Teacher resigns: My Profession No Longer exists

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/10/1343935/-Teacher-s-resignation-letter-My-profession-no-longer-exists?detail=email

This is not from me. This was eloquently written by a true expert in their field whom everyone should listen to, educator, Gerald J. Conti. I picked it up from an article in the Washington Post by Valerie Strauss. Read it and learn...there will be a test after.

Teacher’s resignation letter: ‘My profession … no longer exists’
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By Valerie Strauss April 6, 2013
 i-quit
Increasingly teachers are speaking out against school reforms that they believe are demeaning their profession, and some are simply quitting because they have had enough.
Here is one resignation letter from a veteran teacher, Gerald J. Conti, a social studies teacher at Westhill High School in Syracuse, N.Y.:

The UGLY Conservative Tactic of Attacking the Person, even KIDS, instead of the idea.

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/ugly-conservative-tactic-brutally-attacking-individuals-even-kids-instead-ideas?akid=12742.294211.x6iBe4&rd=1&src=newsletter1031171&t=3

One of the more unfortunate trends of the 21st century is the increasingly ugly right-wing strategy of singling out individuals—usually those who have somehow offended them by having liberal opinions—and subjecting them to grotesque smear campaigns and a deluge of abuse. Recent examples include Michelle Malkin's smear campaign against a 12-year-old who testified in favor of SCHIP; the bizarre multi-year campaign to discredit climate scientist Michael Mann; and the relentless haranguing of feminist video game critic Anita Sarkeesian. The goal often seems to be to “take out” the target by making the price of continuing to speak out in public so high that they quit entirely.

More Gun Deaths is places with fewer gun restrictions

http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2015/01/in-todays-edition-of-news-that-should.html

Courtesy of the Violence Policy Center:

Newly available data for 2013 reveals that states with weak gun violence prevention laws and higher rates of gun ownership have the highest overall gun death rates in the nation, according to a Violence Policy Center (VPC) analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. 

Meanwhile, states with the lowest overall gun death rates have lower rates of gun ownership and some of the strongest gun violence prevention laws in the nation. However, even in these states the human toll of gun violence is far above the gun death rate in other industrialized nations. 

The five states with the highest per capita gun death rates in 2013 were Alaska, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Wyoming. Each of these states has extremely lax gun violence prevention laws as well as a higher rate of gun ownership. The state with the lowest gun death rate in the nation was Hawaii, followed by Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Each of these states has strong gun violence prevention laws and a lower rate of gun ownership.

Greece is telling Western Bankers to get screwed.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/country-refuses-bow-down-western-bankers?akid=12738.294211.PaC6zB&rd=1&src=newsletter1031124&t=14

The Country That Refuses to Bow Down to Western Bankers

The powers that be are getting nervous as other countries consider following Greece's lead.

Dad of boy with cancer wants unvaccinated kids not near his chld. It is a health hazzard.

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/why-dad-fighting-keep-unvaccinated-kids-out-school?akid=12738.294211.PaC6zB&rd=1&src=newsletter1031124&t=8

The anti-vaccine movement has managed to gain an alarming amount of legitimacy in recent years, propelled by high profile Concerned Moms like Jenny McCarthy and Kristin Cavallari, as well as media-friendly pediatricians like Dr. Jay Gordon, who claims to have signed hundreds of “personal belief exemptions” for parents who choose not to vaccinate their children against diseases like measles and polio. Recently, Gordon reassured CBS News, “Measles is almost an always a benign childhood illness.” Yet as vaccine rates have dropped in certain areas – often, notably, in affluent, educated hotspots — once previously all but eliminated illnesses have been seeing a strong return. And in California this month, a measles outbreak that seems to have originated in Disneyland has made painfully clear the consequences of refusing to vaccinate.
Now, a Marin county father is trying to change the odds – and with a compelling personal reason. Carl Krawitt’s six year-old son Rhett was diagnosed with leukemia in 2010. The boy endured four years of chemotherapy, and, happily, is now considered in remission. But while his immune system is still recovering from the experience, he is not yet able to receive his vaccinations, and it may be months before he can. In the meantime, however, he’s living in the California county with one of the state’s highest rates of “personal belief” exemptions — 6.45 percent.

Carl Krawitt says that all of the children in his son’s elementary school class are vaccinated, but his school itself has a seven percent exemption rate. And now he and his wife are asking the district to “require immunization as a condition of attendance, with the only exception being those who cannot medically be vaccinated.” As Krawitt explained to NPR this week, “If you choose not to immunize your own child and your own child dies because they get measles, OK, that’s your responsibility, that’s your choice. But if your child gets sick and gets my child sick and my child dies, then … your action has harmed my child.” And as Rhett’s oncologist, Dr. Robert Goldsby, says, “It’s not just Rhett. There are hundreds of other kids in the Bay Area that are going through cancer therapy, and it’s not fair to them. They can’t get immunized; they have to rely on their friends and colleagues and community to help protect them.”

She died with Dignity Nov 1, 2014. Her final statement.

http://www.upworthy.com/on-november-1-she-chose-to-die-with-dignity-she-voiced-her-final-wishes-here?c=reccon1

She is so very brave.  Thank You for sharing your final wishes.

On November 1, She Chose To Die With Dignity. She Voiced Her Final Wishes Here.

Poor People Pay Double the rate of taxes of the richest.

http://bluenationreview.com/8-things-poor-afford-fair-tax-system/?ref=00904

States are taxing their way to greater inequality through a regressive tax system in which the poor are taxed at a higher rate than the wealthy. Regressive taxation limits state’s revenues and worsens income inequality, and it’s happening across the country.

According to the Institute for Southern Studies, when you combine all state and local taxes, the average effective percentage rate for the poorest non-elderly people is 10.9 percent. For the middle fifth it’s 9.4, and for the top 1 percent it’s 5.4. The poorest Americans are paying double what the very richest Americans are paying. Where’s the logic in that?

In my state of Florida, our regressive tax system has created a percentage tax rate of 12.9 percent for the poorest fifth of taxpayers, while the rate for the richest 1 percent is just 1.9.

Here are a 8 “luxuries” the poor might be able to afford if the tax system wasn’t fundamentally unfair:

1. Food
2. Medicine
3. Gas
4. Birth Control
5. Childcare
6. Clothing
7. Heat for their homes
8. School supplies

Ayn Rand, the Republican Heroin, admired a SERIAL KILLER. Ayn was weird. Interesting read

http://www.alternet.org/books/how-ayn-rand-became-big-admirer-serial-killer?akid=12725.294211.ZA7bwi&rd=1&src=newsletter1030979&t=23

One reason most countries don't find the time to embrace Ayn Rand's thinking is that she is a textbook sociopath. In her notebooks Ayn Rand worshiped a notorious serial murderer-dismemberer, and used this killer as an early model for the type of "ideal man" she promoted in her more famous books. These ideas were later picked up on and put into play by major right-wing figures of the past half decade, including the key architects of America's most recent economic catastrophe -- former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan and SEC Commissioner Chris Cox -- along with other notable right-wing Republicans such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Rush Limbaugh and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.
The loudest of all the Republicans, right-wing attack-dog pundits and the Teabagger mobs fighting to kill health care reform and eviscerate "entitlement programs" increasingly hold up Ayn Rand as their guru. Sales of her books have soared in the past couple of years; one poll ranked Atlas Shrugged as the second most influential book of the 20th century, after the Bible.

