CA representative Miller (D) proposed legislation that capped the tax deductabilty of execs at 25 times the line employee's pay. Corporations could still pay the 400 times the average employee as now, but the government would not subsidize it. Tax deductability as operating costs ends at the 25 times level. George Miller I think was his name, but it never made it out of committee, if it even made it to committee.

Thank you, Alice.

Bill Maher's opinion on inequality.

I was going to post Alexandria Pelosi's interviews, but this was just as relevent.

DAnneMarc: I suspect that this is the link that sandlewould was referring to:

http://ay-wey.com/videos/?jlid=3YR4CseY9pk&jltitle=Paxman%20vs%20Brand%2...

Regarding Thom's discussion of CEO/worker pay ratios:

Whenever I see a power company lineman working, perhaps his 3rd or 4th 12-14 hour night, atop a utility pole in an ice storm during a regional outage, I ask myself, "Would the CEO of his company trade jobs with him, even if he got ot keep his CEO salary?" I think that puts a whole different slant on the concept of equal pay for equal work. And I suspect the lineman would make a better CEO than the CEO would make a lineman. So much for the argument that pay is set according to the so-called "market."

I thought of it again when I saw the news coverage of the two fellows on the window washing scaffold that parially collapsed at the One World Trade Center. I found it sad that one of the workers expressed his gratitude for having the job that enabled him to provide for his family. Even more sadly, it is exactly that mindset many CEOs believe the general workforce should share. I even once had my company's president explicitly state to me that he missed the days when you could hire a master tradesman who would work for almost nothing because there were 30 more lined up to take his job if he complained (this conversation took place in the 1970s, referencing the late 1930s - early 1940s).

ANOTHER INEQUALITY -- designed by FDA - Big pHARMA collusion:

THINK the WAR on WOMEN hasn’t killed too many ???

Our Government & MANY private individuals funded Big pHARMA to CURE AIDS. Much money was spent on research but NOT TESTED on WOMEN! NO medicines were tested on women for about ten years of copious input of funds. So.....

More WOMEN died from AIDS than Men in WAR 1984-2010 RIP *** see below re: reporting.

Womens organizations and media have been asked to address this situation numerous times since 1984. Most media have advertising contracts with Big pHARMA corpse-porations that prohibit bad press.... thus no articles about womens needs, unmet! It would be bad for BUSINESS.

GREAT BARRIER Brief system --

Invented in 1984 -- Let's manufacture in 2014 !

DE-Regulate Prevention Barrier Methods

Due to FDA / NIH /pharmaceutical regulations, a group of barrier method latex devices have been unused in the fight against AIDS, STD's and also unwanted conception. There are still no barrier methods available for herpes and genital warts, which happen OUTSIDE the area covered by male condoms.

One of these latex barriers got a National Institute of Health grant during Clinton administration, and can be seen online www. JANESWAY.net

This panty condom is both contraceptive and a prophylactic /disease preventive. REARGUARD Anal protection has never even had any newspaper article written about it...

This situation must be clear to media and public alike!

No media in the USA including NY Times Washington Post SF Chronicle have said a word about this, though all been asked to address this situation numerous times since 1984. Most media have advertising contracts with Big pHARMA corpse-porations that prohibit bad press.

The plan of the small group of women still involved is to organize licensed collectives worldwide run by trained volunteers. The volunteers would be given latex barriers for their own use and to give away or sell for no more than 2% MARKUP or two PENNYs per barrier over costs. So each ordinary person volunteering becomes a self-designated distributor. Any collective licensed and using the manufacturing standards could ship worldwide. No corporations would be licensed to avoid profit making in reproductive health worldwide by NON-HUMAN entities. Sponsored /lowered costs would help lower birth rates worldwide.

FACTS today: Men have no options, Women still have NO PROTECTION beyond talking men into male condoms, so…. once people know about this cover-up, talk about a BRIDGE SCANDAL???? We organize and create licensed COLLECTIVES and make our protections ourselves. We share latex with those we love.

WOMEN can create cultural breakthroughs about the red-taped regulation-raped, black-balled panty condom just by mentioning it to any friend who has herpes. Horrid statistics, over half our younger generations have this problem.

Mention ===>> GREAT BARRIER Brief system in news, on every media channel, tweets , television, social media, dating sites, public service announcements etc. Every step of the journey of each manufacturing collective will be celebrated by mutual affirmations.

