Tea Parties and Socialism

Watching the news lately its hard not to notice the Tea Party movement. Seems they're everywhere. Actually they are. Most of them are part of a travelling road show going from city to city trying to get others to join, kind of like the Dead Heads following the Grateful Dead. Its not that every city has a lot of them, its that the lot of them travel to every city. Take Tom Grimes for example. He has been out of work for fifteen months now. A former financial advisor who after being laid off called his congressman to help him get Cobra health care coverage. Cobra standing for Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act, is government sponsored health care. That's right, this tea bagging asshole is out organizing people against government health care. At the same time he is telling people that government health care is bad, he is using it himself. He is also collecting unemployment benefits, another social program. Why, if he is so dead set against government intervention is he happy to take the free ride from the government? Ironic since he has been quoted as saying that if the government would just cut people off they would have to find a way to survive. Seems he is taking advantage of his benefits to rally people against the same government that provides him with income and benefits. Maybe if the government cut him off it would force him to spend his time looking for ways to make ends meet, instead of being a part of the travelling Tea Party roadshow. Take a look at the Tea Party people on the news. Most of them are most likely collecting either Social Security, Medicare, or Unemployment. When Ronald Reagan was Governor of California he cut off funding for students going to state colleges stating "Why should I pay for these kids college when they all are against me anyway". Maybe our federal government should do the same. Better yet maybe the Tea Baggers should all sign a petition saying that they wont use any government social services. So lets take a look at all the social services the country or state provides. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment, Police, Fire, Schools, Libraries, U.S. Post Office, Roads and Highways, Bus and Rail Service, Sidewalks, Drinking Water and Sewer services, Parks and Beaches, Public Zoos, Hospitals, and Medications that were developed form government grants. The list goes on and on. It's just that people do not realize just how much their government does for them. Every Tea Party activist better take a look at the reason they are able to do what they are doing, is because of the government and someone should tell them that. Although I don't think it will sink in do to the fact that they are too stupid to separate fact from reality.

Health Care and Our Country

Ok so its been a week now and the Republicans had us believing that the country as we know it was coming to an end. Personally I have not noticed any changes. I have not been rounded up by the government and my house has not been taken away by the government. (Although if they did, it probably would be doing me the favor) Its interesting that even G.W. Bush mentioned that the hard line Republican stance may have gone too far. Didn't John McCain campaign in 2008 with the slogan of country first? Now that health care has passed he has stated that he is done for the year. He will block any legislation put forward by Democrats. And this helps our country how? This piece of shit's slogan should have been John McCain first, country second. Its also interesting that this is basically the health care plan he campaigned on against Obama. Anyone who believes that this is socialism is flat out wrong. Instead it gives the free market insurance company rapists thirty million new customers. Do you think its any coincidence that their stock prices are at an all time high. I was against this plan for just that reason. The right way to do it was Medicare Part E. The E stands for everyone. This way the insurance company scums who have been raping us for years would be put out of their misery. The federal government would then realize the same profits as the private insurance companies currently do. And to those of you that say the government can't run anything right, just ask any member of congress what they think of their plan. I would rather take my chances on the government, than an insurance company who declares a newborn with a cleft pallet not eligible because of a pre-existing condition.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss II

