Friday, August 31, 2012

More truth for those who want it

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/cenk-uygur/45275/the-real-convention-is-on-the-yacht-cracker-bay
Go to the link for Readers' Comments, which are just as insightful as the essay below:

THE REAL CONVENTION WAS ON THE YACHT "CRACKER BAY"
By Cenk Uygur

One of the reasons this Republican convention has been so deathly dull is that the real action isn't at the convention. It's at Cracker Bay. That's the name of the yacht where the Romney team just hosted 50 partiers, including some of his top donors. This was one of about a dozen events outside of the convention where they had private meetings with donors giving more than $1 million dollars to his campaign. Over $1 million a piece. Now, where do you think the real policy gets made?

You think Mitt Romney gives a damn what a delegate thinks? The only delegates that matter were on that yacht. They call this group the "Victory Council." This is made of people who are literally millionaires and billionaires and who dictate what Mitt Romney's positions will be. He's a legendary flip-flopper, but if you want to know what he really thinks you had to be on that boat.

"It was a really nice event. These are good supporters," said billionaire Wilbur Ross, an energy industry executive, according to ABC News. I bet it was. Mitt Romney just revealed his energy plan a couple of days ago. Are you going to be surprised to find out that it massively helps energy companies? A really nice event is where you pay a million bucks and you get billions back if the candidate you supported wins the presidency.

It's clear what Mitt Romney owes these people. What do you think he owes you? Ann Romney said that Mitt was a man who would not fail. She's right; he will not fail his donors. He is a good businessman, so he will give them the service they paid for.

They're so brazen the boat they were meeting on was flying a Cayman Islands flag. As one local put it, even their yacht doesn't want to pay taxes. In the old days, you'd be a little embarrassed about things like this and it would be huge news if you got caught. Now people treat it like it's perfectly normal.

Paul Ryan recently went to get the blessing of billionaire GOP donor Sheldon Adelson. Soon after he was picked and before getting ready for their convention, he had to stop everything and kiss the ring of their boss. This is sick. It is obvious legalized bribery and it's being done right in front of our eyes. And the press hardly notices as our democracy leaves shore along with that boat full of millionaires.

The candidate with more money wins 93 percent of congressional races. In the Senate, it's 94 percent. It doesn't matter if you are a Democrat or Republican, a liberal or a conservative, it doesn't matter what your ideas or values are. The only thing that matters is if you're on that yacht.
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Thursday, August 30, 2012

My favorite comment re. Clint Eastwood's speech



From Chris Rock:  Eastwood calling Obama right after the speech:  Hello, Mr. President?  Everything went according to plan.



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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

ALERT: You'll be hearing a lot from conservatives about an anti-Obama movie

I've already received some "rave reviews" of what conservatives consider to be a masterpiece of "facts" (what the Tea Party types think of as "facts") in a movie entitled 2016 (made by ultra right-wing conservatives).  Knowing their candidates are not popular to intelligent thinking people, the right wing is busy getting their message out to anyone who will believe their "facts."  Unfortunately, as we've seen in these Tea Party years of Palin, Ryan, and all the other crazy candidates being offered by the GOP, there are millions of voters who will believe anything they are told by FOX news, Rush Limbaugh and the Koch brothers.  Limbaugh calls them his "dittoheads" and his followers actually take that appellation as an honor. (Sigh)

Be prepared.  Most of us have right wingers in our family or among our acquaintances.  If they send you an e-mail rave review of the movie 2016 and urge you to see it, send them the following article and let them know there is another side to their "facts" in this obvious propaganda movie.  By making it seem as if this is a mainstream documentary that everyone should see, they are hoping to fool/scare millions into being indoctrinated by their fictitious "facts" into the Tea Party belief system -- and elect Romney/Ryan, a disaster as big or bigger than the Cheney/Bush disaster inflicted on our country for 8 long years.  Along with this mission, they are also trying to disenfranchise Democratic voters all over the country in every devious way they can think of.

The right wing has proven they will do anything to win.  They will make up "facts" out of thin air and proclaim lies to be truth -- just look at Romney as he dodges every which way, on every side of every issue, saying whatever will sell to the group he's speaking to at the time. Politics has sunk to the lowest of lows with the right wing -- and it will only get worse if Romney/Ryan get into the White House, God forbid!

FACT CHECK ON MOVIE 2016: OBAMA'S AMERICA
By Beth Fouhy

WASHINGTON — "2016: Obama's America," a new conservative film exploring the roots of President Barack Obama's political views, took in $6.2 million to make it one of the highest-grossing movies of last weekend. The film, written and narrated by conservative scholar Dinesh D'Souza, argues that Obama was heavily influenced by what D'Souza calls the "anti-colonial" beliefs of his father, Barack Obama Sr., a Kenyan academic who was largely absent from the president's life.

To document that claim, D'Souza travels to Kenya to interview members of Obama's extended family as well as to Hawaii and Indonesia, where Obama grew up. He also cites several actions and policy positions Obama has taken to support the thesis that Obama is ideologically rooted in the Third World and harbors contempt for the country that elected him its first black president.

