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And again - in your 3rd hour, you seem to blame dems, progressives and the left for the low turnout in 2010. You're blaming the victim. You're correct, we worked our asses off to get him elected and a progressive majority in 2006. Then we were screwed by the dem leadership. No impeachment, no investigations, kick Howard Dean, who arguabley was the reason that Obama won in 2008, and let's no forget the gentle support of Mr. Rham.
Come on Thom, get real. The DLC hates the base and made sure we knew it EVERY day.
When your partner betrays you, not once, not twice, but again and again, when do you make the decision that you HAVE to make to seperate yourself from the abuser, the betrayer?
The Koch brothers, plus the wealthy families of Michigan, and conservative think tanks manipulated the election and now we have Gov. Rick Snyder. The monies were an obvious influence, the candidate presented himself as an experienced businessman which he may be; but like Mitt Romney he drains companies and has his interests in China. While that may be true, the average uneducated voter and those who always vote Republican because everyone in their families history has voted for that party take no individual responsibility, they are simply continuing a family tradition. And there are the one issue voters, especially in evangelical/fundamental/Christian who are Republican/conservative because of the Right to Life. Like Wisconsin, there is an organized recall for Gov. Snyder.
The monies donated by the Koch brothers and the 24/7 Faux News programs are a great power of influence. The Republicans carry a bag of tricks to change the democratic process; but, mind control is not obvious as a suppression of the vote; but, after years of witnessing the sheepeople, and attempting to listen to this fanatic population, it is a factor. Gov. Snyder has placed emergency financial managers in Michgan communities suffering from the worsening economy. In Benton Harbor, the elected city officials have been removed, they have no say in the management of their community. When an elected official has no voice in the governing of thier community, it is the worst type of suppression because it is a nullification of the votes that were made as one of the rights under the democratic process.
And..the Rethuglicans or Tea Baggers can't use government funding of private industrial pharmaceuticals or other government funded programs. These private companies benefit by government funding, then hold the patent, and rip everyone off for the exorbitant prices that their monopolies demand...that nobody but the rich (Republicans) can afford. So let the Rethuglicans go without the bad old government that they complain of. Old Rush Limpballs would have to go into a private detox center because he would no longer have access to all those drugs. And let the Republican'ts suffer, then die of treatable diseases because they hate government so much.
Thom,
A point of correction. It is Airport Safety Inspectors who are working without pay, not "airline safety inspectors". Since you are a pilot, I'm sure you've met an Aviation Safety Inspector or two, who work with airlines, airmen and aircraft. Aviation Safety Inspectors are paid from Operations & Maintenance funds; however, the funds in question are Facilities & Equipment (F&E), Research, Engineering & Development (RE&D), and Airport Improvement Program (AIP).
Thom, I just listened to your discussion over the hostage bill passed AND enabled by may democrats that call themselves progressive. Near the end of the discussion, I was shocked (..I tell you, shocked) to hear you , of all people, say you would have voted YEA if you were the deciding vote.
It is this uncritical support of Obama that has enabled him to IGNORE and even dis progressives knowing full well that you / they will do as your told. If you, in this hypothetical, had voted NAY, then you would have given the president a change to actually show leadership. Thanks to the dems in congress, we'll never know what the pres might have done, but it couldn't have been worse than what happened.
Thom, I respect your knowlwdge and your point of view most of the time, but IMO, here you have it wrong.
Here are two tests to think about.
1. Would you support him if the president was a repub?
2. Would the dems in congress support the policy if the president was a repub?
I believe these are two simple questions to ask yourself BEFORE you provide unconditional support. As we have seen for the last 3 years, he HATES progressives. Actions speak louder than words.
If you were the father of a 16 year old son and this boy told you that if you did not give him the keys to the family car and $200 in cash he would burn down your mother's house with her inside, what would you do?
You could call his bluff. However, what do you do if you know that your son suffers from a mental illness and you believed he would burn down your mother's house.
