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sandlewould: In reply to #26 yesterday.......If I recall correctly, Thom had a blog quite a while back about the TPP you refer to. I was shocked then and remain perplexed as to why Obama would agree to it, let alone fast-track it. I'll take the action you requested!
I will say this about Obama.....in my opinion he is leaving out a huge part of the equation when it comes to his calculation on bipartisanship with the Teapublican Party. In any willingness to reach out he must never forget to factor in the lies and distortions most Republican voters operate under thanks to a few billionaires and their corpse media control. Factor this in and who is he really reaching out to.........simply a handful of billionaires whose representation should count no more than a handful of anyones .....in a true democracy that is. I'm as frustrated as you, but worry that the billionaires will gain total control if we the people fail to dump the Tea Party vast minority..
At this point I won't believe anything the Repugs dish out. Although ACA isn't Medicare for All, it's much better than nothing. It'll be interesting to see what comes...
Sam Sacs on RT was awesome tonight. Harry Reid quoted Michelle Bachman; “Finally we are where we want to be, the Government is shut down!”. Poor Michelle, she thinks that Jesus will transport her into the clouds to meet with him in the air and she will escape the tribulation, which apparently she can’t wait for.
Jamie Dimon and other Banking “professionals” currently meeting w/ White House to discuss debt limit strategy. (As in Bail-out? Will Obama let them suck every last $ out of what’s left of US economy?) Ryan says house willing to take shut down up to debt ceiling dead-line.
Meanwhile Dem. Congresswoman Dianne Feinstein vowing to do everything she can to protect NSA program, spying on millions of average citizens, insisting it is not illegal.
Pres. Obama lifting laws in African region, Yemen and other like places to allow use of child soldiers.
“Eco Terrorists” attack GMO papayas, hacking them down. According to the Huffington Post... Gee what the H. happened to Ariana?
Oh boy, what a ride...
I think it is interesting what Don Newell of the WSJ said on Bill Maher a couple of weeks. Bill mentioned that the "gov-ment" had a 60% return on their expenditures. The RW guest mentioned it was awful. Don of the WSJ said any entity on Wall St. managed a 60% return, Wall St would think the sun shined out of his ass.
2950-10K,
I do realize there are good Dems, but they are powerless in the face of this corruption. If Obama cares, why is he, as we speak, allowing corporations to ram through the TPP by "fast-tracking" this 'agreement' and forbidding congress from revieling it's contents? Corporations would be able to sue communities and countries over laws that interfear w/ profits. Contact Congress and say NO to fast-track TPP!
Since we all know that 'for-profit' corporations are always more efficient than the 'gov-ment,' why does Medicare run at about one-tenth the overhead of our free-market corporations? Give me a break and the country a little more single-payer action!
To be brutally frank, Kend, I resent the prospects of an improved healthcare situation in the U.S. getting characterized as a "little spending party" by someone from Canada who never has to worry about bankruptcy via healthcare costs. In the long run, this Affordable Care Act will SAVE money. Single-payer would save even more. In the meantime we've better things to do with our hard-earned cash than feather the nests of billionaire CEO insurance hacks. Have a nice day.
NYAH-NYAH, oligarchs!
I've never said this about you, but, You are right KEND!!!
We MUST stop spending money on Wars and Policing the world...Rather we should shift that spending towards improving our education system and establishing a Medicare-for-all system. That would be money well spent (invested).
Also Kend...Solar Works! As does Wind and Wave energy. The U.S. needs true leadership in this area. Obama failed us here too! As has every president in my life time (with the exception of J Carter). As for Obama, it didn't surprise me that he didn't truely take the time to establish policy in this area...Why would anyone think that Obama was truely about "Green Alternatives" when his campaign was boosted by the Nuclear Industry.
To date the U.S. is 25+ years behind when it comes to the use and advancement of Solar, Wind, Wave, and other Green Energy Alternatives.
