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freshwest

freshwest's Journal
freshwest's Journal
May 7, 2015

I see... black people! OMG! Daddy, er, Officer, make them go away! I'm scared!



'Exhibit A' of the Open Carry mob who need to be armed to the teeth, all the time. Because the Big Bad Black Man in the White House is coming for them!

Good on the cops for calling out these whiney babies. People are losing their cookies over every single thing, wasting time. Admittedly, cops live in the same world with these scaredy cats, and see things wrong that are clearly not there, except in the fevered imagination of the public.

A whole generation started watching Disney in the fifties and never turned off the television to notice the world changed while living in a fantasy. I've known people who have been watching re-runs of old shows for fifty years, it's where they feel safe. It's why Reagan was elected. They've lost all those years, for a reality that never was.

C'mon out, all of those people put their pants on one leg at a time, just like you do. Oh, you say you don't do it that way. 'Kay, we'll discuss that on another day, children, just after I explain 'post-racial America' to you, LOL.

May 7, 2015

Everything went to Hell after Lunch. AS USUAL:



Be dead if I ate that way for a day.


May 7, 2015

I think he did something like this before. He apologized for the Tuskegee experiment and also the

use of Central Americans in some sort of drug control trials. Things have changed since Obama has been president, he turned the corner on this with Eric Holder.

Now imagine if Bill attempted to make a change over the status of Cuba or negotiate with Iran back in those days! We were just coming off the national romance with Reagan (well, I wasn't fooled, but too many were).

He met one hostile diversion after another from Day One (sound familiar?) and derailed off his planned agenda. He did raise taxes, and treated 'terrorism' as police action. He got convinced by NATO that we had to get into the Kosovo conflict, but that had been an area of contention for centuries and Yugolavia was only held together by the post WW2 power structure of Europe which was eroding.

The operation was a 'success' militarily but it was probably the only war the GOP wasn't in love with, painting it as opportunism. But it was mandated by treaty. The USA did the role that was assigned to it and it was over with in a matter of weeks. We are seen as the heavy but some anonymous online experts don't seen to grasp these plain facts. We like the UN and The Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

But that is a treaty we signed onto as well. The Birchers have always hated them, so does the GOP. A read of those rights and other papers by them such as the one where they call denial of women's right to choose as torture is something they hate. They voted against the rights of the disabled because of their fetus fetish, but that was an excuse. They want the disabled to die and 'reduce the surplus population.'

Clinton was saddled with the Newt Gingrich majority that took over in 1994 with Rush and non-stop cable punditry assisting because HRC dared to try to get health care reform. The origin of the Palin's Death Panel meme came from Rush regarding HRC's plan to reform healthcare:

The Health-Care Plan of 1993

Clinton's attempt at health care reform



The Clinton health care plan was a 1993 healthcare reform package proposed by the administration of President Bill Clinton and closely associated with the chair of the task force devising the plan, First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton. Bill Clinton had campaigned heavily on health care in the 1992 U.S. presidential election. The task force itself was created in January 1993, but its own processes were somewhat controversial and drew litigation. Its goal was to come up with a comprehensive plan to provide universal health care for all Americans, which was to be a cornerstone of the administration's first-term agenda. A major health care speech was delivered by President Clinton to the U.S. Congress in September 1993. The core element of the proposed plan was an enforced mandate for employers to provide health insurance coverage to all of their employees through competitive but closely regulated health maintenance organizations.
Opposition to the plan was heavy from conservatives, libertarians, and the health insurance industry. The industry produced a highly effective television ad, "Harry and Louise" ad", in an effort to rally public support against the plan. Democrats, instead of uniting behind the President's original proposal, offered a number of competing plans of their own. Hillary Clinton was drafted by the Clinton Administration to head a new Task Force and sell the plan to the American people, a plan which ultimately backfired amid the barrage of fire from the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries and considerably diminished her own popularity. By September 1994, the final compromise Democratic bill was declared dead by Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell.

The Clinton health plan required each U.S. citizen and permanent resident alien to become enrolled in a qualified health plan and forbade their dis-enrollment until covered by another plan. It listed the minimum coverage and maximum annual out-of-pocket expenses for each plan. It proposed the establishment of corporate "regional alliances" of health providers to be subject to a fee-for-service schedule. People below a certain set income level were to pay nothing. The act listed funding to be sent to the states for the administration of this plan, beginning at $13.5 billion in 1993 and reaching $38.3 billion in 2003...

