and exposed them to private market pressure to offer sub-prime loans.)

Regulation is obviously necessary, but it is not enough without a comprehensive vision of finance as a public utility, like a highway (or other utilities that would better serve the nation if publicly owned). Regulated industries consistently capture their regulators, and the financial services have ideologically captured Republicans and many Democrats. Little can be accomplished with even a militant campaign if the public and politicians remain captive. The industry needs more than a traffic cop. It needs a new architect and greater democratic control, just as corporations in general should be more closely controlled through national charters.

The goal of any new movement to reform American capitalism should be more than restoring “the American dream” of home ownership and personal accumulation. It should also stimulate dreams of a new America, where people hold more power over the key institutions of our society, and their own lives.

President Obama: “Social Security is a problem but one that we can solve much more easily. So the first answer to your question is, Social Security will definitely be there when you retire. (Applause.) I’m absolutely confident about that. I am absolutely confident about that.

Now, here’s the thing. If we don’t do anything on Social Security, if we just don’t—if we don’t touch it at all, then what would happen is, by the time you retire, or maybe just a couple years after you retire, you might find that instead of getting every dollar that you were counting on, you’re only getting 75 cents out of that dollar. Because what’s happening is the population is getting older; there are more retirees per worker and more money starts going out than is coming in.”

SO, TAKE SOCIAL SECURITY OUT OF ANY DISCUSSIONS

Returning to the rising costs of Medicare and Medicaid; I can tell you from first hand experience that this is largely due to the total disregard to honesty in billing that doctors, labs, hospitals and others in the medical field have. Medicare and Medicaid have become the goose that laid the golden egg.

Just this week alone I analyzed what was paid and how much of it could have been avoided or unnecessary billing. To start with, I had to go to my primary physician for a referral; certainly he didn’t perform any service and didn’t even see me…in fact it was the front desk that provided me with the referral itself. I know they bill Medicare as if that was a regular visit.

Then I get to the labs, fasting and irritated because I had not been able t drink any Cuban coffee. The labs made me sign a paper saying that if Medicare doesn’t pay I would be responsible for $491. I had an ingrown toe nail and the specialist shot some anesthetic on my toe and cut the nail. A week later I had to come back for her to see the progress. I swear, I wasn’t in the examining room any more than 3 minutes. The doctor looked at it, pronounced it healed and walked away. The whole thing didn’t take any more than 30 seconds. Mind you, Medicare had already paid for the actual toe nail removal…this was only a follow-up and here is the bill that I get:

That comes to about $507 a minute…hell, even brain surgeons don’t get paid that well.

And this seems to be pervasive, it is everywhere with our health care providers, hospitals and the cost of drugs. It is no wonder then that Medicare and Medicaid are not doing so well and the cow is running dry…they have milked it to death.

I made a post recently on the high cost of medicines; I mentioned that some of these very expensive drugs don’t have to be that costly. My pharmacist friend told me of one practice that just pissed me off. He said that two of the drugs I take have to be taken together because they left out a key ingredient in one and put it in another and the rest is placebo. I question the veracity but if it is true, is the FDA aware the Pharmas are doing this? And these drugs cost about $500 each for a 30 day supply…unbelievable!

PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.prwatch.org/files/images/Paul-Ryan.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/04/10550/pay-attention-insurers-behind-paul-ryans-curtain&h=444&w=512&sz=34&tbnid=Ljxxqp36qw1oYM:&tbnh=114&tbnw=131&prev=/search%3Fq%3DPHOTOS%2BOF%2BPAUL%2BRYAN%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=PHOTOS+OF+PAUL+RYAN&hl=en&usg=__bX8XBFHH0tiS-f5rFKbjE_uns7I=&sa=X&ei=DrSuTfznHZSftwfh8PzaAw&ved=0CCoQ9QEwBQ

AMERICAN GHETTO

Yes, we have them…we can’t pretend we don’t anymore.


And it is only bound to get worse as Republican-Teahadist tear at the fabric of all the safety nets and social programs that has made being poor somewhat bearable.