No more corporate mark-up on our private lives!!! per Gilda Radner via Roseanne Roseannadanna===>>Why do they call it PRIVATES when it is everyone ELSE's business ???

For the 7 generations,

Stella Jane ==> spokesperson for GREAT BARRIER Brief, aka www. JANESWAY Panty Condom. net ===>> Built to fit the inside of a WOMAN!

Liason contact for REARGUARD Anal Condoms. REARGUARD needs some spokespersons.... hello GAY MEN with equal rights -- HELP WOMEN get rights, y'all had mothers and grandmothers!!!

SEE the GREAT BARRIER Brief red-taped, regulation raped, and hidden in plain site (sic) >>~~~>> awkward old tech http://janesway.net/FutureStyles/index.html

It got a National Institute of HEALTH GRANT during Clinton Administration. Then BUSH administration issued the GAG RULE on day ONE of the reign of repugs and millions of women died around the world.

There's REARGUARD Anal latex or silicone protection too but no online info available.

No corporate licenses to manufacture will be issued, to avoid others making profits from women /sex!!!

No more corporate mark-up on our private lives!!!

*** NIH STATISTICS are predicated on WHO SURVIVES with CERTAIN MEDICATIONS in a CLINICAL STUDY. They do not tally doctors' reports at all. THEREFORE it's nearly impossible to tell how many women had it and died, uncounted nor how many children in California schools w/no mother. Women get all STD 20 to 200 times easier than men.

PS MEDIA and RESEARCH persons: Please contact me if you don't understand that the centre 4 dis-ease OBSERVATION does not control disease. The reporting changed, so no actual women's deaths are reported UNLESS they are using some HIV medicine IN a STUDY. So the statistics look like "GAY MEN" caused this problem, fueling haters everyday, and the women continue to die..... uncounted.

PLEASE help get this to women everywhere…. If you can form /fund a collective to manufacture these, you can get the license to begin. Everyone chooses their own level of participation. Example: A real estate agent rents an old dental laboratory, and a builder remodels it for required Good Manufacturing standards. Their good deeds for the community serve as marketing for their own enterprises, as the community organizes around the collective efforts. Any concerned citizens purchase equipment and donate it, while some use their volunteer status to provide prevention education. Each volunteer becomes a self-directed distributor of education and prevention. Mark-up is 2% MAXIMUM.

WHO CAN HELP do this on other continents?

WOMEN On EARTH TODAY need to know that they can begin making protection themselves! VERY LOW disease and unplanned pregnancy when used. MAKE it LOCAL, use it local.

Invented in 1984 -- Let's manufacture in 2014 !

NOW maybe we all see this perfect example of the Permaculture principle: The PROBLEM is the SOLUTION......!

What caused the problem? Political power/corporate greed

Without the PROBLEM, what IS THERE is the solution!

practical private local-made /homemade protection

Invented in 1984 -- Let's manufacture in 2014 !

Womens organizations and media have been asked to address this situation numerous times since 1984. Most media have advertising contracts with Big pHARMA corpse-porations that prohibit bad press.... thus no articles about womens needs, unmet! It would be bad for BUSINESS.

Get with the program folks !

Feed ALL children worldwide for ONE MILLION $$$ per each BILLION spent on WAR.

FIGHTING costs WAY MORE than FEEDING !!

Feed ALL children Educate ALL people

to feed themselves and others

Our RIGHT is to establish ideal human habitat; our DUTY for 7 generations. ALL kept as PUBLIC BENEFIT controlled only by real HUMANS, on GAIA our living planet.

FOOD CEREMONIES generate PEACEFUL COMMUNICATION

Gather in fields: the congregation.

Plant seeds: the ceremony.

PRAY during the growing/watering.

Share WORLDWIDE: the communion.

Peace n Planting our true way of life.

99% feel the same ...... Feed ALL children Educate ALL people

Please BEE REAL -- get a hive going with somebody anywhere!

BEE ProACTIVE aka benefit the 7 generations in all you do!

PS MAKING IT HAPPEN LOCALLY in your neighborhood.

Thought this local action peace plan might be at the heart of our prayers.... we could rent church kitchens and make wonderful BREAKFAST in YOUR POCKET cookies and donated organic milk for school children. Friday night we use the kitchen again to make WHOLE GRAIN PIZZA with ten vegetables and mushrooms. Salad bar too, all organic fresh!

NO MOVIE NIGHTS -- instead there are ten tables with crafts and skills mentors sitting there to help the YOUTH. A great fisherman, a basket maker, leather worker, food preservation teacher and other useful survival skills teachers /life guides.