The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.

An Open Letter to the Koch Brothers and the others who really run the country. Very Good.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/27/1360483/-An-Open-Letter-To-The-Guys-Who-Run-The-World?detail=facebook

I'm no one special, by the way. Just another of the proles out here in Sector Twelve. Many of my friends, by the way, are convinced that you have no regard for us at all down here in the 99% - that we might as well all be cockroaches as far as you're concerned. I have no idea whether that's true or not (you may, however, want to talk to some of your friends who have been doing their best to reinforce this view), but I certainly hope it's not - that at least a few of you might be afflicted with the curse of "empathy" or "human feeling." I'm not here to debate that. And anyway, it's irrelevant. I'm not going to appeal to your theoretical sense of empathy. I'm going to appeal to your self-interest.
But I said I had an important message to pass on to you. Sorry, almost forgot. Here it is:
You really need to help us save the world. Not only that, it is in your best interests to do so!

Abortion Doctors are being stalked and terrorized regularly. The violence is increasing.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/01/28/3615999/abortion-clinic-violence-survey/

Over the past several years, there have been increasing levels of threats and intimidation aimed at doctors who provide abortion services, according to a new survey of abortion clinic violence published by the Feminist Majority Foundation. Some of the tactics mirror the harassment that doctors faced in the 1990s before becoming the victims of violent and even fatal crimes.
The National Clinic Violence Survey is the first comprehensive nationwide review of the atmosphere at women’s health clinics since 2010. Nearly 250 abortion providers across the country responded to the questionnaire with information about how anti-abortion harassment affects their patients and staff.
“The most stunning result in the survey, really, is this surge in serious threats that are being carried out against providers nationwide,” duVergne Gaines, the director of the National Clinic Access Project and one of the authors of the report, told ThinkProgress. “Those threats have almost doubled since 2010.”

7 Ways GOP will hurt us with the Keysone Pipe Project if it passes

http://samuel-warde.com/2015/01/gop-plans-to-harm-the-usa-with-the-keystone-pipeline/

The Campaign for America’s Future.

1. NOT to approve the Franken amendment “to require the use of iron, steel, and manufactured goods produced in the United States in the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and facilities,”
2. NOT to approve the Markey-Baldwin amendment requiring that the pipeline oil stay in the United States for domestic use,
3. NOT to require campaign finance disclosures for politicians benefiting from tar sands development,
4. NOT to require tar sands companies contribute to a government fund for oil spill cleanups like the one now underway in Montana after a 50,000-gallon spill,
5. NOT to ensure private property cannot be seized through condemnation or eminent domain for the private gain of a foreign-owned business entity,
6. NOT to tax this oil as petroleum is usually taxed,
7. NOT to impose an 8-cent-per-barrel tax.

To put the final nail in their coffin, The Campaign for America’s Future concluded their report noting:

And then, after promising to run the Senate by allowing debate and amendments and after Republicans had voted to block campaign funding disclosure associated with the pipeline, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shut down all amendments and debate, so that Republicans could fly off to attend a Koch brothers campaign-funding event in Palm Springs.

Conservative Disrespect toward the President of the United States

http://samuel-warde.com/2015/01/10-examples-of-conservative-disrespect/

I wish information about GW Bush had been as open and available as with President Obama.

No American president has endured the kinds of malicious and false rumors about his past as has President Obama and as part of an ongoing public service commitment by this website, we present our series of articles debunking right-wing lies taking on myths such as those claiming that Obama’s thesis paper is sealed, college records are sealed from Occidental College Columbia and Harvard, his Selective Service Registration is sealed, Obama’s medical records are sealed, his state senate records are sealed, and that his law practice records are sealed.

5 Devastating Facts about Charter Schools that you won't hear during National School Choice Week

http://www.alternet.org/education/5-devastating-facts-about-charter-schools-you-wont-hear-national-school-choice-week?akid=12725.294211.ZA7bwi&rd=1&src=newsletter1030979&t=17

1. There are no data that support the idea that charter schools are superior to public schools.
2. Unlike public schools, charters can pick and choose their students.  

3. Children who are better resourced with more family support are the winners in the school choice game. Children from disorganized families don’t even enter the lottery. Children with significant special needs are not well served in charter schools that lack the appropriate resources.
4. It’s family income, stupid. Ravitch and many others have pointed out numerous studies linking income and test scores. One study demonstrates how SAT scores favor students from wealthy families. Another study at Washington State University confirms the correlation between parental income and ACT and SAT scores, while a different article on the widening academic achievement gap between the rich and the poor shows how the gap between children from high- and low-income families is roughly 30 to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born twenty-five years earlier. 
5. Public schools, in some communities, are doing just fine. The idea that our schools are falling behind and our students will not be able to compete globally is, according to a number of education experts, off base. Diane Ravitch, among others, has written that the notion that American students’ scores on international tests have declined is a myth.

Solid Plutocracy starting in GOP states

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/gops-frightening-plot-build-laboratories-plutocracy?akid=12725.294211.ZA7bwi&rd=1&src=newsletter1030979&t=5

In the American political tradition, states are known as “laboratories of democracy,” miniature examples for the rest of the country to learn from. Following the 2014 elections, Republicans gained more power in state legislatures than they've had in their party's history, controlling 69 of the 99 different state chambers across the country.
With these wide majorities, these Republicans are using these laboratories to put into action some of their wildest plutocratic legislative dreams, everything from enacting discriminatory legislation against gay and lesbian Americans to assaulting the rights of workers, to clawing back laws at every level that protect the public interest.
Bigotry In The Name Of Religious Freedom
Attacking Labor Organizing
Cutting Taxes On The Rich, Starving Their States Of Revenues
Guns Everywhere
A Change In 2016?
Fo​urteen gubernatorial races will take place in 2016, in the backdrop of a presidential election. Eight of those races will feature Democrats defending their own turn, and three of the races, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi will take place in November 2015. One of the most vulnerable will be North Carolina's Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, giving progressives a chance to unseat a Republican in a state that is the site of a huge protest movement against right-wing policies.
It's unlikely, however, that McCrory and other Republicans will be unseated unless there is wide awareness of the GOP's efforts to turn their states into plutocratic laboratories.
   

Science Test from Christian School.

http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2015/01/science-test-from-private-christian.html

This is real.  It should be an Onion article but it is not.  If this becomes the 'norm' or these people who believe this is ok have anything to do with Science Education, our nation is in BIG trouble.

Wall Street is a major threat to the middle class

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Robert-Reich/2015/0127/Wall-Street-is-a-threat-to-the-American-middle-class?cmpid=TW

Presidential aspirants in both parties are talking about saving the middle class. But the middle class can’t be saved unless Wall Street is tamed.
The Street’s excesses pose a continuing danger to average Americans. And its ongoing use of confidential corporate information is defrauding millions of middle-class investors.
Yet most presidential aspirants don’t want to talk about taming the Street because Wall Street is one of their largest sources of campaign money.

Jon Stewart: New Corespondent show pictures of Africa and US to Jon - Gues which is which

http://www.upworthy.com/he-shows-side-by-side-photos-to-jon-stewart-and-asks-him-to-guess-the-country-mind-blowing-yes?c=ufb1

I like this new member of the Daily Show.