People in other countries may say: "I can’t believe that there are really ghettos in America because America is a rich country…and i always dream of going there too, that's why I'm very shocked."

And so on…one wonders; does the rest of the world think that North America is a rich country where we all sit around in leather couches, eating expensive gourmet food, counting our gold while lighting our cigars with 100 dollar bills? If you think that way you are completely wrong for this is only true for about 1% of those who are in that privileged, top of the food chain super wealthy…the rest of us are either poor, very poor…I mean dirt poor or belong to a dwindling middle class that is beginning to look more like poor..

These ghettos are not perhaps as severe and dismal as in some third world country but the misery, the poverty, the crime is. If we are to compare any American ghetto to a Brazilian “FAVELA” or shantytown, the similarities are uncanny and so are the differences. For one thing, the resident of the American ghetto does have access to some help…like Welfare and Free Clinics; for another, the structures themselves may be a bit more substantial in America although not unlike the Favelas are still dirty, decaying places devoid of amenities and crime ridden. Why is crime so high in these places? Because desperate people will do desperate things.



There were people who responded negatively and one response in particular made me think. The responder had wrote “You would not go into a poor neighborhood in your own country, so, why would you want to do this in Brazil?”

For foreigners, I think attraction to favelas is different because of the way the media portrays these communities. It first starts in how Brazil is promoted by tourism and films. City of God brought the favela issue to the front and this brought more attention to the favela. Carnival and Samba also created curiosity about the favelas.
Who can forget the 1959 Cannes Film Festival winner “Black Orpheus” that had as its setting the Rio de Janeiro favela?

Foreigners were not raised with the prejudice against the favelas like Brazilians have been. Its sad because much of the origin of the Brazilian identity is from that of the favelas. Carnival, Samba, Feijoada, many of Brazil’s top football-soccer players.

Ghetto’s, favelas, whatever we call them are underserved areas of poor people. How poor? You would have to decide on your own what levels of poverty exist there. I can tell you in living in the favela here, yes, we are poor but we are not as poor as the slums in India or Africa.

And so, there is even a degree of poverty…surely a US ghetto would be considered Beverly Hills to someone in Mogadishu or in Calcutta. But make no mistake about it…the erosion is under way and soon we will match the level of poverty in many of these unfortunate countries if Republicans have their way at carving away all the safety nets and social programs.



Therefore, the Republican-Teahadists will have that society with high levels of unemployment…so they can exact harder work, longer hours and no benefits from their labor force. There would be no safety nets and absolutely no services provided to those in the lower 98. This they will do if they get the chance and indications are that they have been winning the class wars for over 30 years now…America has become a WELFARE STATE but not for lower income people but for the very rich and the corporations; and they really don’t give a flying fuck if they destroy our nation to do it.

Here are some staggering figures:

37 million: Number of Americans who live below the official poverty line—12.6 percent of the total population.

1 in 8: Proportion of Americans who now live in poverty

1 in 3: Proportion of Americans who are considered low-income

25: Percentage of all workers who were in jobs for which year-round full-time work would not pay enough to keep a family of four above the poverty threshold

Between 700,000 and 3 million "homeless" people in the United States at any one time according to estimates

.

A word of warning: Those ghettos are breeding grounds for discontent and rebellion. Right now we can barely keep law and order with the dwindling resources for police and fire protection. When things get worse like the Republican-Teahadists want; the numbers of poor people will climb and this is reason enough to have all those in favor of a PLUTOCRACY shake in their boots…So go ahead, have your smaller government with less regulations and no social programs, no safety nets...privatize SOCIAL SECURITY and give the super wealthy even lower taxes. Remember La Bastille, “let them eat cake”?

SOURCES: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.carfweb.net/grafix/death2

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.newslinemagazine.com

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.popphoto.com/files/_images/Camilo-Jose-Vergara-30-Years-Documenting-the-American-Ghetto.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.popphoto.com/photos/2008/12/camilo-jose-vergara-30-years-documenting-american-ghetto&usg

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6282/2506/1600/clevelandcar1.jpg

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/5291132/2/istockphoto_5291132-shanty-town.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-5291132-shanty-town.php&

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/poverty_numbers.html