Neo-fascism has been given a broad and expanding runway since 1980. We need to remind ourselves just what these Neo-fascists are striving for and we can never forget it.

• “We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.”
• “We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaidprograms.”
• “We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.”
• “We also favor the deregulation of the medical insurance industry.”
• “We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”
• “We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service. The present system, in addition to being inefficient, encourages governmental surveillance of private correspondence. Pending abolition, we call for an end to the monopoly system and for allowing free competition in all aspects of postal service.”
• “We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”
• “We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”
• “As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.”
• “We support repeal of all law which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.”
• “We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”
• “We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.”
• “We support the repeal of all taxes on the income or property of private schools, whether profit or non-profit.”
• “We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
• “We support abolition of the Department of Energy.”
• “We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.”
• “We demand the return of America's railroad system to private ownership. We call for the privatization of the public roads and national highway system.”
• “We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called "self-protection" equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.”
• “We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.”
• “We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.”
• “We support an end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children.”
• “We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.”
• “We call for the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households.”
• “We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”
• “We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
• “We support the repeal of all state usury laws.”

Frankly -- provoked to brutal outspokenness by how the USian voters generally opted for Republicans (that is, for blatant JesuNazism even when there were solidly progressive alternatives) -- I believe we truly are this planet's Moron Nation. I also believe the white USian subspecies truly is Homo Sapiens Ignoramus.

This condition is not curable -- in fact it cannot even be ameliorated -- because it is a product of conscious choice. It includes being too willfully ignorant, too maliciously anti-intellectual and too obsessed with a combination of celebrity worship and Ayn Rand greed to do even the basic brainwork of grasping the concept of inequality, much less understanding its moral implications.

That's why -- if I may put the Big Lie of Obama's 2008 campaign slogan in the context of U.S. sociological reality -- the only "change we can believe in" is that, inside the United States, change itself has been rendered eternally impossible.

It was made so not just by a diabolically cunning Ruling Class -- which in my lifetime has perfected its methodologies of moronation to the point they are irresistable -- but by the active acquiessance of the Moron Nation masses, who joyfully, even gleefully embrace a species-killing combination of lazy-minded ignorance and moral imbecility.

I'm sorry, Mr. Hartmann; I agree we desperately need "to cure America's political cancer," and I respect the passion that fuels your optimism. Indeed the fate of our entire species depends on progressive change the need for which is now made undeniable by Nature herself.

But where amongst the variously opiated submissives of Moron Nation will ever be found the revolutionary determination? Where in the land of morally imbecilic selfishness will ever be found the courage? And where amongst the aristocracy -- its traditional function forever corrupted by the toxic combination of Abrahamic religion and capitalism -- will there ever again be found the will to lead humanity toward anything save extinction?

She's great on domestic issues, but she sucks on foreign policy like the rest of the congress. (both GOP and DEM).

I think there is a difference, Marc. Saying your router "is the internet" is like saying that your main fuse box is electricity. It's not. It's just the way it gets into your house. The electric company is providing a product. They make it and send it to you. Your ISP is providing a service. They don't make the internet. When you log on to this page, or any other page, your computer isn't connecting straight to Thom's. There are several servers through which the signal goes. Who owns those servers?

And, back to the main question - can the owner of those servers let people pay extra to get in a faster lane? With water and electricity, I can pay extra to get better stuff. (Bottled water and solar power, if I choose.)

If the people who own the backbone of the internet are private companies, can't they make a deal with other private companies for better service? Companies provide better rates on things to other companies all the time. (McDonalds and Coke, for example.) If Google, which owns Youtube, wanted to pay my ISP, At&T, to get their content to me faster, as long as AT&T and Google own every computer and server that signal passes through along the way, they should be able to do that.

But, like I said, I don't know who actually "owns" the physical servers that run the internet.

I guess you could also argue that the government owns or regulates the airwaves through which the signals travel.

What I'd like to hear Pres. Obama say about the Keystone XL Pipeline is this:

"This project will neither create a significant number of jobs, nor reduce our dependence on foreign petroleum. It will increase the environmental destruction of the petroleum industry, and increase our contribution to global warming by promoting the burning of the dirtiest oil in the world. It will also bring huge profit to the Koch Brothers. And since their business spends tens of millions of dollars at every election to defeat members of my party, I will veto any effort to hand them more money at the expense of the American people's and humanity's ability to survive."