The assertion that Obama's presidency is an expression of his father's political beliefs, which D'Souza first made in 2010 in his book "The Roots of Obama's Rage," is almost entirely subjective and a logical stretch at best.

It's true that Obama's father lived most of his life in Kenya, an African nation once colonized by the British, and that Obama's reverence for his absent father frames his best-selling memoir. D'Souza even sees clues in the book's title: "Notice it says `Dreams From My Father,' not `of' my father," D'Souza says.

But it's difficult to see how Obama's political leanings could have been so directly shaped by his father, as D'Souza claims. The elder Obama left his wife and young son, the future president, when Obama was 2 and visited his son only once, when Obama was 10. But D'Souza frames that loss as an event that reinforced rather than weakened the president's ties to his father, who died in a car crash when Obama was in college.

D'Souza interviews Paul Vitz, a New York University psychologist who has studied the impact of absent fathers on children. In Obama's case, Vitz says, the abandonment meant "he has the tension between the Americanism and his Africanism. He himself is an intersection of major political forces in his own psychology."

From there, the evidence D'Souza uses to support his assertion starts to grow thin.

D'Souza says Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, shared his father's left-leaning views. After living in Indonesia for several years, D'Souza said, Dunham sent the younger Obama to live with his grandparents in Hawaii so he would not be influenced by her second husband, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian who worked for American oil companies and fought communists as a member of the Indonesian army.

"Ann separates Barry from Lolo's growing pro-Western influence," D'Souza says in the film. Obama has said his mother had sent him back to Hawaii so he would be educated in the United States.

In Hawaii, D'Souza asserts with no evidence, Obama sympathized with native Hawaiians who felt they had been marginalized by the American government when Hawaii was becoming a state. D'Souza also asserts – again with no evidence – that Obama had been coached to hold those views at Punahou, the prestigious prep school he attended in Honolulu.

"Oppression studies, if you will. Obama got plenty of that when he was here in Punahou," D'Souza says, standing on the campus.

In Kenya, D'Souza interviews Philip Ochieng, a lifelong friend of the president's father, who claims the elder Obama was "totally anti-colonial." Ochieng also discloses some of his own political views, complaining about U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Iraq and saying the U.S. refuses to "tame" Israel, which he calls a "Trojan horse in the Middle East." D'Souza seems to suggest that if a onetime friend of Obama's late father holds those opinions, so too must the president himself.

D'Souza then goes through a list of actions Obama has taken as president to support his thesis. Many of them don't hold water:

_ D'Souza rightly argues that the national debt has risen to $16 trillion under Obama. But he never mentions the explosion of debt that occurred under Obama's predecessor, Republican George W. Bush, nor the 2008 global financial crisis that provoked a shock to the U.S. economy.

_ D'Souza says Obama is "weirdly sympathetic to Muslim jihadists" in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He does not mention that Obama ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and the drone strikes that have killed dozens of terrorists in the region.

_D'Souza wrongly claims that Obama wants to return control of the Falkland Islands from Britain to Argentina. The U.S. refused in April to endorse a final declaration on Argentina's claim to the islands at the Summit of the Americas, provoking criticism from other Latin American nations.

_D'Souza says Obama has "done nothing" to impede Iran's nuclear ambitions, despite the severe trade and economic sanctions his administration has imposed on Iran to halt its suspected nuclear program. Obama opposes a near-term military strike on Iran, either by the U.S. or Israel, although he says the U.S. will never tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran.

_ D'Souza says Obama removed a bust of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill from the Oval Office because Churchill represented British colonialism. White House curator William Allman said the bust, which had been on loan, was already scheduled to be returned before Obama took office. Another bust of Churchill is on display in the president's private residence, the White House says.

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Sunday, August 26, 2012

Does anyone know what Romney really stands for?

Does Romney himself even know?  See video at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/26/romney-women-should-support-me-because-of-romneycare/ and listen to this blowhard talking about his wonderful health plan in Massachusetts -- but then he'll turn around another time and say the same health plan that Obama has passed for the nation is no good.  Insanity and Hypocrisy, thy name is Romney.  How anyone who calls him/herself sane could vote for this man is beyond me! (Sigh)

ROMNEY: WOMEN SHOULD SUPPORT ME BECAUSE OF ROMNEYCARE

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney says that women should support him because of a health insurance law he passed as the governor of Massachusetts — even though he has promised to repeal a similar law passed by President Barack Obama.

During an interview that aired on Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace asked Romney why women should vote for him after a fellow Republican, Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), suggested that women could not get pregnant from “legitimate rape.”

“Look, I am the guy that was able to get health care for all of the women — and men — in my state,” the former Massachusetts governor explained. “There was talking about it at the federal level. We did something.”

“So, you’re saying look at Romneycare?” Wallace wondered.

“Absolutely,” Romney replied. “I’m very proud of what we did, and the fact that we helped women and men and children in my state.”

