How can we call it anything else considering that a tax increase to even the Reagan years' level, would put us back on our feet and the republicans refuse to hear of it? As long as they have their millions and billions, nothing else matters to them. They are neurotic about it, obsessed with it, and to hell with everyone else. Alan Grayson had it right when he described their attitude/plan for health care: "Don't get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly." It was too true for them to handle, but that same philosophy applies to everything else for them; no education, no public services or programs for the lower income citizens at their expense. And who cares if we die in poverty?

I think a movement to change the face of Congress is possible by employing something akin to peer pressure. We need to make people feel bad about not doing their civic duty by not voting. The key is that we are not asking for a lot of time or effort - just to vote. That simple. We shouldn't let people complain about anything wrong with our government without challenging them about their participation in the election process. Because complaining is what most people do these days, the point of voting as a responsibility is driven home. Again and again. Like Bush said, "Sometimes you gotta catapult the propaganda" in order for people to get the message. Isn't that what the Republicans do so well? It worked for smoking cessation and smoking bans. Let's try it out. No one gets past their first sentence of complaint without the question being asked.

I think you're right: every liberal is a lying hypocrit. The ONLY people who EVER tell the truth are the republicans, and they ALWAYS tell the truth. For instance, when Newt Ginrich said that he screwed around on all of his wifes because he loves his country. And of course Newt also said that God has forgiven him for screwing around on all of his wifes. (And presumably God has also forgiven Newt for serving his first wife (or was it his second wife? Or his third wife? It's hard to keep track of so many wives...) with divorce papers when she was in the hospital being treated for cancer. You have to love a guy like Newt, who can excuse anything that he does by saying that he only did it because he loves his country. But wait a minute: what was Newt's attitude toward Clinton when Clinton fooled around? Well, interestingly, Newt was outraged, simply and very loudly outraged at Clinton, and demanded that Clinton be impeached and never said a word about God forgiving Clinton. And yet somehow Newt can run for president while admitting that he has screwed around on his wives. But anyway, back to the main point: all republicans always tell the truth. So, can we presume that when Newt was screwing around on his wives, he told them, "Listen honey, I'm going to be back late tonight, I have to meet my girlfriend at the No-Tell Motel, for a night of torrid sex. I'll see you and the kids tomorrow, ok?" Yes, I'm sure that's what Newt told his wives. Because Newt, like all republicans, always tells the truth.

So, now would you care to discuss the lies and hypocrisy of Bush and his brothers and their father, Dick Cheney, Wolfowitz, Mit Romney, Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, and the rest of their sociopathic fascist cohorts? Those flaming hypocrites who claim to be Christians and yet who ignore virtually everything that Jesus said? Who claim that abortion is awful because it ends lives and yet they like and even enjoy the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people whose only "crime" is that they like a different religion? So, are you a "Christian," too? (I only ask because if you're the same sort of Christian as the politicians you like, I'd better watch out or you'll kill me, which, of course, is exactly what Jesus would do.

Revolving Dooritis is a chronic symptom of all agencies, departments, branches,{ congress, courts, etc.} in effect the foxes are guarding the hen house.Corporations and Government are now one Big GMO. FDA is infiltrated by Monsanto, FCC infiltrated by Corporate media, EPA by big oil and big coal, Maybe the EPA should stand for the Energy Protection Agency, When I sit back and look at the depth of influence and control I get chills done my spine. The reason we have GMO's { Genetically Modified Organisms} in agriculture is due to Monsanto and the FDA having exchanged personnel, thus GMO's were allowed to be introduced as safe and the regulation process was by passed. The corporations have infected every crevice of Government. The American Legislative Exchange Council {Alec} conceives the Laws, the corporate sponsored Congress inacts the Laws, the corporate sponsored Judiciary protects the Laws. The Corporate media supports the entire process with propaganda and created news to promote the corporate agendas. The entire balance of our existing system has been shifted to an unsustainable entity"The Corporation." I doubt ALEC will write any legislation that would act as a door stop to this revolving door. One nation undivided with liberty and justice for the Corporation.