Doctors Right, Politicians Wrong about prescribing Abortion Drugs

http://jezebel.com/doctors-right-politicians-wrong-on-prescribing-abortio-1681898047?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Hey, wow, who could've predicted this: a new study on mifepristone and misoprostol, the two drugs taken together to induce an abortion, shows that it's perfectly safe to use a lower dosage of the drugs than the FDA recommends. Doctors have been saying that since at least 2001. It's almost as though their medical training gives them a special understanding of how drugs work?

The study, released in the journal Contraception and which we saw via Think Progress, is important because for years, anti-abortion politicians have been passing laws to restrict RU-486, the drug that combines a dose of mifepristone and a dose of misoprostol, to its FDA-approved use, rather than allowing doctors to prescribe a lower-safer dose off-label or let them prescribe it slightly later in pregnancy than the FDA guidelines currently dictate. (Arizona, for example, wants to make RU-486 illegal after the seventh week of pregnancy, though most studies show it's effective for about nine weeks, a very big differenced when you're dealing with an unwanted pregnancy.)

The Contraception study concludes that the drug is safe through 63 days (nine weeks) of pregnancy, adding that their research "contributes to the existing evidence against restrictions requiring use of the FDA-approved regimen in the United States." 

Boehner destroyed in Forbes Magazine Article. Legacy of Failure

http://samuel-warde.com/2015/01/john-boehner-destroyed/

"Presidents come and go. However, respect for the office of the presidency, particularly on the part of the man who is second in the line of succession to the presidency, should not.

Through his actions, Boehner may have scored some points for his party and for his preferred policy option vis-à-vis the Iranian nuclear negotiations. But in the process, the Speaker of the American House of Representatives has succeeded in embarrassing the Office of the President.

Considering that Speaker Boehner has failed to accomplish anything of note during his Speakership, I can only wonder how it must feel to have his legacy be his effort to disgrace the American President in the effort to bolster the political chances of a foreign leader.
Ungar concludes, noting:
While I have often disagreed with Speaker Boehner, I have always kind of liked him in the belief that, while our solutions might be at odds, he wanted to do what he believes is best for America.

It would be a struggle for me to harbor such positive feelings going forward.

Seeking to damage any American President by helping a foreign leader embarrass our own leader can never be considered something that is best for the nation. And that is simply the truth no matter what your political persuasion or your feelings about the current occupant of the Oval Office

Man Shoots up house with AK-47 - NO CHARGES. He was an off-duty police officer

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/my-house-got-blown-up-by-an-ak-47-no-charges-for-florida-deputy-who-shot-up-womans-home/

Dang:  If I had done that, I would be talking to a judge at the very least.

Wall Street is now cooking up the next Financial Disaster

http://www.alternet.org/robert-reich-wall-street-hard-work-cooking-next-financial-collapse

The American middle class needs stronger bank regulations, not weaker ones.
Last summer, bank regulators told the big banks their plans for orderly bankruptcies were “unrealistic.” In other words, if the banks collapsed, they’d bring the economy down with them.
Dodd-Frank doesn’t even cover bank bets on foreign exchanges. Yet recent turbulence in the foreign exchange market has causedhuge losses at hedge funds and brokerages.
This comes on top of revelations of widespread manipulation by the big banks of the foreign-exchange market.
Wall Street is also awash in inside information unavailable to average investors.
Just weeks ago a three- judge panel of the U.S. court of appeals that oversees Wall Street reversed an insider-trading conviction, saying guilt requires proof a trader knows the tip was leaked in exchange for some “personal benefit” that’s “of some consequence.”
Meaning that if a CEO tells his Wall Street golfing buddy about a pending merger, the buddy and his friends can make a bundle — to the detriment of small, typically middle-class, investors.

It’s nice that presidential aspirants are talking about rebuilding America’s middle class.
But to be credible, he (or she) has to take clear aim at the Street.
That means proposing to limit the size of the biggest Wall Street banks;  resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act (which used to separate investment from commercial banking); define insider trading the way most other countries do – using information any reasonable person would know is unavailable to most investors; and close the revolving door between the Street and the U.S. Treasury.
It also means not depending on the Street to finance their campaigns.

Why Stupid Politics is causing the worldwide economic problems

http://www.alternet.org/economy/why-stupid-politics-cause-our-economic-problems?akid=12721.294211.PPb-25&rd=1&src=newsletter1030924&t=5

In 2014, the world economy remained stuck in the same rut that it has been in since emerging from the 2008 global financial crisis. Despite seemingly strong government action in Europe and the United States, both economies suffered deep and prolonged downturns. The gap between where they are and where they most likely would have been had the crisis not erupted is huge. In Europe, it increased over the course of the year.
Developing countries fared better, but even there the news was grim. The most successful of these economies, having based their growth on exports, continued to expand in the wake of the financial crisis, even as their export markets struggled. But their performance, too, began to diminish significantly in 2014.
In 1992, Bill Clinton based his successful campaign for the U.S. presidency on a simple slogan: "It's the economy, stupid."From today's perspective, things then do not seem so bad; the typical American household's income is now lower. But we can take inspiration from Clinton's effort. The malaise afflicting today's global economy might be best reflected in two simple slogans: "It's the politics, stupid" and "Demand, demand, demand."
The near-global stagnation witnessed in 2014 is man-made. It is the result of politics and policies in several major economies -- politics and policies that choked off demand. In the absence of demand, investment and jobs will fail to materialize. It is that simple.

40 Years of Downsizing Democracy will lead to collapse? Historically - seems so.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/downsize-democracy-40-years-heres-what-you-get?akid=12721.294211.PPb-25&rd=1&src=newsletter1030924&t=25
http://www.alternet.org/economy/downsize-democracy-40-years-heres-what-you-get?akid=12721.294211.PPb-25&rd=1&src=newsletter1030924&t=25

The wealthy are in the take it all mode and anyone else be damned.

Elites won't save us
Theoretically, of course, neoliberalism says the state should not intervene in the efficient functioning of the market -- resulting in prosperity for everyone. But the theory, according to neoliberalism authority David Harvey, was simply hijacked by the elites to fleece the system -- bailing out the financial sector with trillions of taxpayers' dollars and failing to re-regulate, while gutting labour and environmental regulation. Government actions reveal neoliberalism as "more of a practical attempt to restore elite class power than as a theoretical project driven by the works of [Friedrich von] Hayek or Friedman."
The NASA study is not optimistic about our chances of avoiding eventual collapse given the failure of other civilizations, saying "collapse is difficult to avoid.... Elites grow and consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society."
Warnings go unheeded. The NASA reports says "historical collapses were allowed to occur by elites who appear to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory (most clearly apparent in the Roman and Mayan cases)."

Climate Change and climate pattern changes have created a MONSTER STORM on the East Coast.

http://www.alternet.org/new-york-gov-incoming-monster-blizzard-part-pattern-weve-never-seen?akid=12721.294211.PPb-25&rd=1&src=newsletter1030924&t=3

Massive snowstorms such as the one sweeping into the US north-east on Monday are “part of the changing climate”, New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, declared at a press conference announcing a state of emergency.
Cuomo said on Monday that “there is a pattern of extreme weather that we’ve never seen before” – reiterating his comments in the wake of hurricane Sandy,when he said that “anyone who says there’s not a dramatic change in weather patterns is probably denying reality.”

increasingly intense storms fit “a pattern of extreme weather” – and that pattern evinces the reality of climate change. As the globe continues to heat up over the long term – 2014 was the hottest year on earthsince human beings started keeping records – more and more energy enters the atmosphere, charging it for extreme events.