Opposition to the Clinton plan was initiated by William Kristol and his policy group Project for the Republican Future, which is widely credited with orchestrating the plan's ultimate defeat through a series of now legendary "policy memos" faxed to Republican leaders. Conservatives, libertarians, and the health insurance industry proceeded to campaign against the plan, criticizing it as being overly bureaucratic and restrictive of patient choice. The conservative Heritage Foundation argued "the Clinton Administration is imposing a top-down, command-and-control system of global budgets and premium caps, a superintending National Health Board and a vast system of government sponsored regional alliances, along with a panoply of advisory boards, panels, and councils, interlaced with the expanded operations of the agencies of Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Labor, issuing innumerable rules, regulations, guidelines, and standards. "

In August 1994, Democratic Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell introduced a compromise proposal that would have delayed requirements of employers until 2002, and exempted small businesses. However, even with Mitchell's bill, there were not enough Democratic Senators behind a single proposal to pass a bill, let alone stop a filibuster.
A few weeks later, Mitchell announced that his compromise plan was dead, and that health care reform would have to wait at least until the next Congress. The defeat weakened Clinton politically, emboldened Republicans, and contributed to the notion that Hillary Clinton was a "big-government liberal" as decried by conservative opponents...


https://www.boundless.com/u-s-history/textbooks/boundless-u-s-history-textbook/the-challenges-of-globalization-and-the-coming-century-after-1989-31/the-clinton-administration-231/the-health-care-plan-of-1993-1317-9290/

It was one of the major factors in the Obama/ Clinton split in 2008. She voted for cheaper pharmaceuticals to save costs with the clout of the government (and buying from Canada, IIRC).

Although state UHC is an option under the AFCA, it is an option and was not adopted as much as it should have been. There were even provisions to hire insurance company employees to work for an expanded government run health care plan as private insurers were expected turn the work over to the government since their massive profits were going to be cut.

The political landscape is even worse than it was then. There have been many unexpected twists and turns on this road as the GOP hasn'tt worked in good faith for the public. They are social darwinists, little different than the typical Randian. They are following the Koch agenda which calls for all such programs to be cut out despite the death toll. 'Collateral damage' at home.

That being said, I guess it is a good thing that Bill is making his apology regarding the drug laws and has even gone south of the border to apologize for the harm it has done there. What he is saying is good, but I somehow feel disquieted.

This is supposed to be HER presidency IF, and these are big IF's, she wins the primaries and then the general. I am not voting for both of the Clintons, but have nothing against him. The great RW conspiracy is real and we've only learned its true authors, and the mindset it employs, in recent years. It was not well known back in the Clinton days so HRC was mocked for saying so, but after watching media disinfo since those days, most of us are not so naive as to deny it. When one looks at the names in that article above, we see the hand of the Koch brothers on all those organizations that are named. They have not changed their agenda since 1980.

But Bill is a gifted speaker and has a great way of getting to the point of things. I'll live with it, but we still need a Democratic majority that is veto proof to get what needs to be done. I don't know that either Clinton has had much success in legislation...

Although I believe she has a much better track record in getting bills passed as a Senator. Bernie has not either, despite having great bills that have not been passed. Remember, too, that he was being extorted. The government was shut down under Newt Gingrich and the GOP also tried to put him out of office.

All that he did was under extortion each year as Obama has been. I put the blame for some bad laws at their feet as they were not what Bill was elected to office to do. Some of what he did really hurt the poor, some helped others. I feel his record is not as good as it should have been. Some were not of voting age when he was in office. Things in this nation have changed drastically this past century. Some for the better, much for the worse.

Gratuitous pic of Obama and Clinton happily embracing each other as the count came in on the scoreboard for the ACA. Yes, she was there and involved in saving lives with the ACA. Those whose lives have been saved might consider that before they spit at her name:



With her and Bernie running in this race in our party's name as candidate for POTUS, we have much to be proud of.

May 7, 2015

Well, and there was the fabled 2 year majority we keep hearing about:

About that fillibuster proof majority myth. A link from Mother Jones:

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/09/about-filibuster-proof-majority

Those of us who followed this daily at the time saw what was happening. But if the solution as most who despise the Democratic Party as much as the GOP does, is not to vote at all, or put any of them in, why even mention it?

Other than to depress the votes of those who want to change things in the government with a majority than cannot be filibustered, after dealing with nearly a score of GOP dominance.

How did not voting in 2010 help progressives?

If it doesn't make any difference, why do the GOP suppress Democratic voters at every oppotunity while putting out dog whistle to their voting block?

