Posts Tagged Republicans
Why the Sudden Republican Bipartisanship on One Healthcare Reform Issue? Hypocrisy Maybe?
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, 2012 Election, Campaigns, Economics, House of Representatives on February 26th, 2010
DECIDE TO BE HEALTHY . . . BUT AT WHAT COST?
On Wednesday the House Republicans finally joined the Democrats in a rare accomplishment of voting together on a bill that would repeal a sixty-five (65) year old law allowing insurance companies to have virtual monopolies (oligopolies) over health care insurance. Known as the McCarran-Ferguson Act of (1945), the former anti-trust legislation was designed to give states the power to determine which insurance companies could operate in their states, and investigate collusion by those companies to fix prices and prevent competition.
The reasoning behind repealing the former law was that proponents of the bill believe it allowed a few companies in each state to work in concert to control health insurance, given that the health insurance industry is now dominated by a handful of major players due to consolidation through mergers. Those that opposed the bill – including insurance industry companies and their industry associations – claim that the regulatory agencies in the various states that have oversight of insurance companies already limit the amount of premium increases the companies can charge customers. Of course “limit” is a relative term – particularly when the recent health insurance premiums increases demanded by insurance companies in the various states are projected to rise at alarming rates.
The problem with that argument – that state insurance commissions can adequately regulate the insurance industry – is that there is overwhelming evidence that state insurance regulatory commissions are a revolving door for insurance industry insiders. Want to guess who’s side they are on? It’s like asking the fox to guard the chicken coop.
Thus, it makes sense that Republicans went along with the repeal of the previous legislation given that recent spate of news regarding substantial increases in health care premiums. Republican leaders said that this was a just a political-motivated ploy by the Democrats in a memo circulated to their members just before the vote took place. The exact language from the memo was ”[for] political calculations, rather than substantive reasons.” So why did they then turn right around and vote for it if it was a “politically-motivated ploy”? Will Senate Republicans do the same thing?
Republicans cannot have it both ways. Maybe their vote is politically-motivated to ensure that they are re-elected in the November 2010 mid-term elections (yes, the one coming up this Fall)?
What a bunch of hypocrites!
Thank Goodness Obama Healthcare Reform is Dead? Caveat Emptor . . .
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, 2012 Election, Bailouts, Banking, Budget, Budget & Deficit, Budget Deficit, Business and Money, Campaigns, Capitalism, Conservatives, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, Healthcare Reform, How and Why We Get Screwed, Medicare, Sarah Palin, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, economy, financial industry on February 12th, 2010
This is the face of the future for Republican Health Care and Social Security Reform – memorize it!
Now remember all of those terrifying Town Hall meetings in the Summer of 2009, where all you heard about on a daily basis were “Death Panels” and Medicare cuts, and Big Brother’s government bureaucrats making decisions about both the quality and quantity of health care you were going to receive?
You have nothing to worry about. Obama’s Health Care Reform is likely all but dead, and many of you will try to vote the Republicans back into power in this Fall’s mid-term elections so that they can protect you from Obama’s scary Socialist Big Government. Hip, Hip, Hooray (or is that Horror?) for their brand of Capitalism and individual freedom.
Except for one thing. The Republicans do not intend to protect you from anything (remember, that’s the point of shrinking government support). Including going broke in your retirement years from either rising health care costs, or diminishing retirement income. Think I am kidding? This is not hyperbole!
Ignore what follows at your own peril . . .
At the 2009 CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) - this is the Superbowl of Conservative power-brokers, with Glenn Beck as their 2010 Keynote Speaker - Republican Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) proposed that Medicare be completely dismantled, and replaced by a system of vouchers for seniors to purchase health insurance in the private sector.
Make no mistake about it: this will be the platform for the Republicans’ answer on how to reform health care once they are back in power. Do you doubt that? Well, Fox News reported that Ryan has been annointed as “the leader of future of the conservative movement.” That’s code for Republican Presidential nominee. He is their visionary, and here is his vision for American retirees’ Medicare and social security safety nets.
According to The Economist magazine, and an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Ryan’s “daring plan” will stimulate both the health insurance industry, as well as the health care industry, while slowing the growth of government health care spending; which is great if you are a Republican rising star like Ryan, who receives almost 40% of his political campaign contributions from health-related industries and their beneficiaries.
