America Found Drowned In Bathtub GOP Suspected

Our goal is to shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub…Grover Norquist

"How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses 2 points?" … Pope Francis

You hear from Paul Ryan and his generation, the hypothetical generational theft to come if Social Security and Medicare are not gutted for the current baby boom generation ready to retire.  Blah blah blah, we baby boomers have heard it over and over again. 

Well generational theft is real and it’s here.  They are the Reagan generation of instant gratification without working for anything.  They started out selling insurance under Reagan and just kept selling magic beans to whomever they could bilk out of their life savings.  They bleed their parents, and family members to invest in their latest scheme.  They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

They are the real generational thieves, the tail end of the baby boomers born after 1950.  You know who they are.  They are the generation that didn’t have to go to war during the Vietnam era and therefore are always anxious for the next war they won’t have to fight. 

They are the blowhards that say, you have to spend money to make money.  They are Republicans and voted for George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.  They want to privatize Social Security because all those billions of dollars sitting in Social Security could be invested in the stock market for higher returns.  Social Security and Medicare are the old way; they have the new, get rich quick way.

They are the ones that came up with ARM loans so you could buy a Mc Mansion with little to no money down.  The premise they came up with regard to ARM loans was, you always would make more money, so don’t worry about tomorrow.

They always had a new car, kept buying bigger and bigger homes, boats, vacation condo’s, the sky was the limit.  And they were able to keep up that lifestyle by bilking “stupid” people out of their hard earned money.

The baby boomers were the ones who put 20% down to buy a modest home.  Baby boomers took out 30 year mortgages and saved in their 401K for retirement.  They paid into Social Security and Medicare, fought the wars and knew the value of a dollar.  When the Reagan generation wanted to privatize Social Security, baby boomers said “no”, that’s fool hardy.

So the Reagan generation came up with mortgage backed securities.  Those securities were worthless junk but Reganites paid the securities rating agencies to rate them as triple A.  They then sold those worthless securities to teachers unions and government workers unions and municipalities as triple A, low risk, low return, in for the long haul investments. 

Many of them in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s became billionaires on Wall Street selling that crap to Baby Boomers.  Now that the entire pyramid scheme has collapsed they are in our government and protect themselves from prosecution by offering to pay fines in order to remain free to do it again.

The Wimpy Ronald Reagan generation would always pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.  They always had a new get rich quick scheme.  Then when things went belly up on their latest scam they would file bankruptcy every seven years and start again.

Where the baby boomers respect and admire the experience and wisdom of their elders, the Reagan generation looks at them as prospects; stupid people who worked for a living.  When you are a smart Reaganite, you let the stupid work and you make money off of them.

They are the ones who walk into the bar and buy a round for everyone.  The Mr. Big, who you always wonder, where did they get all that money?

Now the bar tab is due, and they blame the $17 trillion dollar debt on the baby boomers, and their desire to retire with security.  They have cleaned out 401K’s and government pensions and now stand with their pockets inside out saying “it’s generational theft to expect our children to work”. 

Rather than prosecuting them for their generational theft of our retirement funds and government pensions, and savings they now want to return to the “cat food” days when all the elderly could afford to eat was cat food.  But now, cat food costs the same as people food, because it is a Wall Street commodity.

The Reagan generation looked at the U.S. Postal Service and saw money to be taken.  Rather than taxpayers of this country expecting their government to provide basic services, the Reaganites want to privatize the postal service into a for profit business.  Instead of citizens enjoying reasonable postal rates for shipping, get ready for that $10 package you need to ship costing $50.

The Reagan generation looked at all that government money going into our public schools and decided to redirect those tax dollars into private charter schools.  They fired tenured teachers with master’s degrees and filled those slots with inexperience teachers.  In private charter schools the accountability they demand in public schools does not exist.  The public schools federal food subsidies are cut and hungry children cannot learn. 

The Reagan generation looked at government workers and all their pension money and went after the largess.  They say the government cannot provide the same level of services that the private sector can for less.   They demand government be cut down by eliminating jobs and give tax breaks to the wealthy. 

The Reagan generation hates government subsidies for Amtrak and starve their budget then complain that Amtrak isn’t efficient and is a waste of taxpayer money.  Over 30 million people use Amtrak. 

So this Thanksgiving there won’t be much to be thankful for, Republicans have cut SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) just in time for the holidays. While Republicans gorge themselves for Thanksgiving, many, many go hungry.

Happy Thanksgiving from the GOP.  They have finally shrunk America enough to drown in a bathtub. 

By Patricia Baeten 

Kaboom! Nuclear Option Goes Off

Oh the horrors, Democrats finally took the nuclear option.  The fainting couches at Fox News are full to the brim.  Viewers are treated to clips of Democrats warning Republicans about using the nuclear option to confirm Bush’s judges, ad nausea.

So, let’s take a little trip down the memory hole.  George Bush lost the 2000 election by over a half million votes and lost Florida in spite of his brother’s and family friends’ machinations.  After James Baker filed the lawsuit Bush v. Gore, daddy’s pals on the Supreme Court made an extra-judicial decision to overturn the election.  Bush and Cheney came into office making a full assault on our Democracy as if they had an overwhelming victory.