As far as this issue is concerned, I don't waste time talking to people who are not going to vote, or are determined to make the Democrats the bad guys in all of this. And it doesn't matter which part of the Democratic Party they loathe, the GOP voters will vote for their man no matter who it is.

Because they do believe voting matters and they have proven it at every single election as they have voted in a GOP majority in state houses, governor mansions, the US Congress and most of the Senate.

It is really no use talking to those who continually denigrate all Democrats. Their minds are made up, just as surely as GOP voters, only the memes are different. The results are exactly the same.

SSDD!

May 7, 2015

There is this one that's already started up:

Bronze Bust of Putin as Roman Emperor to Be Unveiled



The St Petersburg's Cossack community has promised to mark Russia’s anniversary of the allied victory over the Nazis by unveiling a bronze bust of Russian president Vladimir Putin depicted as a Roman emperor.

Andrey Polyakov, the leader of the St Petersburg Cossack group Irbis - a popular organisation which stresses the importance of traditional Slavic values and military valor - told local press the planned sculpture will be cast from bronze and installed near the underground station of Parnas in north St Petersburg.

According to Polyakov the idea to honour Putin with a monument arose a year ago when pro-Russian forces, backed by Putin, seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.

“Such a remarkable event in the history of Russia such as the accession of Crimea has to be immortalised,” Polyakov told local news agency Nevskye Novosti yesterday. “I believe that Putin is one of our brightest, positive heads of state we have had in the last hundred years or so. This is a man who is worthy to have a monument in his lifetime.”


Read more:

http://www.newsweek.com/bronze-bust-putin-roman-emperor-be-unveiled-315094

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141044199#op

All Hail Putin, Restorer of the Realm!



Much more classy than the Bush banana republican inauguration with tomatoes pelting the car. Babyface Putin is better than Bush. And that's not saying much. So it goes...

May 6, 2015

I'm voting for the one on the right! But tin foil hats aren't good enough:



I'd say, protect me, Oh Mighty ALCOA! But he has a bad record on the environment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoa#Environmental_record

I mean, really! Who knew?

May 6, 2015

Yes, they have a plan:



Otherwise known as the national ALEC agenda, set 30 years ago. A generation has grown up with it:

They have gotten just about every thing on their list, playing to all sides who don't understand the world the Koch brothers are forcing on us piecemeal. They are positioned to finish the task. Not voting for the Democrats is a vote to let them have it all:

BERNIE SANDERS Uncovers 1980 Koch Agenda- "What Do the Koch Brothers Want?"

What else do the Koch brothers want?


In 1980, David Koch ran as the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential candidate in 1980.

Let’s take a look at the 1980 Libertarian Party platform.

Here are just a few excerpts of the Libertarian Party platform that David Koch ran on in 1980:

“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 Medicaid programs.”

“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.”

In other words, the agenda of the Koch brothers is not only to defund Obamacare. The agenda of the Koch brothers is to repeal every major piece of legislation that has been signed into law over the past 80 years that has protected the middle class, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the most vulnerable in this country...

Tomorrow it will be Social Security, ending Medicare as we know it, repealing the minimum wage. It seems to me that the Koch brothers will not be content until they get everything they believe they are entitled to.

Our great nation can no longer be hijacked by right-wing billionaires like the Koch brothers.

For the sake of our children and our grandchildren, for the sake of our economy, we have got to let democracy prevail.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024806298

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/koch-brothers

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a7980koch

to kpete:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024806298

Note that Reid was revealing the same and then the Bundy fiasco in his own back yard broke into the news cycle and deflated the one or two dates attention this was given on MSM. So everyone forgot it. The old men behind the curtain reached out with the crook and pulled Sanders and Reid off the air for a marathon of reichwing glory.

We've heard these memes for years, Americans have come to believe this is how it has to be. It's the recipe for neo-feudalism.

Another explanation of this here:

How Freedom Became Tyranny

Rightwing libertarians have turned “freedom” into an excuse for greed and exploitation.

George Monbiot - December 19, 2011

Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice?

In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws; big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor.

Right-wing libertarianism recognises few legitimate constraints on the power to act, regardless of the impact on the lives of others. In the UK it is forcefully promoted by groups like the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs and Policy Exchange. Their conception of freedom looks to me like nothing but a justification for greed.

So why have we been been so slow to challenge this concept of liberty? I believe that one of the reasons is as follows. The great political conflict of our age – between neocons and the millionaires and corporations they support on one side and social justice campaigners and environmentalists on the other – has been mischaracterised as a clash between negative and positive freedoms. *


More at the link about the meaning of positive and negative freedoms and how the word is being used against us:

http://www.monbiot.com/2011/12/19/how-freedom-became-tyranny/

Even better, is the video of how they are systematically returning us to feudalism, which I posted on before:

It's called feudalism. Where you must pay the baron to use his road and you will bow to your betters or else be killed by those who directly benefit from strong man rule.