What’s not so great for retirees is that the CBO analysis shows why this is so great for the government and those industries: the dollar value of those vouchers you are going to get under Ryan’s plan will not rise as quickly as the projected costs of health care. Which means retirees will have higher out-of-pocket expenses as time goes on. And you can be certain that if those costs are going up, your private health insurance will also be going up at an equally rising rate – after all, they have to make a profit. That’s Capitalism. Right?
Another great thing about this plan – but not so great for retirees – is that the cost to the government will continue to grow more slowly because, as the CBO projections show, people will use less health care when they have to increasingly pay more and more out of their own pockets. Remember last summer when Sarah Palin and the Teabaggers scared you about the government rationing health care? Now you can do it to yourself!
In essence, Ryan’s Republican plan would make the government go broke more slowly than American retirees will, while temporarily keeping this growing health care crisis at bay another decade or two, and increase the profits of health-related industries along the way, forcing you to resort to receiving less and less health care as you grow older.
Don’t believe me? Do the math. It’s really that simple.
And Remember: Under the Republican Healthcare Reform Plan you will NOT even have Medicare supplemental insurance to fall back on. You wanted government out of your life . . . you got it!
So be happy you are not going to get Health Care Reform from Obama. I don’t mean to alarm you – especially after the Republicans scared you sufficiently enough to ensure health care reform would not get passed. After all, now they are free to begin selling you their notion of a “free market” alternative. Caveat emptor (”buyer beware”).
And recall the proverbial admonishment: “Be careful what you wish for . . . you just might get it.”
Happy retirement, America. 
P.S. Ryan’s “free market plan” also calls for Social Security to be completely dismantled, and privatized. Surely the impact of that policy is not lost on anyone after the global financial markets collapsed for the second time in a decade – losing almost 40% of their value in both downturns, with average investment returns for the past ten (10) years of about 1%. What if your social security safety net was invested there? Hint: it’s not a “free market” proposal - the government will limit your choices on how you can invest your social security retirement. Are you really so naive as to think Wall Street won’t have their greedy fingers in that enormous financial pie? They own Washington, D.C.!
Wizards of Moronic Destruction (WMD) in Louisiana Watergate Have Assured Senator Landrieu’s Re-election
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, 2012 Election, Campaigns, Conservatives, Crime & Punishment, Glenn Beck, How and Why We Get Screwed, Legal & Justice, National Security, Politics, crime on February 11th, 2010
Well if you are too young to remember the Watergate scandal, it almost tore America apart at the seams. In fact, our country has never been as close to a Constitutional crisis as it was back in 1974, when President Richard Nixon was serving his second term in office. With impeachment proceedings looming, Nixon was forced to resign as President of the United States for his participation in the Whitehouse’s cover-up of a burglary of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) offices in the Watergate office building in Washington, D. C. by Republican operatives at the direction of staff members of the Nixon Administration.
This is certainly not to insinuate that anything as remotely sinister as the Watergate scandal crimes against the country took place down in Louisiana near the end of January. However, there are some very strange similarities that cannot be overlooked in respect to the Watergate burglars and the perpetrators of this political criminal escapade in Louisiana.
First, in both cases at least one of the men had a relatively cozy relationship to a U.S. intelligence agency. E. Howard Hunt was a former C.I.A. officer, and one of the Whitehouse operatives who planned and helped execute the break-in of the offices of the DNC. In the present case, it was reported today that Stanley Dai was the assistant director of the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence program at Trinity Washington University, a small Catholic college in Washington D.C., – a program completely funded by the National Intelligence Agency. Moreover, Dai was listed as the principle contact for a symposium that featured officials of the National Intelligence Council, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the C.I.A.
Second, in both cases one of the participants has a “relationship” to a federal law enforcement agency. In Watergate, it was the still-infamous G. Gordon Liddy, a former F.B.I. agent who assisted Hunt in the planning and execution of the burglary. In the Louisiana case, one of the participants is Robert Flanagan, the son of Shreveport-based acting U.S. Attorney Bill Flanagan.
Third, it should come as no irony that in each of these cases the actors were low-level political hacks obviously trying to infiltrate offices of Democratic party members and engage in politically-motivated espionage in order to win an election. It should not be lost on anyone that for these petty criminals, democracy is far too dangerous to be left in the hands of the your political opponents.