Wow Mark Saulys are you way off base. The score card says that Bush added 2 trillion to the debt in 8 years while President Santa Claus has added 6 trillion in 5 years. There is a saying that says " A person has a right to their opinion, but does not have the right to mis represent the facts". Clearly you do not subscribe to that theroy when you state that President Santa Claus has cut the deficit in half.
I am right though, Alice. Somebody has to bring some reality into your little spending party.
Thank you ALICEINWONDERLAND for your enthusiasm.
The two challenges with bucking Corporate America begins with getting the majority of US Citizens (The employed, the unemployed, the retired, and students) to organize, unite, and go on a national strike/boycott, engage in Nonviolent Resistance, and Civil Disobedience...For as long as it takes! The goal would be to not destroy what remains of our economic infulstructure but to put PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT, which does not mean that profit cannot be made.
The second challenge, and this may be impossable but is key to the goal, is to change how we view (worship) money. Now don't get me wrong I understand that the exchange of "money for goods" is how our economic system works, however money should not be held as the "end all, be all solution" towards our social issues. In fact money is often the root to our social problems...Much like War rarely resolves our social indifferences, money tends to cause people to behaive irresponsable and without true accountability.
Over the past 4 decades we have been witness to a Corporate highjacking of We the Peoples Democratic System. Key word "Democratic"...It is We the Peoples fault for exchanging a "Walk on part in The Wall for a lead role in The Cage"...buying into the lies told to us by "the Takers". Translation ALL of US have sat on our obese lazy asses and watched from our recliners while microwaving a frozen dinner as our country became Of the Few, For the Few, and By the Few. We are all accountable, You, Me, Everyone! If you voted for a Dem or Rep in the last 8 elections (with the exception of J. Carter) then you were buying into the lies, and with greedy motivations.
We ALL must realize that we cannot "fix" a problem before understanding how the problem occured. AND EXCEPTING THE TRUTH! In my opinion the reason "our" solutions often times lead to more problems is because we do not understand the original problem to begin with. We keep doing the same things over and over and over...For Self serving reasons.
I often have said - borrowing a lyric from a song a friend of mine wrote - "We must change our way of thinking so that people and planet last...We must resist the urge for power".
No. They are desperate to keep it from taking effect, if only for a year until after the next election. If it takes effect and a lot of people find out they like it, they are toast in the 2014 elections and they know it. Good opinion piece on this very subject in the NY Times which I posted on FB. I heard one Repub say last night on Crossfire that this is government intrusion into people's lives? What about all their intrusion into women's lives and bodies? I constantly pick up on these discrepencies and was amazed that Van Jones didn't jump on this and other things, unless he's constrained by CNN.
The natural person Americans are not powerless. In every election, they give their collective power to the corporate persons.
We have no actual system of care for people's health, with an insane agribusiness synergistically "cheap food" producing sick people to feed a SickCare system producing profits from insurance extortion industry; rapacious banksters in control of a rigged casino economy; a military engaged in serial resource war thuggery; "environmental protections" that protect polluters from environmentalists; bureaucracy compliant monkey "educators" testing children into unthinking blind obedience; and an ongoing catastrophic climate collapse because degenerate generations of the 99% have ever reliably been providing massive supermajority popular vote mandates for the corporate party's (R) & (D) team of sociopaths.
Those most guilty for the consequences of corporatism are the progressives, who have provided political protection for the corporate state since its birth in the Civil War. It's always been the progressives' job to murder any movement that rises up from the Left that they fail to constructively moderate into covert complicity with the state's criminality.
We've kept getting greater insanity and criminality from government because the 99% has kept voting for the corporate (R) & (D) party's sociopathic criminals.
(D) Voters:
people who believe good can only be achieved if their evil gets greater
progressives:
liberals who keep voting for the corporate party's Democrats so they can keep "protesting" against what they keep voting for
______________________________
The APT: American Political Terms
www.chenangogreens.org
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Repeal of "Free Trade?" AMEN!!!!! Please note that the "name-brand" politicians (Dems and Repubs) have not deigned to speak of the very serious problems with NAFTA, etc. They seem to have a kind of "gentlemen's agreement" to avoid addressing many of the TRULY KEY issues...as America steadily goes to pot (and not in a good way!).