“And then with regards to contraceptives, of course Republicans and myself in particular recognize that people should have a right to use contraceptives. There is absolutely no validity whatsoever to the Obama effort and try and bring that up. And with regards to the issue of abortion, that is something where men and women have alternative views on that or different views.”

Throughout his campaign, Romney has pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which fact checking organizations have determined “is identical to the Massachusetts health care plan — the same thing.”

By repealing Obama’s health reforms, women could once again face insurance co-pays for contraception, screening for HIV, breastfeeding support, domestic violence counseling and other services.

Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), has voted for legislation that would ban some forms of birth control, ban abortion and end funding for Planned Parenthood, according to the Obama campaign.

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Friday, August 24, 2012

When Political Gaffes Turn Toxic

(CNN) -- Politicians make gaffes almost daily. Some they can overcome. Some are fodder for late-night comedians. Some are deadly to their campaigns. Republican congressman Todd Akin's recent gaffe was so toxic, he may not only have killed his campaign, he may be the political equivalent of a zombie who also infects the Romney/Ryan ticket with his deadly virus.

The American public is smarter than most political campaigns give us credit for. We may not be geniuses -- me included -- but we intuitively grasp when a politician has merely slipped up or when he or she has revealed something much more significant.

The first type of political gaffes are just that: mistakes. For example, when then-presidential candidate Barack Obama said he had campaigned in "57 states." Or when Rep. Michele Bachmann suggested that the American Revolution had started in New Hampshire

These kinds of comments are generally overcome. The only time they're potentially fatal is if they occur with such frequency that they begin to define the politician. Note to Joe Biden: You are really getting close to achieving that feat.

Then there are the gaffes that are not gaffes at all. These reveal the candidate's views on an issue or a character flaw that we had not previously seen.

Rep. Todd Akin's notorious remark Sunday clearly falls into the second category.

His statement that a woman being raped could magically shut off her reproductive system and avoid becoming pregnant was so outrageous that even Mitt Romney quickly denounced him. (Surprising, because Romney failed to condemn Rush Limbaugh's despicable comments regarding Sandra Fluke, the law student whom Limbaugh called a "slut" on his radio show after she appeared before Congress to discuss contraception.) Akin's statement also brought national attention to his radical position that a woman who becomes pregnant from rape should be required to carry the baby to term. 

Paul Ryan defends abortion record

Is this one statement enough to destroy Akin's Senate campaign? A quick review of the history of political missteps of this type tells us that Akin is probably "dead candidate walking."

For example, in 1990, Texas Republican gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams was leading his Democratic opponent, Ann Richards, by 11 points with less than three months to go before Election Day. Williams then uttered a campaign-changing wisecrack comparing bad weather and rape: "If it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.'' Thankfully, Williams lost by 2 points.

Candidates have even been undone by a single word, as in the case of Mitt Romney's father, George Romney, who had been seeking the 1968 Republican nomination for president. Romney had supported the Vietnam War but then came out against it when running for president, as it had become unpopular. (This is apparently a Romney family trait.)

Romney, trying to explain his new anti-war position, commented that in 1965, he had visited Southeast Asia and met with U.S. generals who "brainwashed" him into supporting the war. Romney's candidacy could never overcome this remark.

And there was Republican Sen. George Allen's public use of the racially derogatory term "macaca" to describe a staff member of his opponent's campaign who was of Indian heritage. Allen had been leading in the polls at the time but went on to lose that 2006 election.

Some candidates have even been undone by simply showing too much emotion, causing voters to question the candidate's stability.

In 1972, Sen. Edmund Muskie was a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. But his candidacy came apart when Muskie reportedly had "tears streaming down his face" as he emotionally defended attacks on his wife and himself by the publisher of a New Hampshire newspaper. Consequently, many were concerned that Muskie didn't posses the composure needed to serve as president.

In the same vein, Howard Dean's 2004 presidential ambitions were derided when he released a flu-ridden (and blood-curdling) scream during a speech shortly after losing Iowa's Democratic caucus.

But there's one big difference between Akin's gaffe and the other politically deadly ones above. Those hurt only the candidates who committed them. Akin's comments may even hurt the Romney campaign and other Republicans.

Indeed, the Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, instructed Akin to not attend next week's Republican National Convention. However, the problem for Romney and others in the GOP is that while Akin may not be at the convention, his radical view that abortion should be banned in the U.S. with no exceptions for rape will be. This position is part of the Republican Party's national platform, adopted a few days ago and supported by Romney's running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan.

As the postscript for this campaign is written after Election Day, we may find that Akin's comments mark the first time that a political gaffe not only doomed the candidate who made it, it also dragged down his party's presidential ticket.

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Wednesday, August 22, 2012

A true story: AN INCONVENIENT PATRIOT


For all my curious-minded friends:  This is one of the most important postings I've ever made on this blog.  It doesn't matter if you are Republican or Democrat or even if you are not interested in politics, this story applies to all of us.  If you really want truth about what is happening in our federal government -- and in our lives -- you will want to watch the online documentary and read the Vanity Fair article listed below. You may even want to purchase Sibel Edmond's book -- it is a stay-up-all-night page turner -- horrifyingly true.  If the hair doesn't stand up on the back of your neck as you hear the story of this real patriot, you'd better take your pulse: you may no longer be among the living.  You can take your pick between reading the Vanity Fair article -- or watching the documentary -- or doing both. I've given the links to both of them below.