Like Rand Paul bragging about his private security that makes him feel safe, surrounded by Second Amendment solution riflemen who want to 'restore' the USA to its rightful rulers. Same thing as the CSA wanted, where only white men will rule.

Like the OC crowd who want to replace all LEOs. I don't want these misogynist, racist, LGBT hating, theocrats patrolling our streets looking for victims. The bottom line of how this looks is shown here:




Where social mobility is a pipe dream, slavery is what some people are born to be in and they deserve it. Historically all caused by reducing government until it is so weak it cannot enforce laws as it was the only force keeping feudalism at bay.

Yes, Grover Nordquest knew that cutting off funds and denying government taxe revenue was the way to do this and demanded the allegiance of the GOP, as the Koch brothers do now.

Thom Hartmann did a great analysis in this clip, referring to an author who states the case plainly:



*Screw the Libertarians in the GOP, Democratic Party or any other party who says the ends justify the means no matter who is destroyed. This is the era we are living in, so please listen to that video carefully, DU!

May 6, 2015

Do the Republicans Have a Plan B?



Published on Apr 16, 2015

Thom Hartmann wonders how the Republican party will respond as the "suckers" begin to awaken?


Interesting as always on his own show talking of important things.

May 6, 2015

It's an attack of the...



She's a-coming for ya!

And we all noticed that ugly pic they posted. Hope the dude got a good paycheck from that. The Koch brothers are investing $889M personally to attack the Democrats. That is going to be marked money. Think how many dollars will be added to the GOP warchest, far exceeding that. No matter what, even with the fabled $2+billion HRC is predicted to garner, we'll still end up being disadvantaged as we are not in the pockets of billionaires. We are for those less advantaged.

In his defense, Hunter Walker did post this *dreadful* graphic:



http://www.businessinsider.com/2016-election-odds-2015-4

Nonetheless, he appears to say that Marco Rubio will beat her?

And the graphic is dated prior to Bernie's announcement. But a possible Hillary running mate has been groomed to take a role in Washington, D.C.:



If O'Malley or Webb are sending this out, it doesn't speak well of their electoral strategy. It would take a microscope to find out what they are for in the MSM, or even online.

At least Bernie Sanders - himself - is running a clean campaign, talking up his own ideas, that so closely match that of many Americans.

Nice try, but no cigar (not even the famous one) for Hunter Walker. EPIC FAIL.

I personally hated the reduction of number of candidates in 2008 debates and thought it did a disservice to voters. It was not as informative as the previous debates and is less inclusive.

This is the landscape we are dealing with and not HRC's fault, although she agreed with the narrowing the debate attendees along with others in 2008.

It shut out Gravel and Kucinich as they had not won ANY of the primaries. And some of their fans saw this as a grave injustice, and I was one then. Looking back, since they hadn't won the races, it makes sense now. Admittedly, I was not a HRC fan at the time.

The problem is The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) begun in 1984.

The CPD has moderated the 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012 debates. Prior to this, the League of Women Voters moderated the 1976, 1980, 1984 debates before it withdrew from the position as debate moderator with this statement after the 1988 Presidential debates:

"the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter."

The Commission was then taken over by the Democratic and Republican parties forming today's version of the CPD.

In 2000, the CPD established a rule that for a party to be included in the national debates it must garner at least 15% support across five national polls.[5] This rule is considered controversial[6] as most Americans tune into the televised national debates and hear only the opinions of the two main parties instead of the opinions of the multiple other U.S. parties, including three others considered "major" for having organization in a majority of the states and a couple dozen others considered "minor".


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Presidential_Debates

In its heyday, when I first got into politics in the sixties, the League of Women Voters was great for moderating debates, I thought. It was an American institution for good elections. But this was also before the changes in media taking place long, long before Bill Clinton got into office. And it's gotten worse every year.

JMHO.

May 6, 2015

Too tiny for me to make out. Try this version of the Bush Reign of Terror:



Some say that to Bush, Cheney, etc., those fireworks at the end have the same moral equivalency as bombs going off, it's just energy being expended. Never mind all those people under the pretty light show, huh? Do I need a icon here?

If so, here it is: And I don't care what version you use to make Bush look like the clown he reportedly is. I think Bush was either the most deluded creature there was, or much more wiley than we give him credit for. EOM.


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