As Thom has so ably demonstrated in his books, we are screwed and it is continually growing worse. We are now living in a managed democracy with systematized bribery and the blurring of government and business. Our only thriving populist movement is a reworked, billionaire-supported John Birch Society clone that bears no resemblance to the Boston Tea Party (legends in their own minds). The original tea party dumped the monopoly tea in the harbor: this tea party is drinking the monopoly tea.

One thing tea partiers that I talk to agree with me on is what they call "crony capitalism." Yet, their movement is itself a crony with certain corporatists (denial?). What we need is a populist movement akin to the late 19th century that will now demand a constitutional amendment to ban money from politics. Nothing short of that will fix this country or set the standard for the world that will be trying to develop both democracies (Arab Spring?) and healthy capitalist markets (sans monopolies).

Otherwise, we are surely headed for some kind of global fascism and/or feudalism like the world has never witnessed. To have the kind of populist movement we need, we must surely cross political boundaries and unite in claiming our government for citizen-taxpayer control. If we don't rise up as a people, our taxation without representation (deja vu) government will become but a fading dream of democracy unrealized. Cause for alarm? I would say.

Its really time that this type of action be prosecuted if possible. There is no way that Issa should be able to retain any position in government after this revelation and the one earlier this week pertaining to earmarks.

Have you cosidered collaborating with Change.org or FreePress.net or any other popular nonprofits that publish and disseminate this kind of news, create petitions for us to sign, and connect us to our representatives in Congress demanding transparancy and change? They do a lot of good work. I'm new to you so I don't yet know exactly what you may do similarly...

Foxes guarding the chicken coop. And the next time you go get a vaccination...wonder what is it you are getting besides just a vaccination...are they collecting dna on you and putting it into a data base? There are all kinds of "conspiracy theories" which many people still tend to reject...until many years later when more knowledge comes out that despoils the official government-controlling version of truth...and even then many people have been brainwashed to go along with the official stories. Here's one more that you may, or may not, have heard of:

CIA organised fake vaccination drive to get Osama bin Laden's family DNA

Senior Pakistani doctor who organised vaccine programme in Abbottabad arrested by ISI for working with US agents

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osama-...

I won't even go into the conspiracy theory about AIDS and the Hepatitis B vaccine connection.

I think that thousands of people should stand outside his house and stare at him as he gets into his car to go to work. And thousands more should be waiting at his office, and stare at him there, too. And when he leaves for lunch, thousands of people should follow him and stare at him while he eats lunch. And when he goes home at the end of the day, thousands of people should be there, staring at him as he exits his car and goes into his house. And thousands of people should stand there and stare at his house all night long, in shifts. If he wants to go out in public, he should not be able to do so without being faced with the people who do not approve of the mental illness that he obeys every time he screws the little people out of money.

Elizabeth Warren should not be a person to "Beat" a Republican. She is expected to be a a strong, honest woman who keeps the interests of the powerless in her mission. She has a right to the job that does not benefit her.

Karl Rove is an atheist. That's why he appreciates the freedom of religion.

@ Godzillasrage Not only does the Constitution not preach anything that could be construed as "Capitalism" (most especially not the current perversion of insisting that rapacious profit-at-any-and-all-cost is the One And Only 'acceptable' business model), but there also in not one thing in the Constitution that prohibits using tax monies to benefit the downtrodden.

It's currently de rigueur, if not Gospel itself, for the right-wing extremists (a given, since the right has booted-out any moderates) to repeatedly claim that "the Constitution enshrines private property", however, that is not correct, and ignores the following facts:

1) Although the phrase "general welfare", as used in the Constitution, means "general/national well-being, prosperity", and not organized public assistance (see: http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html#wellfare ), the fact remains that, since the Constitution does not specify how this is to be achieved, but *does* specify in Amendment 9 that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," it is up to The People, in whom the penultimate authority resides (see: http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html#republic ), to determine how to best achieve that "general Welfare".