Read this article about Sibel Edmonds, author of the book "A Classified Woman" and a whistleblower about the FBI, for whom she worked as a translator of documents after 9/11.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9774.htm


You will learn a GREAT DEAL about how things really were run in the Cheney /Bush regime -- and how they still continue to run the same way today.  A documentary has been made about this incredibly brave woman's story -- called Kill the Messenger.  You can see this entire documentary at:  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6063340745569143497

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Please share with friends if you find the story as compelling as I have. In our world today, the most helpful thing we can do is to keep ourselves informed and to inform others of important true facts. I think you'll agree that Sibel Edmonds, in standing up against the entire federal government, is a truth teller of the highest order. Her courage and determination in the face of abusive retaliation comes from her sense of duty and strong commitment to truth, no matter where it takes her. I admire her greatly.  I would not have had the strength and courage to do what she has done--and continues to do to this day, even though her entire life has been changed by the retribution of the government that fears her and the truth she tells. 





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Romney's Lies and Damn Lies

This article lists many of Romney's outrageous lies, but there are so many, it would be impossible to include them all in one single article.  Stay tuned for more to come as the race progresses.  In the meantime, those who prefer truth will find the article very informative.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/22/why-believe-romney-now-after-his-lies-on-medicare-bain-taxes.html

Why Believe Romney Now, After His Lies on Medicare, Bain and Taxes?

By Robert Shrum

EXCERPT: The candidate this week added Medicare to his litany of falsehoods—on Bain Capital, his taxes, welfare, and debt, among many others. It’s now clear Romney will say anything. So why trust anything he says?

Romney had hailed the Ryan plan as “marvelous” during the primaries and pledged to sign it as president, a pledge one of his advisers reiterated the day after the Ryan pick. Just hours later, Romney tried to back off in an interview on 60 Minutes: “Well, I have my budget plan…and that’s the budget plan that we’re going to run on.” But that plan, it soon turned out, was not all that different. Or as Romney told a Green Bay radio station, “Paul Ryan's and my plan for Medicare, I think, is the same, if not identical—it’s probably close to identical.” You think? Can’t Romney ever talk straight? He’s not supposed to; as one of his strategists told Politico, it would be “politically unwise” to let voters see the “detail” of his proposal.
While dissembling about his own position, Romney counterfeited Obama’s, alleging in a hastily edited spot that the president “cut $716 billion from Medicare…[t]o pay for Obamacare.” Haste, and the taste of impending political doom lay waste to the truth. Obama didn’t cut one dollar from Medicare benefits, but payments to providers like hospitals with a poor record of patient care and insurance companies that have inflated the cost of Medicare Advantage, a Bush-born private supplement that suggests how inefficient and expensive for seniors Ryan’s vouchers would be. Moreover, the accurate figure for the savings is $500 billion; Politifact was moved to ask where Romney the vaunted numbers man found Obama cutting another “$200 billion while no one was looking.” Undeterred and determined to lie his way out of trouble with seniors, Romney doubled down. The president, he said, has “robbed” Medicare.

His first commercial in the primaries was a giant step into the dark side. It twisted a 2008 speech from Obama in which he was quoting “John McCain’s campaign” as saying: “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” The Romney ad excised the reference to McCain, leaving the impression that the words were Obama’s and the time was now. The spot was a finely edited piece of Orwellian double-speak straight out of 1984.
Or take Romney’s constant refrain that the president is responsible for “an inferno” of “debt and spending.” That’s flat-out wrong. Under Obama, annualized growth in federal spending has risen at the slowest pace in decades. Debt and deficits have been driven primarily by Bush’s tax cuts, Bush’s unfunded wars, and the Bush economic collapse of 2008. Despite the Obama stimulus, the rate of increase in federal spending was even higher under Herbert Hoover. And if the House GOP hadn’t stymied Obama, there would have been additional job-creating stimulus; the recovery would be more robust; and Romney’s prospects would be even more anemic than they are.
The list [of Romney's lies] could go on and on. One Republican operative, a genuine conservative who thinks Romney isn’t genuine at all, renders his verdict: “He doesn’t believe in anything but his own ambition.” Maybe that’s why Romney will say anything. But why, then, should we believe anything he says?
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Monday, August 20, 2012

Guess who is the smallest government spender since Eisenhower

This will surely surprise some people who get their "news" from Fox and who won't believe this article, even if Forbes says so (see note at the end from Forbes editor re. threats and obscene comments being made by  some readers--guess which ones?): http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/

Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama?

It’s enough to make even the most ardent Obama cynic scratch his head in confusion.

Amidst all the cries of Barack Obama being the most prolific big government spender the nation has ever suffered, Marketwatch is reporting that our president has actually been tighter with a buck than any United States president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Who knew?