Molly Irvins on Late Term Abortions: This is great

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/23/1342876/-Molly-Ivans-Explains-Late-Term-Abortion-Perfectly?detail=email#

For decades, anti-choice Republican lawmakers have tried to chip away at the legal reproductive rights of women, and the battle continues today. When it comes to  late-term abortion, the topic is more difficult even for some Liberals/Democrats. The reason for this is because late-term abortion is highly misunderstood.
The late Molly Ivins was never known to hold back on her thoughts and beliefs. The journalist, columnist, commentator, and author who was raised in Texas, had a brilliant gift of getting her messages across while adding streetwise realism with a lot of wit.

Michael Moore responds to his haters about the, 'American Sniper' movie.

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/michael-moore-responds-to-haters-after-american-sniper-uproar-20150125#ixzz3Prg1Oajn

"Here's the truth they can't or won't report: I'm the one who has supported these troops - much more than the bloviators on Fox News," Moore writes before listing the many ways they're misinformed in their opinion of him. When Moore's father passed away, he asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Veterans for Peace. The filmmaker also refuses to do business with vendors that don't hire vets, sits on the Advisory Board of the Pvt. Bradley (Chelsea) Manning Support Network and has donated thousands of dollars to "help veterans and wounded warriors."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/michael-moore-responds-to-haters-after-american-sniper-uproar-20150125#ixzz3PwyiLEwn
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

Krugman: The Delusion of Austerity Economics and why it should be ended. Watch Greece.

http://www.alternet.org/krugman-ending-delusional-nightmare-austerity-economics

Fed up with suffering through ill-conceived austerity economics, Greece has overwhelmingly elected a leftist leader who has promised to end this particular brand of punitive, failed policy. His name is Alexis Tsipras; he's leader of the left-wing Syriza coalition, and, as Paul Krugman writes in Monday's column, he is already being warned by various fiscal scolds to behave “responsibly.”

"So how has that responsibility thing worked out so far?" Krugman asks.

Answer: By just about any measure, it's been a disaster and has resulted in a great deal of suffering. Per Krugman:

To understand the political earthquake in Greece, it helps to look at Greece’s May 2010 “standby arrangement” with the International Monetary Fund, under which the so-called troika — the I.M.F., the European Central Bank and the European Commission — extended loans to the country in return for a combination of austerity and reform. It’s a remarkable document, in the worst way. The troika, while pretending to be hardheaded and realistic, was peddling an economic fantasy. And the Greek people have been paying the price for those elite delusions.

Economic SuperBowl: Super Rich 91, Middle Class 9

http://nypost.com/2015/01/24/man-on-the-run-after-shooting-family-in-queens-killing-spree/

Just 10% of Americans own 91 percent of the nation's stocks and mutual funds, according to economist Edward Wolff (Table 7). Most of the remainder is held by a "middle class" that is steadily losing ground. The bottom 60% is almost entirely shut out (Table 2).

Stock owners, some of whom made billions of dollars last year, can defer their income taxes indefinitely, pay a reduced capital gains tax when they decide to cash in, or pass on the capital gainstax-free to their heirs.

Making money is all a game to the super-rich -- redistribution toward the top, trickle-down delusions, tax avoidance, and even, for some of them, dabbling in criminal activities. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) once said, "It's really American to avoid paying taxes, legally...It's a game we play...I see nothing wrong with playing the game because we set it up to be a game."

$2 of every $5 owned today was created in the last five years, most of it from the financial markets, and almost all of it going to the richest 10%.

Unfathomably, the richest 1% took anywhere from 95 percent to 116 percent of the new income gains after the recession. Yes, 116 percent, because almost everyone else went backwards. Median wealth dropped about 40 percent from 2007 to 2013. 

Some OR Schools have 50 and 60% of the kids unvaccinated - Just Because.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/01/25/thanks-anti-vaxxers-many-oregon-schools-have-nonmedical-vaccine-exemption-rates-over-50-percent/

Thanks, Anti-Vaxxers: Many Oregon Schools Have Nonmedical Vaccine Exemption Rates Over 50 Percent

The state of Oregon allows quite literally anyone — whether they believe that illnesses are a blight directly from Satan to humanity and God will heal those who have enough faith, or that vaccines are part of a globalist world depopulation scheme, or even if they believe that vaccines are directly linked to autism in order to opt-out of the requirement that their precious little snowflakes be properly inoculated before attending school — a frighting number of parents are taking advantage of the opportunity to place their children (and others) at risk.
A whopping thirteen schools in the state have Nonmedical Exemption Rates above 50 percent, with some schools hovering at around 70 percent of students who are not vaccinated adequately.

 

Republican Plan: Make Medicare more inefficient and expenses to prove it does not work well.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/19/1358814/-How-Republicans-are-making-Medicaid-less-efficient-and-more-nbsp-expensive?detail=facebook

Medicaid is a lean, efficient, program and is in fact far less expensive than the rest of our healthcare system. It's also very popular with its customers, more so than private insurance is with people who have it. So clearly the job for Republicans is to fuck all that up, and they're doing it by adding layers of complexity and cost under Obamacare's Medicaid expansion program.
Take, for example, Arkansas—the state that got the ball rolling for red states seeking GOP twists on Medicaid expansion with its privatized version known as the "private option."Last month the state got approval for a byzantine new program, called Health Independence Accounts, that imposes co-pays on some beneficiaries unless they pay a small monthly fee. Those who have paid their fees are eligible, under certain conditions, for up to $200 to pay for the costs of private health insurance if their income goes up and they transition off of Medicaid. To run the program, the state will pay a third-party administrator about $15 million annually (covered by the feds as part of the cost of expansion).

10 Facts Republicans Choose to Ignore

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/04/1127663/-Ten-True-Facts-Guaranteed-to-Short-Circuit-Republican-Brains?detail=email

1. The United States is not a Christian nation, and the Bible is not the cornerstone of our law.
2. The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist.
3. The first president to propose national health insurance was a Republican.
4. Ronald Reagan once signed a bill legalizing abortion.
5. Reagan raised federal taxes eleven times.
6. Roe v. Wade was a bipartisan ruling made by a predominantly Republican-appointed Supreme Court.
7. The Federal Reserve System was a Republican invention.
8. The Environmental Protection Agency was, too.    
9. Obama has increased government spending less than any president in at least a generation.
10. President Obama was not only born in the United States, his roots run deeper in American history than most people know.  

Anti-Vaxxers ripped apart by Penn and Teller

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/01/24/destroy-anti-vaxxers-arguments/

In the modern world, it’s a rare day that we don’t share the air with strangers, that we don’t touch the same doorknobs and handle the same money. Most days, there’s no problem. In fact, being exposed to strangers’ germs helps us boost our own immune systems, but on an average of about once or twice a year, either a stranger or someone we know passes a virus our way.

FOX says Republicans and Netanyahu SHOULD NOT MEET - Amazing stupidity exposed

http://ringoffireradio.com/2015/01/miracle-of-miracles-fox-news-admits-that-netanyahu-has-no-business-drumming-up-war/

They call it a Political Stunt.

It’s like hell has frozen over. Fox News actually admitted that Boehner and Netanyahu’s latest political stunt is ill-conceived and poor political theater.
Watch the segment.