Oops, maybe the Republicans and comatose Democrats became confused. What we WANTED was for the Military-Intelligence budget to be slashed, and for the president to push for a moratorium on all overseas wars...you know, like for ten years?!! Then, we wanted a full audit of the "Fed" and IRS, along with ALL of the military-intelligence spending--including the pesky "off-budget" items--for the last twenty years. And enough of these blowhards who are insisting on balancing the budget, when they are "speaking with forked tongue" (or are on antipsychotics and have no idea what they are talking about).
Kend- with all due respect... You're like an old, scratched ponograph record, repeating the same lines over & over. Were I to go back over the past year's worth of posts and harvest together all of yours, I'd find at least 500 variations on a tired old theme: Borrow-and-spend, spend-and-borrow, interest rates ad nauseam... money-money-MONEY! Like that old Indian chief on my 'fridge reminds us on a daily basis: You can't eat money! - Alice I.W.
Beautiful, "stecoop01"! Except I would stick those pacifiers up their asses instead. - Alice I.W.
Bingo, NACHOS! You're spot-on. - Alice I.W.
ya you guys are right I like Obama's plan to. Just keep borrowing and spending its working out just great. Besides the twenty somethings will end up paying the debt off anyway. hopefully interest rates will stay low for the next 10 or 20 years for them. How much higher will the payments go up on 20 trillion dollars if interest goes up 5%.
Palindromedary ~ From what I understand, the ACA is considered mandatory federal expenditure. One of the reasons the billionaires are so pissed off. The way they see it, once enacted they can kiss their generous tax cuts goodbye. I hope they are puckering up right now.
As far as the insurance company's loopholes and raising premium rates are concerned, that isn't necessarily a bad thing either. There are going to have to be problems with the ACA in order to generate the motivation to change it and morph it into Medicare for all. I mean, lets face it, Medicare for all is the future. It is what We the People deserve and demand. The sooner the better. All the ACA really represents is a means to that ends. In and of itself it is not the perfect solution; and, I think everyone generally agrees on that. Until we get for-profit interests out of our nation's health care system, we have not found the perfect solution to the problems of our nation's health care system. There should never be a profit motive in health care. It is a clear conflict of interests.
Just look at what the profit motive does to religion. I don't want greed to be the motivating factor in caring for my soul or my body. The "buck" stops here! (I'm pointing at myself.)
ie If I make a profit caring for sin, the more sin the more profit I make. Consequently, if I make a profit caring for sick people, the more sick people the more profit I make. Conflict of interests.
Don't get me started on the for-profit prison industry. Although by now you can probably figure out what I would say.
DAnneMarc: You welcome...#12. And I sometimes think it is a good thing but I wonder, once people are all signed up, how much the insurance companies will raise their prices later on. I wonder, since they are already trying to take away other social programs, and they keep playing these little tricks..like government shutdown over the debt ceiling..just how much can we rely on the government to actually pay those subsidized payments to the insurance companies. Each insurance company will have a lot of fine print that might shock some people. But, like you had said before...it's the insurance companies that we really have to worry about. What trickery do they have up their sleeves?
Palindromedary ~ Those were great links. I guess that Truthdig article answered a lot of our questions. The ACA must not be as bad as we fear. A family of five covered for $346/month isn't bad. I don't know about the 30% responsibility though. At least there will be no deductible. Also $346/month is better than I can get with my company. Not a bad deal. Not a bad step in the right direction. Like the article said:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_reason_republicans_were_willing_to_shut_it_down_20130930
David J Cyr what is your idea ?
If I were youi wouldhave given a CONSTRUCTIVE alternative.
Dr Jill Stein was a good candidate. But the Greens have to win House Seats at least.
You have to become RELEVANT by winning.
My other reply to you seems to be lost