Check out the chart –

So, how have the Republicans managed to persuade Americans to buy into the whole “Obama as big spender” narrative?

might have something to do with the first year of the Obama presidency where the federal budget increased a whopping 17.9% —going from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. I’ll bet you think that this is the result of the Obama sponsored stimulus plan that is so frequently vilified by the conservatives…but you would be wrong.

The first year of any incoming president term is saddled—for better or for worse—with the budget set by the president whom immediately precedes the new occupant of the White House. Indeed, not only was the 2009 budget the property of George W. Bush—and passed by the 2008 Congress—it was in effect four months before Barack Obama took the oath of office.

Accordingly, the first budget that can be blamed on our current president began in 2010 with the budgets running through and including including fiscal year 2013 standing as charges on the Obama account, even if a President Willard M. Romney takes over the office on January 20, 2013.

So, how do the actual Obama annual budgets look?

Courtesy of Marketwatch-

  • In fiscal 2010 (the first Obama budget) spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.
  •  In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.
  • In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.
  • Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.

No doubt, many will wish to give the credit to the efforts of the GOP controlled House of Representatives. That’s fine if that’s what works for you.

However, you don’t get to have it both ways. Credit whom you will, but if you are truly interested in a fair analysis of the Obama years to date—at least when it comes to spending—you’re going to have to acknowledge that under the Obama watch, even President Reagan would have to give our current president a thumbs up when it comes to his record for stretching a dollar.

Of course, the Heritage Foundation is having none of it, attempting to counter the actual numbers by pretending that the spending initiated by the Bush Administration is the fault of Obama. As I understand the argument Heritage is putting forth —and I have provided the link to the Heritage rebuttal so you can decide for yourself—Marketwatch, in using the baseline that Obama inherited, is making it too easy on the President.

But then, with the Heritage Foundation being the creator of the individual mandate concept in healthcare  only to rebut the same when it was no longer politically convenient, I’m not quite sure why anyone believes much of anything they have to say any longer. With their history of reversing course for convenience, I can’t help but wonder, should they find themselves reviewing the spending record of a President Romney four years from today, whether they might be tempted to use the Obama numbers as the baseline for such a new Administration.

contact Rick at thepolicypage@gmail.com

Twitter @rickungar

NOTE: Some of the comments to this piece have gotten well out of control, involving threats and obscenity to other commenters and myself. While I welcome and encourage comments from all points of view, obscene remarks are removed and not tolerated. I’ll be happy to jump back into the conversation and reply to some comments when those who are misusing the forum settle down.

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Excellent article detailing differences between conservative and liberal thinking

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/joshua-holland/45025/the-conservative-psyche-how-ordinary-people-come-to-embrace-paul-ryans-cruelty

EXCERPT (but read full article to get complete picture): P
sychological research – and some neurobiological studies – have found ...: Liberals and conservatives don't just differ in their opinions, they have fundamentally different ways of processing information, which in turn leads them to hold markedly divergent sets of facts.

Even more frustrating for those who view politics as a rational pursuit of one's self-interest, facts don't actually matter that much. We begin evaluating policies emotionally, according to a deeply ingrained moral framework, and then our brains often work backward, filling in – or inventing -- “facts” that conform to that framework.



Dueling Morality Tales



It's long been understood that people evaluate policy ideas through partisan and ideological lenses. That's how, for example, a set of conservative, market-oriented healthcare reforms cooked up at the Heritage Foundation and pushed by Republicans for years can suddenly become a Maoist plot when embraced by a Democratic administration.



But according to George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist at UC Berkeley, one has to look beyond mere partisanship to really get the differences in how we process information. Lakoff describes what might be called a hierarchy of understanding, beginning with our conceptions of morality and then evaluating the details through that lens.

...While liberals and conservatives often see their counterparts as horrible people these days, the reality, according to Lakoff, is that they're processing information through very different, and often diametrically opposed moral frameworks.



In a recent interview with AlterNet, Lakoff said, “Conservatives have a very different view of democracy, which follows their moral system.”



The basic idea in terms of economics is that democracy gives people the liberty to seek their self interest and their own well-being without worrying or being responsible for the well-being or interest of anybody else. Therefore they say everybody has individual responsibility, not social responsibility, therefore you’re on your own. If you make it that’s wonderful. That’s what the market is about. If you don’t make it, that’s your problem.



...David Redlawsk, a political scientist at Rutgers, explains that “we are all somewhat impervious to new information, preferring the beliefs in which we are already invested.



We often ignore new contradictory information, actively argue against it or discount its source, all in an effort to maintain existing evaluations. Reasoning away contradictions this way is psychologically easier than revising our feelings. In this sense, our emotions color how we perceive “facts.”



Everyone does this, but some research suggests that political conservatives, perhaps because they are more set in their views, and more averse to cognitive dissonance, tend to display more motivated reasoning than liberals.