Obama vs. Bush, lets see where do I begin? While campaigning during the financial crisis he promised and voted for, that if we the taxpayers give Wall street 12.8 billion dollars, credit markets would flow again. Bush enacted it and Obama voted for it. Instead the FDIC admitted last week that the credit markets have reduced lending at the sharpest rate since 1942. Obama said he would filibuster passage of the FISA Act which retroactively legalized wiretapping our phones without warrants. Instead he voted for it and Bush passed it. He told us he would close Guantanamo. Bush opened it and Obama continues to keep it open. He said he would pull out of Iraq. Bush started it and Obama still has over a hundred thousand troops there. In addition to the troops in Iraq, our tax dollars also pay over a hundred thousand contractors working there. He said he would only pass health care with a public option. Instead we got John McCains health care plan from his presidential campaign, which was similar to Bob Doles health reform plan from twenty years ago, but is now filled with bloat and waste that will not give the insurance companies competition but will fill their pockets even more. He has done nothing for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", "Employee Free Choice Act" or "Wall Street Reform". It's amazing that he is following in the footsteps of Bush and the Republicans are against him. How is it that they supported all of these policies while Bush was running things but now that a Democrat is in charge they fight him every step of the way. This country is on a course that is a dangerous one at best. At worst think of the fall of the Roman Empire. Over the last thirty years we have seen the biggest transfer of wealth to the richest one percent of this country, all courtesy of the federal government. Both Republicans and Democrats are to blame. Republicans through unfunded tax cuts and Democrats through ridiculous trade policies favoring third world countries such as India and China. Remember the game of Monopoly? That is what's happening in this country and it happened in Venezuela and that's why Hugo Chavez is in power now. Ninety five percent of the people who live in that country are poor, but their lives are all getting better because of the transfer of wealth from the five percent of the people who are wealthy to the other ninety five who are poor. Some say that is communism and so do I. But lets recall what is happening in our country. Our tax dollars go to farm subsidies for large commercial farms who produce the high fructose corn syrup that goes into everything we eat, which makes us fat diabetics so that our tax subsidies to the drug companies can develop pills so they can sell us ever more expensive pills that don't cure us, instead just treat us. We have tax subsidies to the largest oil companies in the world who have had record profits while we pay three to four dollars a gallon for gas. I never could figure that one out. We give tax subsidies to other energy companies as well. One of the definitions of communism is income redistribution and our government does that every day only they call it tax credits to make it sound nice. You may recall a few weeks ago a despondent man flew his light plane into an IRS building in Austin Texas. Here is a quote from his suicide note. "Why is it that a hand full of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of GM executives, for scores of years) and when its time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from their corpses and the victims they cripple, and this countries leaders don't see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet the political Representatives (thieves, liars, and self serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the terrible health care problem. It's clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don't get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in". I think this says a lot about what's going on in this country. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

The Liars

Let's talk about Republican hypocrisy. Some how the Republicans who have used reconciliation for their own agenda are crying foul now that the Democrats want to use it themselves to pass health care. Some Republicans are saying that health care is too big to pass through reconciliation, yet they voted for the Bush tax cuts through reconciliation. Which according to the Congressional Budget Office added 2.5 trillion to the federal debt. Lamar Alexander (R Tennessee) is one of the most outspoken opponents of using reconciliation yet when Bush was in office he voted for the Bush tax cuts in 2003 and 2005, the tax increase prevention act of 2005, and the college cost reduction act in 2007. John McCain wants new senate rules so that reconciliation cannot be used to break a filibuster for entitlement programs such as medicare, medicaid, and social security yet his own record of voting yes for changes in these programs using reconciliation is a complete reversal of what he is preaching, now that Republicans are not in power. Even Senator Orrin Hatch (R Utah) in a recent op ed column in the Washington Post denounces the use of reconciliation, saying that jamming through health care, against the will of the people would wreak havoc on our system of checks and balances and damage the prospects of bipartisanship. Funny though if you look at his own record, he was part of reconciliation 13 times out of the 21 times it has been used. In his own words "to jam" through the Republican agenda when they did not have enough votes to stop a filibuster. He goes on to say that the only time the Republicans used reconciliation was when there was significant bi partisan support. Interesting because the 2003 Bush tax cuts that have wreaked havoc on our deficit was passed through reconciliation, with Sen. Hatch voting yes and a total vote of 50-50. Vice President Cheney had to break the tie (the one time he actually did his job). I guess this is what Sen. Hatches' definition of bipartisanship is. Sen. Hatch is an outright liar, plain and simple. Another thing that is talked about a lot is the federal deficit. Its interesting that during eight years of Bush/Cheney, all you heard from them was when they were pushing the tax cuts, is that deficits don't matter. Why all of a sudden, when the Democrats are now in power, do deficits matter? The idiots at Fox News convey the message that we are in this mess because of Obama. It's sure ironic that when Bush came into office he had a surplus in the budget but when he left there was over a 1.5 trillion dollar deficit. How is that Obama's fault?