This may sound like a crazy hypothetical event, however it is very close to what the Republicans in the House of Representatives said to President Barack Obama. Speaker John Boehner announced to the public that he and his Republican House members were going to hold the nation's debt limit hostage until they received the spending cuts that would help their friends in the private sector. In particular the Republican's wanted to gut the Environmental Protection Agency so that the oil company's would not have to spend money to make their workplaces safe for living creatures.
I believe the Progressive Democrats will make the Republicans pay for their evil ways in the 2012 elections. I believe the Progressive Democrats will raise enough money to chase all of those evil Repubicans out of office. Even if you believe that what the Republican's wanted to do was good policy, which I do not believe, then it is still not the proper way to win their argument. Just as in the hypothetical story about the teenaged boy, it is not morally correct to use extortion to get your way just becasue you cannot win the argument on its merits.
The Republican Party as become a terrorist organization. Progressive Democrats must work hard to show the rank and file members that the leaders they sent to Congress do not care about them; that they only care about the corporations that bought their seat for them. I believe if the typical Republican voter understood how immoral their elected officials have behaved that they would replace them with someone more trustworthy.
Philip Henderson, ethical magician
I don't really see this as a problem. Republicans don't like government, no problem: they can't use roads built with government funding, can't go into buildings built with government funding, can't get paychecks from the government they work for, can't drive cars or use any other consumer goods that were manufactured by companies that have ever gotten tax breaks or paid taxes, can't fly out of airports that were built with government funds, can't drink water from government-owned or government-funded water resevoirs, and can't eat food grown by farmers who get government subsidies. They can't get any retirement funds from the government, or government-paid health care plans. They can't use banks or investment house services that have ever gotten even one penny of bailout money or other government funds. They can't use telephones or telephone services made or provided by companies that have gotten government funding at any time. They can't wear clothing made by companies that have ever gotten government funding or subsidies. Screw them, let them go live naked in the wilderness and eat dirt. As long as that wilderness isn't owned by a government.
100,000 construction workers may be laid off, but that doesn't mean that the government is off the hook for the construction contracts. These construction companies will bill the FAA for the down time. They have equipment, material, overhead, etc. Any court will award them any costs incurred. This will cost the taxpayers Millions!!!! Good thing we're rolling in dough.
This is frightening. I am flying from Seattle to Boston and back this month. I don't know whether or not to cancel and lose all my money, since my tickets are unrefundable, or just hope for the best.
May a plane engine fall on the house of reps!
Now this is rich! The "progressive" liberals agonizing over voter suppression.
Over the past pivotal decade, at the start of the 21st Century, during the awakening to the existential threat of climate change, when having a conscience and concern for future generations while voting could have possibly mattered, the addicted to (D) greater evil voting liberals successfully waged a ruthless "Wasted Vote" campaign of voter suppression, which convinced well intentioned people that they could never get the good government they wanted if they actually voted for it; that convinced people to either not vote, or to always vote against whatever they said they wanted... like the "intelligent" liberals do.
The decade of vicious voter suppression by liberals has purpose perverting succeeded in ensuring that elections can now serve no good purpose. There will be violence, and it is (D) liberals who are most responsible for that.
The "Principles" of Liberal Voters
http://chenangogreens.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id...
The NAZI re"thug"licans are reveling in their spineless President's capitulation. How utterly DISGUSTING both of those criminal enterprises are, D + r !!
Besides the obvious attempts at supressing voter registration currently going on in Wisc., I am worried about the electronic voting machines all across the country. Too easy to hack and manipulate results.
Palindromedary: With the absence of any real SEC oversight collusive timing associated with day trading is rampant. The real losers are working class 401k holders. Switch to gold or silver or better yet low risk IRA's at your local credit union. Get out now before unemployment takes off like a rocket again, which thanks to the republicans is about to happen. The media manufactures market hype with any old crap story which promotes volatility, which helps day traders siphon off profits. The stock market is quite corrupt and a bad choice for any honest hard working citizen.
I think and have read and have seen so much anti-republican signs and activity that the Koch Bros have lost.
The constant lies and drastic measures of the Walker administration leads to 'We Won't Be Fooled Again' (I can hear the Who in the background!)