Finally, the participation in the Louisiana case by one of the principles in the political “sting operation” to discredit ACORN - a molehill that looks bigger than a mountain to Glenn Beck’s deranged mind – should give a whole new meaning to political karma.
To James O’Keefe: a word of advice - acting like a big pimp when you are just a little political whore will eventually catch up with you.
Eulogy for Senator John McCain
Posted by Lance Haley in Campaigns, Conservatives, Politics, Sarah Palin on February 9th, 2010
Over a decade ago, I stood in a long line of people holding a book under my arm, waiting to shake the hand of the man that I thought would be the next president of the United States of America. That book was called Faith of My Fathers, and the man was John McCain.
I had never before gone to a book signing for a politician. For me, it was enough that I read their books, and I was not so naive to believe that many of them really had our best interests at heart. But John McCain was different. Or so I thought.
As McCain prepares to fight for his political life in an Arizona primary, stooping so low as to resort to having Sarah Palin campaign with him, I can only reflect on the man that he once was – the consummate American Maverick.
Yes, he had been involved in the Keating Five. It was early in his political career, and he seemed transformed by the experience. An epiphany of sorts, if you will. That political corruption was only one campaign contribution away. That taking large sums of money from one man, or one industry, made you beholden to their interests, no matter how unlawful, immoral or unethical those interests might be. That often the agenda of the rich and powerful was anathema to the interests of your constituents – the very people at whose behest you serve. That these very powerful interests had the effect of diluting democracy through buying influence over your better judgment. Therefore, by avoiding the inclination to take these large sums of campaign contributions, a politician could vote his conscience, and ensure that the best interests of his constituents was always at the forefront of every decision he/she makes.
That was what made John McCain so different from other politicians. He did not stick his finger up in the air to see which way the political winds were blowing. Back then, no one could label him as a Conservative or Liberal – though many tried. His brand of politics defied labeling. He did not care that his fellow Republicans were pounding the podiums, railing like preachers against some horrible “liberal” agenda, while powerful corporations quietly stuffed their campaign coffers full of cash. He did not countenance the Democrats pleas to alleviate the toil and suffering of the American farmer, while they all lived in opulence and rode in limousines to the Capitol building every day – all paid for by powerful corporate agricultural interests.
He was the consummate warrior. A former POW, who understood what it was like to have no hope. Who could relate to the man who was downtrodden and beaten by those who held power over him. Who survived the the torture and suffering, and came back from the living dead to come face to face with his enemy, and walk through the ruins of the Hanoi Hilton – the building where they tried for years upon years to break his body and spirit.
Time and time again, he stood up in the Senate chambers, excoriating his fellow politicians – both Republicans and Democrats – for their duplicity and hypocrisy. He pushed hard for campaign finance reform. He wanted to eliminate the “soft money” that so deeply corrupts our political system. He was the penultimate maverick – no, not some Populist Teabagger “pretender” like Sarah Palin. When John McCain spoke, all of his fellow politicians shuddered. For they knew the things he was saying rang true. The system was broken, and they were all responsible.
That was then. This is now. As the Republicans have moved further and further to the right, McCain has followed. The Maverick is now just a hollow, old caricature of himself. Another washed-up politician, long in the tooth, and short on having the sense to know it’s time to bow out gracefully. Unfortunately, John McCain left all that grace at the alter of his egotistical aspirations for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2007. The price was his political independence – which was bought and paid for by the Far Right.
Paradoxically, he sold his soul to that devil, and now he cannot have it back.
The John McCain whose hand I shook that day in 1999 is dead. The book that contains an inscription from him to myself lies on a shelf, covered in dust - just like the man who authored it. We will miss you dearly, John. Your brand of politics was a breath of fresh air. Now all we have to breathe is the dark, politically-polluted gases that hang like a cloud of death over our nation’s capitol. And for that, John McCain, you too are now partially responsible.
I will shed no tears. I just shake my head in disgust, and walk away.
Homer Simpson Republicans Terrorize U.S. Over Terrorists’ Trials
Posted by Lance Haley in 9/11, Conservatives, Dick Cheney, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Sarah Palin, War on Terror, al Qaida, foreign policy on February 7th, 2010
Terrorism is about creating fear.