When you hear someone like Paul Ryan proposing, for example, to shift $4,700 in health costs onto the backs of seniors living at the poverty level by 2022, it's important to understand that the consequences of those actions – the factual, real-world results of these policies – are often inconsequential to like-minded people on the Right not because they're (necessarily) bad people, but for the simple reason that the consequences don't register. 


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Sunday, August 19, 2012

Truth about Paul Ryan

BEWARE A BEAUTIFUL CALM
By Maureen Dowd

WHAT happens when you realize you are the machine you’re raging against?

Tom Morello, the Grammy-winning, Harvard-educated guitarist for the metal rap band Rage Against the Machine, punctured Paul Ryan’s pretensions to cool in a Rolling Stone essay rejecting R&R (Romney ’n’ Ryan) as R&R (rock ’n’ roll).

“He is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades,” Morello writes, adding: “I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta ‘rage’ in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically, the only thing he’s not raging against is the privileged elite he’s groveling in front of for campaign contributions.”

In my experience, when a presidential candidate needs some outside force to animate him — Michael Dukakis needed Kitty, Bob Dole needed C-Span, Willard needs Paul — it spells doom.

The fresh Gen X vice-presidential contender — like Sarah Palin, he favors the exclamation “awesome” — has had mixed reviews in his debutante cotillion.

Howard Fineman wrote in The Huffington Post that “Ryan turns out, upon closer inspection, not to be a purifying ideologue, but rather a young, power-hungry, ladder-climbing trimmer.” The self-styled deficit cutter backed W.’s deficit-exploding agenda, and the tut-tutting critic of the Obama stimulus grabbed for the president’s stimulus money.

Neocons and Tea Partyers, however, continued to rhapsodize. Grover Norquist told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt that Ryan would be the Dick Cheney of economic and tax policy. And that’s a compliment.

The comparison is apt. Ryan looks like a bonus Romney son, as Dan Quayle did with Bush senior. Republicans find the tableau of two rich white guys — same shirts, different generations — comforting. With W. and Cheney, the usual order switched and the vice-presidential candidate played the role of surrogate dad.

Where Ryan is like Cheney is in tone: at first blush, the Wisconsin congressman emanates a thoughtful, reassuring reasonableness, talking to reporters and sometimes Democratic lawmakers. Cheney’s deep voice, like the headmaster of a boys’ prep school, seemed moderate and measured, too, at first. But it is deceptive. Both men are way, way out there.

It is, to use a phrase coined by French doctors, la belle indifférence, or “the beautiful calm” of hysterical people. But the closer you look, the uglier it gets.

Just as Cheney, hunter of small birds and old friends, once defended cop-killer bullets and plastic guns that could slip through airport metal detectors, so Ryan, deer hunter, championed concealed guns and curtailing the background check waiting period from three days to one.

Just as Cheney was always willing to cough up money to guerrillas in Nicaragua and Angola but not to poor women whose lives were endangered by their pregnancies, so Ryan helped pay for W.’s endless wars while pushing endless anti-abortion bills, like one undercutting an exemption from the ban on using federal money for abortions in cases of rape or incest, and narrowing the definition of rape to “forcible rape.”

What on earth is nonforcible rape? It’s like saying nonlethal murder. Why redefine acts of aggression against women as non-acts of aggression?

Even Catholic bishops, who had to be dragged toward compassion in the pedophilia scandal, were dismayed at how uncompassionate Ryan’s budget was.

Mitt Romney expects his running mate to help deliver the Catholic vote and smooth over any discomfort among Catholics about Mormonism. (This is the first major-party ticket to go Protestant-less.) Yet after Ryan claimed his budget was shaped by his faith, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops deemed it immoral.

“A just spending bill cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor and vulnerable persons,” the bishops wrote in a letter to Congress.

The Jesuits were even more tart, with one group writing to Ryan that “Your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

The nuns-on-the-bus also rapped the knuckles of the former altar boy who now takes his three kids to Mass. As Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the Catholic social justice group Network, told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, it’s sad that a Catholic doesn’t understand that “we need to have each other’s backs. Only wealthy people can ever begin to pretend that they can live in a gated community all by themselves.”

Even Ryan’s former parish priest in Janesville weighed in. Father Stephen Umhoefer told the Center for Media and Democracy, “You can’t tell somebody that in 10 years your economic situation is going to be just wonderful because meanwhile your kids may starve to death.”

Beyond the even-keeled Ryan mien lurks full-tilt virulence. A moderate demeanor is not a sign of a moderate view of the world.


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Saturday, August 18, 2012

GREAT STORY: Beauty and the Beak




What a great story!!

Subject: Beauty and the Beak

A magnificent bird! Amazing people!

Click here: Beauty and the Beak on Vimeo <http://vimeo.com/15184546>



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Friday, August 17, 2012

Mitt Romney scolds us for wanting info. on his taxes

Mitt says we're "small-minded" for wanting to know what income taxes he has paid.  "Small-minded"?  Because we want him to reveal his tax returns as all other candidates do?  Because we want him to prove Harry Reid wrong when Harry claims Mitt has paid no income taxes at all in the last 10 years?  How easy it would be to prove Harry Reid wrong!  Just show your tax returns to the people, as all other candidates do!  What is so "small-minded" about our requesting that? Can you blame us for not believing anything you say, Mr. Romney?