Starting with Bush’s pick for Attorney General John Ashcroft, the judicial system in the U.S. was forever pushed far right. 

According to Democracy Now here’s a sample of John Ashcroft’s legacy prior to becoming A.G.:

He persistently attempted to block school desegregation in his state; a federal court threatened to hold the state in contempt for his failure to comply with a court order.

He gave a lengthy interview to the Neo-Confederate magazine Southern Partisan, in which he praised Confederate leaders who fought to preserve slavery, including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.

He distorted the record of a highly qualified African American state Supreme Court Judge and misled his colleagues in the Senate, successfully sabotaging the judge’s nomination to a federal district court.

He received an honorary degree from Bob Jones University and spoke there just three years ago; the Christian university has a segregationist history and until recently banned interracial dating and marriage.

But was Ashcroft filibustered?  No, he went on to become Attorney General and spent about $8,000 for drapes to cover “Lady Justice’s” naked breast.  He wrote the Patriot Act and allowed the torture of prisoners.  Republicans said over and over, the President has the right to an up or down vote on his choices.

Upon arrival in the White House, Bush fired all judges and began filling those seats with the biggest cavalcade of clowns in this country’s history.  Attorneys from Pat Robertson’s Regent University and Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University were prominent in the Bush Administration.  Bush’s nominees had a basic requirement, an extreme religo-crazy agenda. 

Two of Bush’s appointees that Democrats objected to were Janice Rogers Brown and Pricilla Owen.  Both were right-wing extremists.  So Republicans made a deal with Democrats, pass Bush’s picks and we will avert the “nuclear option”.  Those nut cases are still on the court today making judgments on personal religious philosophy rather than established law.

Then there was the controversial December 7, 2006 midterm dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys who were George W. Bush appointees.  There had been a mid-term election and these attorneys failed to indict Democratic politicians ahead of the election.

One of those fired attorneys was David Iglesias, who was the subject of the movie “A Few Good Men” and was played by Tom Cruise.  Iglesias a Republican and a JAG officer had received a positive performance review just before he was fired by Bush.

Iglesias was the U.S. Attorney for New Mexico where Republican Representative Heather Wilson was up for reelection.  New Mexico’s Republican Senator Pete Domenici and Representative Wilson made phone calls to Attorney Iglesias to pressure him to bring charges of corruption against Democratic Senate President Pro Tem, Manny Aragon before the election.  The FBI had been investigating Aragon for possible kickbacks in connection of construction of two courthouses in Albuquerque.

According to a 2007 article by Michael Coleman in the Albuquerque Journal:

Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias told Congress on Tuesday that Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson made "inappropriate" calls to inquire about public corruption cases.

Iglesias told House and Senate committees the calls from his fellow Republicans marked the first time he had ever received inquiries about an ongoing federal investigation from a member of Congress.

"I got the distinct impression I was to take action before (the general election)," Iglesias testified.

Monica Goodling, a Regent University (Pat Robertson) grad had been in charge of decisions on the hiring and firing of the attorneys.  At a congressional hearing on the political firings of the seven attorneys she admitted judges were hired on the basis of political predisposition.

So here we are today, the Democrats finally invoked the nuclear option.  Finally.   Our Government has been paralyzed by the Republican Party.  We must move forward.

Republicans aren’t interested in compromise, nor are they interested in sanity.  They filibuster everything, from appointments of staff and judges to the most minor legislation.  If you were dealing with sane, reasonable people you wouldn’t have to resort to the nuclear option of passing appointments with a simple majority.  But alas, we are not dealing with sane, reasonable people; we are dealing with the new Republican Party.  Sane need not apply.  Kaboom!

By Patricia Baeten

Ding Dong the Obamacare Witch Is Dead

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel has been making the physician rounds on cable stations to sell the fiasco he helped to create called Affordable Healthcare Act.  For those of you who don’t know, Dr. Emanuel is the brother of Rahm Emanuel current Mayor of Chicago and former White House Chief of Staff to Obama.  So it is no surprise that the person who was instrumental in creating Obamacare was none other than Rahm’s brother, Ezekiel.

And Ezekiel isn't very tolerant of sick people, the death panels were named after his idea that after a certain age it is a waste of money to pay for life saving operations.  While he is a doctor, he is a bioethicist, which would explain his lack of bedside manner.  

According to Betsy McCaughey’s August 2009 article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Obama's Health Rationer-in-Chief":

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama, is under scrutiny. As a bioethicist, he has written extensively about who should get medical care, who should decide, and whose life is worth saving. Dr. Emanuel is part of a school of thought that redefines a physician’s duty, insisting that it includes working for the greater good of society instead of focusing only on a patient’s needs. Many physicians find that view dangerous, and most Americans are likely to agree.