Republicans are now clearly trying to create fear in the minds of the American public about the Obama Administration’s prosecution of terrorists in civilian courts. They are insinuating several things: one, that terrorists are “enemy combatants”, and therefore should be tried in military courts; two, that allowing them to be tried in civilian courts will only invite another attack on U.S. soil; third that these defendants are not entitled to any constitutional rights; and finally, that Obama is soft on terrorism.
These constitutional law geniuses include half-term Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), former Vice President Dick Cheney (Chief Republican Hypocrite – Washington, D.C.), and Chief Conservative spokesman Rush Limbaugh (former drug addict, and college drop-out).
Amazing how incensed these Conservatives are about this “recent” decision to take accused terrorists to trial in civilian courts, particularly after the Bush Administration tried over ONE HUNDRED FIFTY terrorists in the same federal courts, including such high-profile cases as 9/11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and shoe bomber Richard Reid.
Just in case any of you other hypocrites out there have also conveniently forgotten, Reid was going to blow up a plane on an international flight bound for the U.S.
“D’oh“!
P.S. Since yesterday, when this was posted, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) has proposed cutting off federal funding for terrorists trials in civil court. Add his name to the rapidly growing list of Homer Simpson constitutional law geniuses and conservative hypocrites.
Americans Better Hope Obama Does Not Fail On Repairing the Economy
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Budget Deficit, Business and Money, Capitalism, Congress, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Lobbyists & Lobbying, Politics, Sarah Palin, Senate, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, economy, financial industry on January 24th, 2010
Most Americans have a hard time with economic complexity, and reading charts . . . BORING!
Please stay with me on this one . It is far too important to ignore, because the graph posted above does not paint a pretty picture for the future of this country. If you do not care to understand the fundamentals, skip to the explanation and assessment at the bottom under “gobbly-gook“.
This graph was apparently created by Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch Global Equity Strategies research group for Bloomberg financial news (Bloomberg.com), and posted at one of my favorite investment and economic blogs – Seeking Alpha. For those of you who do not engage in economic analysis – I minored in Economics in undergraduate studies - this chart represents the comparative relationship since 1996 between the U.S. stock market (utilizing the S & P 500 as an indicator) and job growth/decline in the American labor market utilizing the U.S. Conference Board’s “job plentiful index”. The key factor here is the radical divergence between the stock market and jobs over the past seven years.
From 1996-2000, job growth grew lock-and-step with the stock market, and the job index was actually much higher than the relative market index – meaning that as businesses made money (profits), jobs were created – this concept of “wage labour“ correlating with profits is the single most fundamental component of Adam Smith’s original theory of Capitalism as outlined in his treatise The Wealth of Nations. Capitalism in its most simple of terms states that as companies compete for and secure profits, workers will benefit through both increased job opportunities and rising wages, all which serves the best interests of society.
If you follow the graph out from 2000-2003, both indexes dropped in remarkable comparison as a result of a relatively severe recession. However, after 2003, the stock market goes up, but job growth lags far behind, and this growing divergence is only temporarily halted by the financial meltdown in late 2008 – when the two lines meet again in early 2009. Now the divergence between the two is growing ever wider at an alarming rate.
So what does this gobbly-gook mean?
Simply put, the stock market believes publically-traded companies in the United States - which are overly-represented by very large corporations - will produce a growth in profits without creating more jobs.
What this really means is that no matter who is President – Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Mitt Rommney, John McCain, [you fill in the blank] – the future for the future of U.S. workforce looks bleak. Moreover, if you think putting the Republicans back in office will change that – with their proposed policies of cutting taxes, gutting business regulation, and further fostering the concentration of power in large corporations – you are only fooling yourself.
Obama said this past week that he is going to make the economy, specifically job creation, his number one priority. I had absolutely no illusions that Obama was going to be able to turn this mess around quickly – he was handed the second worst economic situation in U.S. history, coupled with two very expensive wars. Nonetheless, I am sorely disappointed in his failure to immediately regulate the financial system, and focus the bailouts on bolstering small and medium-size business to quickly boost employment. You can defend Big Business all you want, but it is statistically indisputable that small and medium size businesses provide over 50% of the jobs in this country, and produce 64% of the new jobs every year.