Bill Maher kicks the asses of Republican Corporate Ass Kickers who are running for President.

http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2015/01/on-friday-nights-real-time-bill-maher.html

Courtesy of You Tube:  

Bill Maher tonight made it easier for big-name GOP donors looking for candidates to back by presenting a “billionaire buyers guide” for which of the “corporate ass-lickers” running for president is the right choice for them. 

He ran the gamut from Rick Perry to Mitt Romney and everyone in between. For example, Maher played up “asshole” Ted Cruz who likes the Keystone XL pipeline because “he also oozed down from Canada to Texas.” 

Maher didn’t have much to say about Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee, but he had a lot to say about Dr. ben Carson. He told the former neurosurgeon, “You’re an insane paranoid liar who will say absolutely anything, or as Fox News puts it, ‘When can you start?’”

I thought this was quite well done, but if I had one criticism it is that Maher suggested that Rand Paul has real hair that he styles to look like a toupee.

Maher: Talk about the SOTU and Income Inequality - Very Good

http://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2015/01/real-time-panel-spars-over-trickle

Real Time with Bill Maher, Jan. 23, 2015. The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens tries to pretend that President Obama spent the majority of his presidency, rather than 59 days with a filibuster proof majority in the Congress and the Senate.

Doctor no longer accepting patients who choose not to be vaccinated.

http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2015/01/sign-seen-in-pediatricians-office.html

This is becoming the new norm.

And this is not the only place that anti-vaxxers are unwelcome, they are also being asked to stay the hell away from the happiest place on earth:

It may be the happiest place on Earth, but California health officials are warning people to stay away from Disneyland unless they're vaccinated.

I myself am somebody who has avoided the flu vaccination for the last twelve years, relying on my own good health and strong natural resistance to see me through the season. And so far so good.

However as somebody who caught both measles and chicken pox as a kid I made sure my daughter got all of her shots and booster shots right on time. Because I love her.

The ACA and the US Health Care Mess

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/21402-the-aca-and-americas-health-care-mess

While it was enacted in 2010 without a single Republican vote, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), a.k.a. “Obamacare,” was built model first proposed by the conservative Heritage Foundation in the 1990s and implemented by Republican Governor Mitt Romney in Massachusetts in 2006. The ACA extends the public safety net to more of the working poor but otherwise keeps the private health insurance system intact. Rather than replacing the private system—and far from the “government takeover of health care” its critics claim—it provides subsidies for individuals to buy private health insurance through state-level “exchanges.”
As social policy, the ACA is a qualified failure. The expansion of Medicaid and mandates for individuals to buy subsidized private insurance will expand health insurance to an additional 30 million people. Regulations establishing minimum standards for coverage and barring exclusions for pre-existing conditions will improve coverage for many. On the other hand, by maintaining the existing system of for-profit medicine and private insurance, the ACA does little to rein in out-of-control cost growth while leaving millions without coverage. We can hope that the ACA’s strengths and its failures will soon pave the way for a rational universal system such as single payer health care.

Man takes Dead Mother to Bank to withdraw money from her account before reporting her death.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/minnesota-man-accused-of-taking-mothers-dead-body-to-bank-to-withdraw-money/
I could not even make this stuff up and think it could really happen.

Social workers and county authorities are investigating a Plymouth, Minnesota man for possible elder abuse and financial exploitation. David Vanzo’s mother died two weeks ago, but police now believe that on that day, he took his mother’s dead body to the bank in order to withdraw money from her account, then reported her death to authorities seven hours later.
According to MyFoxTwinCities.com, Vanzo denies that he would harm his mother or exploit her in any way.
“My mother and I had an agreement,” he told the TV station. “I took care of my mom for years, I’m the good guy here, not the bad guy.”

Evidence suggests that Vanzo may have taken her body to the bank in a taxi hours before he reported her death to police.

Greece might smash the Politics of Austerity

http://www.alternet.org/world/greece-has-big-opportunity-smash-politics-austerity?akid=12717.294211.PsySFA&rd=1&src=newsletter1030792&t=23

Here we go again. There is talk of Greece exiting the euro, and the German government has tried to say that it would be no big deal for Europe, then apparently walked back from that position. At the same time, the German government appears to be trying to influence the Greek election scheduled for January 25 by saying that if the left party Syriza wins, a Greek exit will follow.
Syriza, led by the popular and charismatic Alexis Tsipras, is not threatening to leave the euro but promises to renegotiate Greece’s unsustainable debt. Syriza also calls for reversing Greece’s devastating austerity policies, imposed by the European authorities, which have brought the country six years of depression and more than 25 percent unemployment.
We have seen most of this story before, but the way it is presented in most of the press can be confusing. Most importantly, all this talk of how financial markets will respond to the election is somewhat misleading. The financial markets are not the driving force here. Rather, it is the European authorities, led by the European Central Bank. Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt in July 2012, when he put an end to the financial crisis in Europe with just a few words,announcing that the bank was “ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro.”

US Discontent: A leader in Dysfuntional Democracy

http://www.alternet.org/world/soaring-discontent-democratic-governments?akid=12717.294211.PsySFA&rd=1&src=newsletter1030792&t=21

Almost half the world’s 167 countries claim to be democratic, but according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest global Democracy Index that is a mirage because popular discontent with democratic governments is growing worldwide.
“Europe is home to the most ‘full democracies,’ but it is here that popular discontent with dempcracy is most evident,” the Economist reported. “Only 12.5 percent of the world’s population live in a full democracy… More than one-third of the world’s population (some 2.6 billion people) still live under authoritarian rule.”
The United States is at the bottom of the barrel of “full democracies,” ranking 19 out of the 24 countries, just below the Pacific Island country of Mauritius and South America’s Uraguay. Northern Europe is still tops, led by Norway. Canada is seventh.

6 FOOT SNAKE BITES MAN IN FACE and won't let go. In Lowes Hardware Store

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/01/23/lowes-shopper-bitten-in-the-head-by-python-like-snake-video/

The snake would not let go so they had to cut the head off the snake to get it to release.  Scary.

Republicans splintering - Some DO NOT like the bills so far they have considered. Rape. Not talking jobs

http://www.liberalamerica.org/2015/01/22/ouch-a-damning-quote-by-a-republican-about-gop-house-leadership/

This week, in the new Republican controlled Congress, there has been what Talking Points Memo is calling “the GOP meltdown on abortion and rape.”
The House introduced a symbolic messaging bill that would have banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, but it was pulled at the last minute after GOP women and swing-district lawmakers balked over a rape-exception provision that would have required rape victims to report the crime to authorities before having an abortion.
This kind of crap has a LOT of people, including republicans, wondering exactly what the GOP stands for. Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) gave this quote about the priorities of House Republicans, as quoted by Talking Points Memo:

“Week one, we had a Speaker election that didn’t go as well as a lot of us would have liked. Week two, we spent a lot of time talking about deporting children, a conversation a lot of us didn’t want to have. Week three, we’re debating reportable rape and incest — again, not an issue a lot of us wanted to have a conversation about. I just can’t wait for week four.”