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There's a lot to shake your head at in this Mitt Romney scold of ordinary people who simply want to understand how wealthy people can pay 13 percent of their income in taxes while the rest of us pay something closer to 15-27 percent. But I want to zoom in on this comment:

And if you add in addition the amount the goes to charity [at the Mormon church], well, the number gets well above 20 percent.

I'm not actually sure what logic conflates a church tithe with taxes. Does he think they go to the same sorts of things? Does he truly believe the LDS church actually uses the tithes they receive to assist poor people, build roads, fix bridges, provide health care?

He's either lying or naïve. I'll put long odds on the lie. Before I hear a lot of clucking and see fingers wagging at me for taking aim at Romney's religion, I suggest you read what Mitt Romney thinks "charity" is, because yes, it does matter, and yes, his religion is part of the package. You bet it is.

Start with this. It's estimated that annual tithes and offerings to the Church of Latter-Day Saints are in the range of $7 billion. That's seven billion dollars per year. Where do they spend all that money?

Reuters:

The Mormon church has no hospitals and only a handful of primary schools. Its university system is limited to widely respected Brigham Young, which has campuses in Utah, Idaho and Hawaii, and LDS Business College. Seminaries and institutes for high school students and single adults offer religious studies for hundreds of thousands.

It counts more than 55,000 in its missionary forces, primarily youths focused on converting new members but also seniors who volunteer for its nonprofits, such as the Polynesian Cultural Center, which bills itself as Hawaii's No. 1 tourist attraction, and for-profit businesses owned by the church.

The church has plowed resources into a multi-billion-dollar global network of for-profit enterprises: it is the largest rancher in the United States, a church official told Nebraska's Lincoln Journal Star in 2004, with other ranches and farms in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Australia and Great Britain, according to financial documents reviewed by Reuters.

Ranching and farm industry sources say they are well-run operations.

It also has a small media empire, an investment fund, and is developing a mall across from its Salt Lake City headquarters, which it calls an attempt to help revitalize the city rather than to make money. These enterprises are also part of a vast nest egg for tough times. The church expects wars and natural disasters before Christ returns to Earth in the Second Coming, and members are encouraged to prepare by laying in stores of food. Farms and ranches are part of the church's own preparation.

Now keep some things in mind here. If they could, LDS legislators would abolish the child labor laws in this country. This is so they can then employ children to do the work of men for long hours with little pay in their church-owned enterprises, I'm sure. Or to boost the profits of their member-owned enterprises with cheap labor so they can receive more in tithes and offerings.

Bloomberg Businessweek published an exhaustive report on LDS "enterprise" in July. It was startling, particularly with regard to how vast their enterprises really are. Here's an organizational chart from the article:

As a religious organization, the LDS Church enjoys several tax advantages. Like other churches, it is often exempt from paying taxes on the real estate properties it leases out, even to commercial entities, says tax lawyer David Miller, who is not Mormon. The church also doesn’t pay taxes on donated funds and holdings. Mitt Romney and others at Bain Capital, the private equity firm he co-founded in 1984, gave the Mormon Church millions’ worth of stock holdings obtained through Bain deals, according to Reuters. Between 1997 and 2009, these included $2 million in Burger King (BKW) and $1 million in Domino’s Pizza (DPZ) shares. Under U.S. law, churches can legally turn around and sell donated stock without paying capital-gains taxes, a clear advantage for both donor and receiver. The church also makes money through various investment vehicles, including a trust company and an investment fund called Ensign Peak Advisors, which employs managers who specialize in international equities, cash management, fixed income, quantitative investment, and emerging markets, according to profiles on LinkedIn (LNKD). Public information on Ensign Peak is sparse. In 2006 one of the fund’s vice presidents, Laurence R. Stay, told the Mormon-run Deseret News, “As we trade securities, all of the trading happens essentially with a handshake. … There’s lots of protections around it, but billions of dollars change hands every day just based on the ethics of the group—that people know that they can trust each other.”

Contrast that with Catholic Church investments, or Seventh-Day Adventists, who tend to invest not only in church buildings and land, but also hospitals and health care facilities, feeding the poor, and taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves. Not that they don't have their own problems. They do. But still, there's a material difference between what they put their money into and what the LDS church uses their tithes and offerings for.

I think we can all agree that Mitt's tithe to the Mormon church isn't going to "charity."

Back when I went through the 990 forms to write about how Mitt and Ann Romney's charitable foundation realized some hefty gains from Bain Capital investments they donated, I also paid some attention to the "charities" that foundation funded. Here are three years' worth. The other years track fairly close to these. Some are indeed charity. Others? Not so much. I didn't count anything to prestigious exclusive schools, right wing organizations or LDS enterprises as charity.