Adam Smith, the Father of Capitalism, would be astounded at the bailouts for Wall Street, and the subsequent consolidation (concentration of power) of these financial behemoths. Moreover, he would bemoan the fact that such an extraordinary amount of financial capital was squandered on such an inherently risk-weighted aspect of business (trading derivatives and securities), which only produces profits while creating virtually a statistically insignificant number of new jobs in comparison (which ironically, Wall Street was shedding jobs at a record pace while making record profits and bonuses on trading in 2009 – so as for creating new jobs, “that dog just won’t hunt”).
Better pray it’s not too late to redress these problems. Hoping Obama fails on this front, is proverbially speaking, biting you nose off in spite of your face.
P.S. The bailouts were a monumental failure - and the primary blame must be placed at the feet of former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and present Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (former New York Federal Reserve Chairman) for reasons I address in a future posting. Paulson, Geithner and Blankfein could all be charged for conspiracy to commit financial fraud if Federal Prosecutors would just grow some testicles.
All Proposed U.S. Budget Deficit Reduction Plans Are “Nothing Burgers”
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Budget Deficit, Campaigns, Congress, Conservatives, Economics, Financial Crisis, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Senate, Show Them the $$$, Uncategorized, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, economy, financial industry on January 24th, 2010
“Nothing Burger“: Two pieces of bread slapped together with nothing in between. Usually eaten when you have nothing in the house except bread or are too lazy to spend 2 minutes making a decent sandwich.
- definition in the The Urban Dictionary
This is utter laughable.
Senator Gregg Judd (R-New Hampshire), the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, claims the Democrats are not serious about cutting the deficit. He first offered a plan co-sponsored by Democratic Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D – North Dakota), that would require Congress to establish a bi-partisan commission to study deficit reduction recommendations, and if a fixed number of its members could agree on specific budget cuts, Congress would then be compelled to vote on those measures before the 2010 mid-term elections this Fall.
President Obama and the Democrats endorsed a similar deficit-reduction plan, but without the requirement of a mandatory vote in the Senate on the issue. Senator Gregg then criticized the Democrats, calling their plan a “nothing burger“, insinuating that they were not serious about deficit reduction. And the Republicans are?
Senator Gregg, you need a little lesson in transparency.
First, there is serious doubt about whether you can even get the support of your own party on this issue – both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R – Kentucky) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (D – Ohio) stated they will not back the plan because the Republicans are philosophically opposed to tax increases. In other words, Republicans tacit acknowledge that deficit cutting would likely involve raising taxes, and they would rather let the country go bankrupt before they would make it pay its own way – now that is fiscal responsibility at its finest.
Second, that nasty little chart just below indicates that the real explosion in the government debt started in 1981 – after Ronald Reagan took office and the Neo-Conservative movement began. The largest deficit increases (as a percentage of the previous deficit) occurred from 2003 to 2006, not ironically when President Bush and the Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress. Moreover, that does not even account for the estimated $600 Billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that we borrowed from China through 2007, – projected to increase to $1.6 Trillion before Obama took office - and which was “kept off the books” by the Bush Administration, Enron style.
Ouch!
Third, no Washington politician is ever going to be serious about fiscal responsibility, regardless of which party they belong to – it just does not make political sense if you are an incumbent running for re-election. Besides, Senator Gregg, proposing mandatory deficit reduction is easy when you are being disingenuous about the political realities of the issue.
One final word on that lesson about transparency, Senator Gregg: While serving as the Senate Republican’s lead negotiator and author of the TARP program (Wall Street bailouts) in the Fall of 2008, you recommended that Bank of America receive $45 Billion from the TARP funds – at a time when you owned millions of dollars in Bank of America stock. After your Bank of America stock recovered rather nicely this past year, you are now proposing that the TARP fund be terminated so as to not create a “piggy bank” for politicians.
And you have the audacity to criticize the Democrats, Senator Gregg?
Harry Reid is an Insensitive non-Racist – Trent Lott is a Devout Racist
Posted by Lance Haley in Campaigns, Conservatives, Cultural Issues, Fox News, Government, Media & Communication, Politics, Race, Senate on January 12th, 2010
There is something either very duplicitous or patently stupid in some of the Conservatives’ responses to the brouhaha over Senator Harry Reid’s comments several years ago about then Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s skin color and articulate speech-patterns.
Of course, Fox News commentators led the charge with their claims of a “double-standard”by Democrats in rushing to Harry Reid’s support, trying to contrast it with a dissimilar circumstance in 2002 when Senator Reid and other Democrats called for the resignation of Senator Trent Lott for his comments supporting Senator Strom Thurmond’s 1948 run for the Presidency on a Segregationist platform. However, other Conservative commentators understood the obvious nuances in each man’s remarks, as well as the context in which each of them were speaking.