Universal Health Care: Bernie Sanders just got some GOP folks to make his case for it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/23/bernie-sanders-universal-_n_6534526.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

In their ongoing efforts to roll back or hamstring Obamacare, Republicans probably weren't hoping that the first Senate hearing on the matter this year would feature a self-described "democratic socialist" getting GOP witnesses to back a key argument for universal health care.
Thursday's hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions was devoted to the question of moving the full-time work standard under the Affordable Care Act from 30 hours a week to 40 hours, and whether more workers would be hurt by the higher or lower limit.
But to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has long supported the creation of a universal health care system, battling over that particular point began to seem absurd, and he opened his remarks by noting that in every other developed country, such a debate would make no sense at all.
"The argument of whether you provide health insurance to people who work 30 hours a week or whether they work 40 hours a week -- whoa," Sanders said. "In every major country on Earth, health care is a right of all people."
With that as his premise, he then asked three of the hearing's witnesses -- two business owners and a school superintendent -- whether their lives and daily endeavors would be improved if government lifted from them the burden of providing health care to their workers.
The panel's only Democratic witness, Joe Fugere, founder of the Seattle-area Tutta Bella Pizzeria chain, readily answered that it would.

Republicans Cut Off Debate on Keystone because THEY NEEDED TO MEET WITH THE KOCH Brothers.

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/01/23/mitch-mcconnell-cuts-keystone-xl-debate-republicans-meet-koch-brothers.html

Outraged Senate Democrats are livid because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell abruptly cut off debate on the Keystone XL bill so that Republicans could attend a weekend conference with the Koch brothers.

Video of McConnell cutting off debate:

How poverty impacts a childs schooling. There are real impacts.

http://www.alternet.org/education/what-all-americans-need-know-about-how-poverty-impacts-education?akid=12713.294211.6lT-93&rd=1&src=newsletter1030727&t=12

"For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation."

Yet it is often precisely these children, who need the enrichment of music and art and poetry and drama and access to the things taken for granted by kids of middle class settings and up, who lose the most when we cut out those "frills" in order to raise scores on tests that really do not indicate a higher level of learning.
51% of our school children are low income.That means we are not a middle class society any more. It 's an example of American "exceptionalism" that should be a matter of deep concern. No, that's not strong enough -- it's an example of a national shame.

American Sniper is certainly Political: People are threatened with death for any criticism! Free Speech?

http://www.alternet.org/world/stop-pretending-american-sniper-apolitical-bradley-cooper-it-has-incited-countless-death?akid=12713.294211.6lT-93&rd=1&src=newsletter1030727&t=4

So, someone says this movie is political and they get threatened with death and even beheading - US, we are supposed to be the land of free speech.  Not if you want to discuss a war started with lies I guess.  

The biggest shame is that the film could have sparked discussion about the tragic plight of America's soldiers. Veterans are coming home to a country that hasn't done enough to take care of them. Twenty-seven percent of veterans are disabled compared to about 14 percent of the general population; six percent of households receiving food stamp benefits have a veteran in them. The federal government estimates there are almost as many as 50,000 homeless veterans at any one time.

But Kyle is not one of those veterans. He made millions of dollars writing about his time in the military, and was eager to go back. He was a star featured by Conan O'Brien and the mega-church talk circuit.

12 Horrible ideas Religion has unleashed on the world. War us inevitable with these.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/12-worst-ideas-religion-has-unleashed-world?akid=12713.294211.6lT-93&rd=1&src=newsletter1030727&t=6

1. Chosen People 

2. Heretics – Heretics, kafir, or infidels (to use the medieval Catholic term) are not just outsiders, they are morally suspect and often seen as less than fully human. 

3. Holy War – If war can be holy, anything goes

4. Blasphemy – Blasphemy is the notion that some ideas are inviolable, off limits to criticism, satire, debate, or even question.

5. Glorified suffering – Picture secret societies of monks flogging their own backs.  

6. Genital mutilation 

8. Hell  

9. Karma – Like hell, the concept of karma offers a selfish incentive for good behavior—it’ll come back at you later—but it has enormous costs. Chief among these is a tremendous weight of cultural passivity in the face of harm and suffering.

10. Heaven – To our weary and unwashed ancestors, the idea of gem encrusted walls, streets of gold, the fountain of youth, or an eternity of angelic chorus (or sex with virgins) may have seemed like sheer bliss.

11. Male Ownership of Female Fertility

 

Betty Bowers explains Abortion to Everyone. (Who killed the most babies? Surprise, surprise.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq3U09DeKpg&feature=youtu.be

Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian, takes a moment out of her busybody day, to settle once and for all America's most contentious subject: abortion. This video may offend some. But, then again, the truth always does . . .

Oklahoma: Major Teacher Shortage: No raise in 8 years. Low wages and teachers leave.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/22/1359483/-Thanks-to-low-pay-and-education-cuts-Oklahoma-is-experiencing-a-critical-shortage-of-teachers?detail=facebook

A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows state aid to Oklahoma’s public schools is 23.6 percent lower for the current fiscal year than it was in 2008 — and that the margin between Oklahoma and the second-worst state has grown in the last year. “The reduced levels reflect primarily the lingering effects of the 2007-09 recession. At a time when states and the nation need workers with the skills to master new technologies and adapt to the complexities of a global economy, this decline in state educational investment is cause for concern,” states the report.

The situation for teachers in Oklahoma has gone from bad to worse:

President OBAMA'S State of The Union Message goes over well with Those Who Heard It.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/21/1359169/-President-Obama-s-State-of-the-Union-a-big-hit-with-voters?detail=email

A random sample of voters polled by CNN, both before and after President Obama's State of the Union address, give the president a virtual standing ovation.

attribution: CNN/ORC screenshot

That's a total of 81 percent approval—51 percent very positive and 30 percent somewhat positive. The president also significantly shifted the needle on support for the policies he talked about Tuesday night. From January 16-19, CNN polled the group and found majority support for the president's policies; 57 percent thought those policies would move the country in the right
direction. That ballooned to 72 percent after they watched the speech. Some prominent Republicans were not so impressed.

Ocean Waters heating at unprecedented rates: 2014 was hottest year on record but the water heating is a worse problem.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/01/22/3614256/hottest-year-ocean-warming/

The oceans — where over 90% of global warming heat ends up — have literally warmed up off the charts of NOAA.

The big climate news last week was NOAA and NASA announcing that 2014 was the hottest year on record, breaking the highs of 2005 and 2010. But the bigger story got buried: Global warming has continued unabated in recent years.
Indeed, it’s not just that there not been a hiatus or pause or even slowdown in surface temperature warming (see below). The oceans, where the vast majority of human-caused global warming heat goes, have seen an acceleration in warming in recent years. As climate expert Prof. John Abraham writes in the UK Guardian, “The oceans are warming so fast, they keep breaking scientists’ charts.”

Remember, more than 90 percent of human induced planetary warming goes into the oceans, while only 2 percent goes into the atmosphere,

Police: NO KNOCK RAID: A homeowner shoots and kills a police man and no Drugs are found. Should the person be charged?

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/what-happens-when-civilian-kills-cop-self-defense?akid=12711.294211.9i0XkI&rd=1&src=newsletter1030672&t=2

The home owner was standing his ground.

The careless use of SWAT teams in no-knock drug raids -- when heavily armed police burst into a home without warning -- has resulted in a long list of innocent people being killed or seriously injured in the United States. 2014 alone found SWAT teams in Georgia senselessly killing businessman David Hooks and maiming toddler Bounkham “Baby Boo Boo” Phonesavanh. And when those raids victimize people who aren’t even selling drugs, narcotics officers seldom face criminal charges and are given every benefit of the doubt. But if, on the other hand, Americans shoot narcotics officers during militarized drug raids—perhaps believing that they are being robbed and are acting in self-defense—charges of first-degree murder are likely. 
The case of Marvin Louis Guy in Texas is a glaring example.
Guy, an African-American man who is now 50, was the target of a no-knock drug raid on May 9, 2014. Narcotics officers, operating on a tip from an informant who claimed that Guy was selling bags of cocaine, carried out a SWAT raid on his home in Killeen, Texas at around 5:30 AM—and Guy grabbed his gun and opened fire. Charles Dinwiddie, one of the officers, was hit and died two days later. Guy was charged with capitol murder, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty despite his assertions that he thought he was acting in self-defense. Guy’s trial is scheduled for June of this year.