Another reason to vote Democrat - Walker has established at 17 member task force to study the 'structure of the UW-System'. It is composed mostly of legislators so get more Democratic legislator. If Walker gets his way, he will ditch the Board of Regents who have done such a great job. Instead he will have a committee of legislators with majority rule and who will privitize UW-Madison. UW-Madison is the top 3rd research university in the world and lobbyists worked with ex-Chancellor Biddy Martin to try to get at the profits. Luckily the Board of Regents convinced the legislators that was a bad idea.
I don't know whether the teapartyer are stupid or traitors. Either way, they're destroying America. The stock market is already tanking. The republican party is gone. They never were, for the most part, level. They have had to work to convince people that getting screwed is good for them. Now, they will have to buy into the teaparty who are in charge of America since Obama has abdicated.
Americans are either stupid or stupider or maybe even stupidest! Does no one remember 1937 when we thought the depression was over and decided it was time to cut back? It took the war in Europe to force the government to start spending on a large enough scale to complete the recovery. At the end of the war our debt was something like 100% of GDP and with everyone working and paying taxes, we paid it off in just a few years.
http://www.amazon.com/Mormons-View-20th-Century-American/dp/1461135982/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312325038&sr=1-1
What these people fail to understand, is that every cut made in Washington (or even at the state, county and city levels) increases unemployment. But then again, maybe that's what they want going into the next election cycle- "see, I told you Obama wouldn't fix the economy!".
Can we throw the actual Tea Partiers into the harbor?!
...iiiii'm leavin' on a jet plane don't know if i'll be back again...scary shit indeed!
I use to be a pacifist...now i am a pcifist with guns. and as far as the hole nazi thing? I wonder when ever I see images of the einsatzgruppen why it is they shot all those people in the back. in our day and age I think it best if it comes to that we all bury little steel tubes deep in the ground with a brief account of what we may become witness to and under no circumstance leave our home under force at least with out some shooting. PLutocracy is just around the corner....
THOM, it's rush limbaugh that is behind this stuff. Please address Rush's points we see at
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_080211/content/01125106.gues...
and
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/today.guest.html <-- on one story here he says Biden "calls us terrorists" and says he means Biden called the "tea party" that, thus he means he, rush, is in the tea party. Thus it's all operation chaos, the first priority is destroy destroy destroy obama and lie. No taxes for this sociopath though he makes 10 million or more a year.
Could use some things to say back to these points of Rush because then maybe some of us can try to wake up our friends who are brainwashed by him.
The Open Chemical Physics Journal
ISSN: 1874-4125
[DOI: 10.2174/1874412500902010007]
Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe
Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley and Bradley R. Larsen Pp 7-31
We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples we have studied of the dust produced by the destruction of the World Trade Center. Examination of four of these samples, collected from separate sites, is reported in this paper. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. One sample was collected by a Manhattan resident about ten minutes after the collapse of the second WTC Tower, two the next day, and a fourth about a week later. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red material contains grains approximately 100 nm across which are largely iron oxide, while aluminum is contained in tiny plate-like structures. Separation of components using methyl ethyl ketone demonstrated that elemental aluminum is present. The iron oxide and aluminum are intimately mixed in the red material. When ignited in a DSC device the chips exhibit large but narrow exotherms occurring at approximately 430 °C, far below the normal ignition temperature for conventional thermite. Numerous iron-rich spheres are clearly observed in the residue following the ignition of these peculiar red/gray chips. The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic.
http://www.benthamscience.com/open/tocpj/articles/V002/7TOCPJ.htm
At this web site you can download the actual scientific paper that goes into a lot of detail.
I think people would be much angrier if they knew the truth about 911...and stopped falling for "the official conspiracy theory". It is so easy to believe that some outside evil force was behind 911.
Talk about traitors....this really is sinister and evil....to use your own people as sacrificial victims in a false flag operation in order to convince the masses to give up their freedoms and pave the way for an illegal invasion of the Middle East and put the people in a bewildered and confused frame of mind that people would not be able to do much of anything about the economic crimes that had been committed against them.