2) Even before the Constitution mandates, to the government it created, the promotion of the general welfare, it mandates to that government the duties to "...establish Justice, [and] insure domestic tranquility..."; again, these terms are not defined specifically because the Framers of the Constitution knew - if only through the experience of their own actions - that these concepts evolve over time. For example, although they did not include anti-slavery language in the Constitution due to the need to have it ratified by the Southern states, the Framers did hope that the abolition of slavery would eventually become part of the US Justice system. Additionally, although the mandate to "insure domestic tranquility" was originally intended to "...to ensure the federal government had powers to squash rebellion and to smooth tensions between states" (see: http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html#domtran ), it is also a fact that, for several reasons, there simply can be no prosperity when a population is a continual state of unrest and turmoil. Therefore, justice, and domestic tranquility, must exist in order for Prosperity to develop and thrive. And the fact is that, as shown by the French Revolution, as well as the Union actions in the US in the early 1900's, one of the fastest ways to ensure domestic strife and populist violence is to [a] create a tiny privileged class which owns the great bulk of the nation's wealth yet pays little to none of the costs (taxes) to maintain, and pay the debts of, that nation, and [b] relegate the vast majority of the population to a permanent underclass which is heavily taxed in proportion to wages, and has a continual high rate of unemployment and homelessness with little to no relief.

3) Private Property is not necessarily "enshrined" in the Constitution, at least, it is not made "sacrosanct" in any way near to what is claimed by the proponents of rapacious profit-at-any-and-all-costs capitalism. What it does, in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, is say that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property *without due process of law*, and that private property cannot be taken for public use *without just compensation*. It remains, however, up to the People's representatives in the Legislature to write and pass those laws, and to the Supreme Court to deal with questions regarding the constitutionality of those laws which are brought before it. This is, in fact, *not* an enshrinement of Capitalism any more than it is a refutation or condemnation of Socialism; indeed, Article I, Section 7, states that "All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills", and goes on to describe the related procedures for ratification; and Section 8 specifies that "Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes", and finally, "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." Nothing therein, or in any other part of the Constitution, specifies anything regarding one or another economic system, especially since Early America was mostly agrarian, and what manufacturing there was, was done, and sold by, artisans. Corporations were looked at askance and not trusted; their actions, and the length of time the could exist, were all *very* restricted, because of Early America's experience with the East India Company. -- However, as the United States' own Civil War simmered and then finally boiled over, that distrust was overshadowed by the practical need for the armaments, uniforms, means of transportation, and other goods that the new machinery of the Industrial Revolution could produce in mass quantities and in record time. As the factory owners became wealthier, they sought to consolidate and entrench their position in society and the nation, and pushed harder than ever to use the non-specificity of the Constitution to their own advantage. One such tactic was the pressure to shift a corporation away from being a legal entity of limited action and time-span, and towards the notion of "personhood", even though the Fourteenth Amendment was completely specific in defining a "person" as being "born or naturalized in the United States". Specifically, the fantasy of "corporate personhood" gelled on the basis, *not* of any Court decision, but rather, on the inaccurate summary (a.k.a. "headnotes") of the case entered into the record by a pro-corporation Court Clerk, which was "creatively" (i.e., mendaciously) worded in a way that made it *seem* that the Court had declared its acceptance of "corporate personhood". (For more details, see: http://secret-of-life.org/corporate-personhood , http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/13-corporate-personh... , http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Controlling_Corporations/Challenge_Cor... , http://www.johnmurphyforcongress.org/corporate.htm , and others).

As much as the right wing likes to deny the above, and likes to call commentors such as myself "stupid" and/or "commie" and/or "an enemy of capitalism", a closer examination of history, sociology, psychology, and practical economics reveals that the only *sustainable* business model is *not* the rapacious mega-corporations (whose mergers and acquisitions eliminate jobs, and whose bottom-line absolutism continues to ship ever-more American jobs elsewhere), but rather, something closer to the Early American artisans and community-based business-owners, making a living from the modest profit gained by offering high-quality goods to their neighbors at fair prices, and paying those neighbors who worked in those businesses a fair wage. *That* is the business model based upon *true* American values of justice, equal opportunity, equality before the law, neighborliness, and the balance of individualism with cooperation.