Climate Denial funding is untraceable. WHY use Black Money if you have a solid case?

http://ringoffireradio.com/2015/01/money-funding-climate-change-denial-efforts-is-basically-untraceable/

A study from Drexel University shows that much of the money funding the effort to deny climate change is coming from conservative foundations funded with “dark money,” meaning it comes from concealed donors, Scientific American reported.
The study, the first to examine the “organizational underpinnings and funding behind the climate denial movement,” found that money coming from these foundations whose funding cannot be traced has “risen dramatically over the past five years.”
And while the amount of “dark money” continues to grow, the traceable cash sources, like donations from Koch Industries, have all but dried up.

7 Lies the movie AMERICAN SNIPER is telling people

http://www.alternet.org/culture/7-big-lies-american-sniper-telling-america

1. The Film Suggests the Iraq War Was In Response To 9/11:
2. The Film Invents a Terrorist Sniper Who Works For Multiple Opposing Factions:  
3. The Film Portrays Chris Kyle as Tormented By His Actions: 
One of the film's earliest reviews praised it for showing the “emotional torment of so many military men and women.” But that torment is completely absent from the book the film is based on. In the book, Kyle refers to everyone he fought as “savage, despicable” evil. He writes, “I only wish I had killed more.” He also writes, “I loved what I did. I still do.
4. The Real Chris Kyle Made Up A Story About Killing Dozens of People In Post-Katrina New Orleans:
5. The Real Chris Kyle Fabricated A Story About Killing Two Men Who Tried To Carjack Him In Texas:
6. Chris Kyle Was Successfully Sued For Lying About the Former Governor of Minnesota
7. Chris Kyle's Family Claimed He Donated His Book Proceeds To Veterans' Charity, But He Kept Most Of The Profits: The National Review debunks the claim that all proceeds of his book went to veterans' charities. Around 2 percent – $52,000 – went to the charities while the Kyles pocketed $3 million.   

GOP America - Making America the largest NO GO Zone.

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/01/22/gop-turn-america-ultimate-no-go-zone.html

he Republicans have gotten No-Go Zone Fever; they can’t shake it. But it’s like watching take off a meme about the moon being made of poisonous cheese that’s going to fall on our heads. It’s so obviously absurd.

And then I think of Fox News’ Mexicans sneaking across the border with their anuses stuffed with drugs a few years back, and then it became explosives in their anuses, and then came ISIL and Ebola, and then ISIL and Ebola working together and Mexicans sneaking across the border with Ebola, and before that, it was Benghazi.

For six years we have listened to Republicans invent a fake and increasingly bizarre reality from which to attack our first black president. They complain about no-go zones, but they seem determined to turn America into a no-go zone. A no-go zone for people who disagree with the invented reality they want to impose not only on us, as American citizens, but on the world.

Their reaction to President Obama’s SOTU the other night had an air of the unreal about it, with John Boehner blaming Obama of all people for income inequality, and Ted Cruz complaining to Megyn Kelly, “he just doubled down on the same failed policies of the last six years, more and more taxes and spending and death…”

Jon Stewart rips apart the Republican Response to the SOTU Message? F word was used

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/jon-stewart-destroys-gops-dueling-sotu-responses-how-many-fcking-people-are-at-this-tea-party/

Daily Show host Jon Stewart blasted the plethora of Republican responses to the State of the Union address to open his show on Wednesday, combing through them until he found one worthy of his “Implodey” award for self-sabotage.
“How many f*cking people are at this tea party?” he asked in exasperation at one point, since he initially believed Tea Party Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-IA) official rebuttal on behalf of the party would be it.
“That seemed like less of a response to the president’s address than an application essay to Nostalgia University,” Stewart said of Ernst’s remarks about growing up poor. “‘Nostalgia University: It was better when your dad went there.’”

Instead, Ernst was followed by not only Rep. Curt Clawson’s (R-FL) statement on behalf of the Tea Party, but individual responses by two prospective presidential candidates in Ernst’s fellow senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY).

Joni Ernst, Republican: Idiot of the year. This person is furious at Joni

http://www.liberalamerica.org/2015/01/21/idiot-of-the-year-joni-ernst-speaks-and-im-furious/

She kept up her pathetic attempt to pander to lower middle class Americans by saying:

“You see, growing up, I had only one good pair of shoes. So on rainy school days, my mom would slip plastic bread bags over them to keep them dry but I was never embarrassed. Because the school bus would be filled with rows and rows of young Iowans with bread bags slipped over their feet”.

So basically, the solution is to give more to Wall Street, privatize everything, and raise the Tax burden on working families so their children will have only one good pair of shoes instead of making it easier for them to prosper? Wow! I honestly don’t believe there is a word for this kind of stupidity.

Joni Ernst, Republican (plastic bag shoe covers): Her Family got 460,000 in Federal Subsidies while she grew up.

http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2Frs%2F2015%2F01%2Fsen-joni-ernsts-family-actually-received-more-than-460000-in-federal-subsidies%2F&h=vAQGwqfd6AQHTyY4Yyb6X-ZCXdhI-OUbHywTOEAxfUVgRvw&enc=AZMXM9495FNDEZRAeSEyZnH140_vOvh8mpWey_QfZ2ihQn2FLm7hWThmP_J6cJZowTxKo1KMmNSp95mVqHg5IizDakOC9ga5KYrpsFYVJhjhVJPJK86KbB8XqnrbdPClyZxsSXuZtKMG0x885glhOR1mB2elISog8qIKh-83VTppFQ&s=1

Damn, I wish my family had been poor like that.

Despite Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-IA) rhetoric about growing up poor on Tuesday night, her family actually received hundreds of thousands of dollars in government aid between 1995 and 2009, the District Sentinel news co-op reported.
Farm subsidy records indicate that the freshman senator’s father, Richard Culver, has received $38,395 in commodity subsidies and conservation payments, with all but $12 of the money being used for support of his corn crops. Ernst’s uncle, Dallas Culver, has reportedly received $250,000 in federal corn subsidies and $117,141 in additional aid. And her paternal grandfather, Harold Culver, got an additional $57,479 in aid between 1995 and 2001.
Ernst did not mention her family’s use of federal programs during her response to the State of the Union.

SOTU speech comment: Ted Cruz admitted that GW Bush was the problem. (10 years comment)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/21/1359142/-Ted-Cruz-did-not-want-his-SOTU-video-released?detail=facebook

Ted said the problems have been around for 10 years which is GW Bush time and then insisted to have a do over and get that part out.  He knew he screwed up.

President Obama gave a GREAT State Of The Union Speech Last Night!!!!!

http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2015/01/state-of-union-open-thread.html#comment-form

There is a link to the total speech as well as comments about the speech.  This was very well done.

Joni Ernst - She only mentioned Keystone, plastic bags to cover her shoes and being happy with nothing.  Seemed a bit odd to me.