Many people will probably never be convinced, no matter how much evidence is presented (or, lack of evidence to support the "official conspiracy theory"), that their own people, despite their overwhelming financial superiority, or holders of such honorable positions in our government, would never do such a thing! Well, it is indisputable that they sent thousands of our soldiers to die in the Middle East. And it is indisputable that the Bush regime lied to get us into committing that war crime. And it is indisputable that Obama has continued in Bush's path...which really makes him a war criminal and a liar as well. He did indicate that he would get us out of the Middle East.
Some people probably, still, have not even heard of the nano-thermite residue found in the dust samples taken right after the collapse of the WTC towers (one sample only 10 minutes after...the others were days and maybe a week later). But all samples contained the same amounts of nano-thermite and evidence of other explosives used in the demolition of the buildings. This was an inside job. Treason was committed against the American people! And if you look into history...this wasn't the first time...and probably won't be the last.
And now many high up officials know about it but will continue to cover it up because they are not any braver than anyone else would be if the police came knocking at your door....even if you believed that they were going to be hauled off to some prison camp to be tortured.
Of course, THEY are counting on this behavior of submission.
Picture yourself in NAZI Germany in the 40s...or maybe in the Soviet Union in the 50s..."the police" comes knocking at your door to haul you down "for questioning"(yeah, right). Of course they are the authorities...they have guns...they are more powerful than you...what do you do? You go with them, of course.
When the NAZIs with guns and mean dogs that would rip you to shreds orders you to climb onto the box cars. What do you do? Just what the Jews did, of course, you get on the box cars.
Now, what do you do when, in 2011, the police comes knocking at your door...or maybe even they don't knock...they force their way into your house. You don't know if they are police...maybe some are plainclothes...it's dark...you're half asleep...what do you do?
The majority of "law abiding" people would say...do exactly what they say....hope to hell they really are the police and not some dope fiends who might slit your throats just for fun.
Police have often invaded the wrong houses for "drug busts" or other crimes. Innocent people have been killed just because the police made a mistake.
With a government and a criminal justice system that is continuing to show us that they are not much different from those "evil" "other countries" who didn't have "democracy" (although Germany was a democracy that became a dictatorship) are we much different from those cringing, huddling, victims of the Third Reich or those who found themselves freezing in some Soviet Gulag. Some might brag that they would resist and fight...but would they...really?
2950-10k: And the markets don't look so good today..the DOW under 12,000..(~11,850 which is down 250)...just a week or so ago it was up around 12,500...down about 750 points from a couple of weeks ago. But to hear those idiot talking heads on CNBC, who are always trying to sell "bull" one would think oh it's just a temporary hiccup..(what's the term they use...oh yes..."correction mode"...what freakonomics doublespeak...."we'll be back on tract shortly". Yeah, sure!!!
Oh, and they were trying to sell people the old idea of "being in it for the long term" (while the rich secretly rip off the suckers who do by being in it themselves for the short term)...I think they were talking about emerging markets....anyway..it's such dejavu kind of hype that people like Jim ("Don't sell Bear Stearns") Cramer will make. Currently he is yelling "Don't sell" again. Yeah, right!!!
Just don't get suckered into that Americans Elect trick to get frustrated voters to join their cause. It initially sounds good but I think it's a trick to get voters to vote against their best interests. Do a little research and look up who founded the organization (Peter Ackerman) and how he made his wealth, and what other organizations he is tied in with, and other people he associates with) and you might think twice about signing their petitions. I got suckered..so I admit I was a fool who didn't know what the heck I was signing..even though I scanned their literature...but most people don't even do that in a busy mall. Yes, I should have done this research before I signed the petition. That's why I am so ticked off about this. I believe they are not being totally honest and that they hope that people don't really look at who they are and look beyond the initial "sales hype". If Americans Elect ends up running a true progressive I'd be very, very surprised. But, I wouldn't be surprised if they run a conservative. A conservative will continue the same screwing of the people that they have been doing for the past 30 years.