Obamacare was a disaster from the get go.  The country was ready for universal healthcare provided by the government we pay taxes into.  It doesn’t make sense that our country would provide healthcare for the very young and the very old and throw the rest of its citizens to the mercy of a for-profit Wall Street based insurance system.

Since the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the insurance companies have made life and death decisions based on profit margins and something called “shareholder” value.  They continued to raise premiums to ensure continued profits for those at the top, while dropping coverage as soon an insured became ill or denied coverage for expensive life-saving treatments based on dubious “pre-existing conditions”.

This ridiculous “affordable healthcare” law was an abomination from the maternity coverage for all to the “give a buddy a government contract”.  Requiring all citizens to buy overpriced, profit driven insurance was never feasible, especially with the ungodly high unemployment rate along with the huge drop in wages. 

A for profit healthcare system is not feasible, “for profit” and “healthcare” are incongruent that is why no industrialized nation has a “for profit” system. 

If that wasn’t bad enough, turn the contract for the IT services over to a Canadian company with a really bad record, but has ties with Obama and his Chicago thugs in the White House.

Obamacare is based on lies stacked upon lies, starting with Obama’s campaign promise of Medicare for all.  His campaign promise was a lie and he knew it.  If one had listened to Obama, they would know he like his predecessor George W. Bush wanted to be transformational like Reagan.  Transformational meaning screw the American people, everything is for profit. 

Reagan’s transformation began with Alan Greenspan calling for repeal of Glass-Steagall as early as 1987.  While a lot of people concentrate on the effects of the repeal on investment banks and commercial banks, credit default swaps and derivatives trading, the repeal opened the gates of hell for insurance based national health care system traded on Wall Street.

If you are old enough to remember the Reagan years, they transformed America into a debtor country with healthcare only for the rich, high priced insurance for the rest.

Now Obamacare is going up in flames like the Hindenburg.  When the House of Representatives passed Obamacare, it included a public option.  The Senate had a sound Democratic majority and could have passed the house bill with a simple majority.  However, the Democrat’s Leader, Hapless Harry Reid said it couldn’t pass the Senate unless it had 60 votes. 

The Senate Democratic establishment of Lieberman, Dodd, Schumer, Reid, Biden et al, took out the public option and voila, the Obama/Lieberman Democrats passed the bill with just a simple majority, no 60 votes needed. 

The bill was crafted by insurance companies without input from physicians, nurses, unions or patients.  With a sleight of hand, these pseudo Democrats assured the insurance industry their profit stream would not dry up under a President Obama.

Most of those Democrats are no longer there, they were soundly rejected and the blue dog Democrats like Brent Stupak have been sent to the pound.  Real Democrats like Al Franken, Alan Grayson, Marcy Capter, Maria Cantwell and Elizabeth Warren will have to take the blame for the handiwork of Obama and his Wall Street Democrats.  Elizabeth Warren and John McCain have introduced a bill to reinstate Glass Steagall, lets hope it passes.

So now this Obama atrocity has destroyed the sick, hobbled healthcare system we had and made it worse.  That is the story of everything Obama has had his finger prints on.  When George W. Bush was president, Newt Gingrich said the Democrats bumper stickers should say “Had Enough?”  So true today.

Look at the “high speed rail system” we were promised.  Obama decided that only states that wanted to participate would get money for high speed rail.  Imagine if Eisenhower’s interstate highway system was like that.  That is the mess you have with Obama’s high speed rail scam.

So this is what you get when the American people are not allowed to pick their candidates.  When the two parties control the primaries and whose votes they will count, you get a president that answers to his campaign donors.  It was true with Bush and true with Obama.  And all that bullsh*t about Obama’s campaign being financed by individual donors is just that, bullsh*t. 

Obama raised over $300 million in October 2008 while over 700,000 Americans were losing their jobs each month.  Those donations were in $200 or less prepaid untraceable credit cards.  That comes to $1 million for every man, woman and child in the United States.

But those banks that printed up those credit cards were handsomely rewarded and continue to be rewarded with the Federal Reserve printing $38 billion a month to bail them out.  Now we all pay the price for a president who has never accomplished anything in his life.  Totally unqualified for the office, he makes G.W. Bush look like Franklin Roosevelt.

Now after the insurance industry rejiggered their insurance plans in anticipation of the 2014 deadline to purchase their products, Obama has decided to throw a wrench in the gears and in an attempt to save himself and his democrats.  He throws out a meaningless, useless fix that can be overridden by State Insurance Commissioners intensifying the horrific mess he created.

There is no way to fix this mess, absolutely no way.  Well I guess we’ll have to stand back and watch this fiasco come to its natural conclusion, the worst law ever passed by the worst congress and worst President in history. I just hope not too many lives are lost in the interim.

By Patricia Baeten

Thank you, all who serve.  Your suffering is more than one can bear to think about and your service and dedication to your country hard for many to imagine.  Thank you you take one's breath away. 

World War II

Vietnam

Afghanistan (Video)

Iraq (Video)

On your day, thank you for your sacrifice, it takes one's breath away.

Thank you.

by Patricia Baeten