A great massive picture from space by NASA

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/01/20/nasa-has-released-the-largest-picture-ever-taken-it-will-rock-your-universe/

On January 5th 2015, NASA let out an image of the Andromeda galaxy, which is the closest galaxy to us. They captured the image using the NASA/ESA Hubble Telescope once again, but this time it’s taken to a whole new level. They took 411 images and put them together to create the largest image ever taken. It’s a whopping 1.5 billion pixels and requires about 4.3 GB of disk space!

The image takes you through over 100 million stars and travels more than 40,000 light years. It’s likely to make you feel like you are only a very, very small part of a universe that we begin to understand the true size of as each day passes.

There’s not much else to say other than sit back, watch and enjoy having your mind blown.

Vermont High Schoolers call out FOX for no journalistic ethics. Very Good.

http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2015/01/vermont-high-schoolers-call-fox-news.html

Damn when you are being schooled by teenagers about journalism you KNOW you are a bunch of frauds.

I thought that most of these kids were a little stiff on camera, but I have to say I would STILL rather listen to them give me the news than have to listen to the Fox News propaganda machine blame everything, including the weather, on President Obama.
Posted by Gryphen at 4:00 AM  

FOX is an embarrassment and the High Schoolers did a good job of calling Bill O out.

President Obama to kneecap THE KOCH BROTHERS TONIGHT with a Presidential Executive Order ( I hope this is true)

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/01/20/rumors-swirl-obama-kneecap-koch-brothers-citizens-united-executive-order.html

It is being reported that one of President Obama’s surprises at the State Of The Union will be an announcement of an executive order that will take on the Koch Brothers and Citizens United.

Eleanor Clift of The Daily Beast reported:

Wednesday is the fifth anniversary of Citizens United, and reformers have been told that the president may announce executive action in his SOTU speech that would require businesses contracting with the government to disclose political contributions after contracts have been awarded. This would ensure that the contracting process is blind, but also give the public (and the media) the information needed to connect the dots to look for backroom deals or conflicts of interest.

Guess who happens to have multi-million dollar contracts with the Department of Defense? The federal government hating Koch Brothers have tens of millions of dollars in defense contracts with the federal government. Rush Limbaugh also has a federal government contract that allows his showto be broadcast on the American Forces Network.

MLK's Last Speech in 1968.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98k-pjN6nl0

This is very prophetic.

A Brutally Honest State Of the Union would say this. (Won't Happen but sure wish it would)

http://www.vox.com/2015/1/20/7852905/obama-state-of-the-union

with the economy growing, we in this room could actually do something about these problems. We could use tax cuts to give the middle class a wage boost. We could invest in infrastructure to help make the country strong and get some of the unemployed back to work. We could give businesses a bonus for hiring people who have been out of work more than a few months.
There's a lot we can do. The really bad news is we're not going to do any of it.
And that's because even if the state of the union is strong, the state of the political system that governs the country is weak. We have made it weak. You have made it weak. And whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, a liberal or a conservative, you need to know there's a problem here.
The hard thing I have to say to you tonight is that I was wrong. When I ran for president, I believed that the political system could be repaired by people of goodwill, who genuinely wanted to agree, to reach out, to compromise. I ran for president telling you that the problems in American politics could be fixed through elections. But the problems run deeper than the people serving in Washington at any given moment, and the way all of us in this room are elected is making them worse.
The refrain I hear all around the country is, "why can't you guys just agree?" It's the right question. Families balancing their books need to agree on how to spend their money. Businesses trying to make payroll need to agree on which investments to make, which workers to give raises, which costs to cut. All across this country, Americans do the hard work of coming to agreement. So why can't we in Washington do the same?
No one likes the answer I'm about to give, but it's the right one. The political system isn't built like a family. It's not designed like a business. It's much more like a football game.
In a family, everyone cares for each other, everyone is working towards the same goal, everyone would throw themselves in front of a truck to make sure the others are safe and healthy and happy. A family is built to find agreement.
The government isn't a business either. It doesn't work towards a single goal. It can't judge itself based off stock price or profit margin. And it isn't built to make decisions or to be held accountable for them. When a company has a disagreement about its direction, there's someone with the power — an owner, a CEO, a board — to make a decision. A business isn't built to find agreement the way a family is, but it's built to force a resolution to disagreements when necessary.
You want to know the truth? Government, or at least the political system, is like a football game. You ever think about why football games are they way they are? You have all these guys hitting each other so hard they cause each other permanent brain damage. So why do they do it? Why do kids who aren't getting paid a cent do it?
It's not because they hate each other. They're hitting their friends. In practice, they're hitting their teammates. They're hurting people they love.

FOX called out for Muslim lies - Boy FOX blew it big. (FOX apologized but it is not going away)

http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/01/18/cnns-brian-stelter-calls-out-fox-news-for-its-a/202186

Stelter: "I'm Worried That All Of This Content On Fox ... Plays Into A Narrative That Portrays Muslims As The Other, As Somehow Evil"

8 Proven Ways to Boost your Confidence (Even when you are not confident)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/01/how-to-feel-confident_n_5724732.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000030

I found this interesting.  I feel there is a lot of truth to it.  When you were confident, what did you do?  Go back to doing that.

Inequality: Why the Middle Class should care and become vocal for Tax Relief for the Middle Class

http://www.vox.com/2015/1/19/7855335/summers-inequality-middle-class

Larry Summers sums up the cost of rising inequality to the typical American household: "If the US had the same income distribution it had in 1979, the bottom 80 per cent of the population would have $1 trillion — or $11,000 per family — more. The top 1 per cent $1 trillion — or $750,000 — less."

Bridge Collapses - 1 Dead. Interstate Closed! (Rebuild Infrastructure and pass the Highway Bill Anyone? Past Time.)

http://crooksandliars.com/2015/01/bridge-collapse-ohio-kills-one

We have bridges on an Interstate Freeway Falling and people dying, MAYBE WE SHOULD PASS A BILL TO REPAIR BRIDGES, as suggested by President Obama. 

WE MIGHT EVEN PASS A HIGHWAY BILL to repair bridges and roads.  By the way, the taxes on gas have not been increased in over 20 years and we have the lowest gas prices since GW was President so maybe we could raise taxes a bit to repair roads and bridges.  THE HIGHWAY BILL ALONE, if passed, would put millions of people to work at good paying jobs.

Same Sex Marriage Hater SHUT DOWN by Ted Olson, Conservative Lawyer.

http://crooksandliars.com/2015/01/ted-olson-shuts-down-tony-perkins-after-he

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins argued on Sunday that girls would be allowed to marry their biological fathers if the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.
On Friday, the Supreme Court said that it would decide by June if LGBT Americans had a constitutional right to marry.
Fox News host Shannon Bream pointed out to Perkins on Sunday that more than 70 percent of Americans already lived in states where same-sex marriage was legal.

Conservative attorney Ted Olson, who won a fight to repeal the federal ban on same-sex marriage, replied that the Supreme Court had a duty to "decide when the Constitution trumps the will of the people."
"Ultimately, the reason we have a Constitution, the reason we have separation of powers, the reason we have the 14th Amendment is to provide the courts with the opportunity to override the will of the people when the will of the people leads to discrimination against a segment of our society," Olson noted.
The attorney reminded Perkins and Bream that "the president's mother and father couldn't have been married in Virginia, they would have been guilty of a felony" before interracial marriage bans in 16 states were struck down by the Supreme Court.