Harry Reid was simply stating something that even the most politically correct among us was thinking – Senator Obama epitomized the ideal of a “perfect black Presidential candidate”: light-skinned, and extremely articulate (as well as handsome and intelligent).
Trent Lott was simply stating something that all racists believe: this country was better off when it was segregated.
If the people over at Fox News cannot even discern something as obvious this, their intelligence has to be seriously questioned.
So which is it, Murdoch’s minions? Duplicitious or Stupid?!?
Credit Card Issuers Game Now Patently Transparent
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Campaign Finance Reform, Campaigns, Capitalism, Economics, Financial Crisis, How and Why We Get Screwed, Lobbyists & Lobbying, Show Them the $$$, Uncategorized, Wall Street on December 11th, 2009
The brazenness of the largest American bankers is now so patently transparent that it is arguably criminal. Yet, when you own the local sheriff and prosecutor, it’s a sure bet there will never be any charges filed.
In a previous post I called out J.P. Morgan Chase’s commercial banking subsidiary for raising interest rates on their credit card holders in an effort to squeeze extraordinary profits out of their customers ahead of the reform coming out of Congress.
Now other banks are following suit and working at a frenzied pace in order to raise rates and fees to unheard of levels before the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act becomes law. These are the very banks that we bailed out – and now they have the audacity to screw us. Compounding the problem was the U.S. Senate’s refusal to accelerate the effective date of the reform measures from February 22, 2010 to December 1, 2009, defying the U.S. House of Representatives’ attempt to stop these financial terrorists from exploiting us.
Ever wonder what is in it for the Senators? If you watched PBS ’s Frontline on November 23, 2009, called The Card Game, the banking consultants, lobbyists, and their shameless political minions are interviewed for this remarkable story and it’s exploration of the banking industry’s credit card business. There are numerous instances of individuals defending their practices of charging outrageous rates of interest on a “loan” – I mean the kind of rates that would make a loan shark shudder.
What is most surprising is how craftily the politicians dance around the notion that giving these financial terrorists another couple of months to screw as many credit card holders as possible in order to maximize their profits for years to come will be long forgotten in the next election cycle. Let’s face some simple facts. The enormous amount of money these politicians receive from the financial industry in the form of campaign contributions - both Democrats and Republicans collectively took in almost $500 Million from the financial industry in the 2008 election cycle – goes virtually unnoticed by the general public.
Moreover, their political consultants know that in spite of their transparent complicity in allowing the credit card industry more time to run up interests rates prior to the new law going into effect, most of the politicians’ constituents will not even likely know about this transgression of monumental proportions. Furthermore, even if a very small minority of us do know – as is evidenced by this post – they are confident that this fact will be long forgotten in the endless cycle of the “politics of distraction” fomented by the partisan rancor that occurs every day and is then reported in the media.
They right . . . and we will re-elect the incumbant based on our fear of the other party’s candidate getting elected – whether it be Democrat or Republican. They rely on that fact – to our detriment. Both parties in the U.S. Senate.
And that’s how we continue to screw ourselves.
P.S. to the Banking Industry: I WILL NOT FORGET!!!
Wonder If They Can Help the Democrats Grow Testicles?
Posted by Lance Haley in Congress, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Show Them the $$$, United States on November 9th, 2009
Scientists at Wake Forest University Medical Center claimed that they have succeeded in growing artificial penises in male rabbits using similar cells from another male rabbit. The study was reported to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and has given given great promise for humans who are missing particular organs in their own bodies.
One of the researchers working on the project said he “is hoping the the procedure will work with people, perhaps starting with adult men who have had damage to their organs.”
Hey, I will donate my testicles in order to help any number of those spineless Democrats in Washington who hold a Congressional majority to finally stand up to the likes of Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, John Boehner, or Mitch McConnell and tell them to stick their heads where the sun never shines.
I will make this sacrifice for my country and report to Wake Forest University Medical Center at the first call to duty. Just let me know if any of you Democrats have the balls, figuratively speaking, to take me up on this offer since most of you obviously do not have any balls, literally speaking.
Bipartisanship is just another word for “nothin’ left to lose.”