2010:

  • LDS Church: $145,000 (not charity)
  • Belmont Hill School: $5,000 (not charity - prestigious private school)
  • Best Friends Foundation: $15,000 (charity)
  • Boys and Girls Club of Boston: $10,000 (charity)
  • Brigham Young University: $25,000 (not charity - LDS University
  • Center for Treatment of Pediatric MS: $75,000 (charity)

Out of $275,000 given, $100,000 went to real charities, or about 36 percent.

2009:

  • LDS Church: $600,000 (not charity)
  • The Becket Fund: $25,000 (right wing tax-exempt organization dedicating to suing for religious liberty)
  • My Sister's Keeper: $5,000 (charity)
  • Mass General Hospital Cancer Center $1,000 (charity)

Out of total $631,000 given, $6,000 given to charity, or 1 percent.

2008:

  • SafetyNet: $10,000 (charity)
  • Boston Ten Point Coalition: $15,000 (charity)
  • Boys & Girls Harbor: $20,000 (charity)
  • Operation Kids: $10,000 (charity)
  • Epilepsy Foundation: $1,000 (charity)
  • Pioneer Institute: $10,000 (not charity - right wing think tank)
  • Belmont Hill School: $5,000 (not charity - prestigious private school)
  • Cranbrook Education Community: $5,000 (not charity - prestigious private school)
  • Boys & Girls Club: $10,000 (charity)
  • Pan Mass Challenge: $10,000 (charity)
  • Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Breath of Life Gala: $10,000 (charity and a party, too!)
  • Deseret International Foundation: $25,000 (not charity - LDS Media org)
  • LDS Church: $1,800,000 (not charity)

Out of $1,926,000, $86,000 went to charity, or 4 percent.

You see the pattern there. A very small percentage of total non-profit giving from the foundation went to actual charities. Far more went into the LDS coffers, to BYU, exclusive private schools, or right wing organizations. Through the years, the foundation has given to the Federalist Society, the Hoover Institution, the Heritage Foundation, anti-abortion groups in Massachusetts, and anti-LGBT organizations like the Massachusetts Family Institute. These are not charities. They are political organizations, and right-wing political organizations at that.

So the next time you hear Mitt or Ann Romney extol their "charitable giving" as evidence of either their goodness or their sacrifice, remember that charity seems to be in the eye of the beholder. Or businessman.




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GREAT INTERVIEW: CHEERS FOR SOLEDAD O'BRIEN!

About time someone on a major network told truth to the right wing liars!  Soledad O'Brien deserves a medal for sticking with Truth in the face of hypocritical liars--and forcing them to eat their lies.  Read this article and shout Hooray for Soledad!  Too bad the right wing voters won't see this -- their Bubble World News on Fox will never deliver Truth to them.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/17/soledad-obrien-schools-republican-rep-claiming-ryan-medicare-plan-not-vouchers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29

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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Anti-Medicaid States: Earning $11,000 is too much (!)

So true! Excerpt:

The political rhetoric during a presidential campaign focuses on the middle class and leaves the uninsured working poor largely invisible, said Rand Corp. researcher Dr. Art Kellermann.

"We hear a lot of talk about unemployment and the aspirations of middle-class Americans. But we don't hear about the consequences of unemployment and the consequences of the collapsing middle class," Kellermann said. Losing health insurance is one of those consequences.

"It's like the public just doesn't want to believe anything else until it hits home," he said, "Until it's their own child, brother or parent that got laid off when they were 58, until then, it's not real."


Anti-Medicaid states: Earning $11,000 is too much


By CARLA K. JOHNSON and KELLI KENNEDY








MIAMI (AP) - Sandra Pico is poor, but not poor enough.

She makes about $15,000 a year, supporting her daughter and unemployed husband. She thought she'd be able to get health insurance after the Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama's health care law.

Then she heard that her own governor won't agree to the federal plan to extend Medicaid coverage to people like her in two years. So she expects to remain uninsured, struggling to pay for her blood pressure medicine.

"You fall through the cracks and there's nothing you can do about it," said the 52-year-old home health aide. "It makes me feel like garbage, like the American dream, my dream in my homeland is not being accomplished."

(AP) Graphic shows income eligibility cutoffs in states across the nation.
Full Image
Many working parents like Pico are below the federal poverty line but don't qualify for Medicaid, a decades-old state-federal insurance program. That's especially true in states where conservative governors say they'll reject the Medicaid expansion under Obama's health law.

In South Carolina, a yearly income of $16,900 is too much for Medicaid for a family of three. In Florida, $11,000 a year is too much. In Mississippi, $8,200 a year is too much. In Louisiana and Texas, earning more than just $5,000 a year makes you ineligible for Medicaid.

Governors in those five states have said they'll reject the Medicaid expansion underpinning Obama's health law after the Supreme Court's decision gave states that option. Many of those hurt by the decision are working parents who are poor - but not poor enough - to qualify for Medicaid.

Republican Mitt Romney's new running mate, conservative Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, has a budget plan that would turn Medicaid over to the states and sharply limit federal dollars. Romney hasn't specifically said where he stands on Ryan's idea, but has expressed broad support for his vice presidential pick's proposals.

Medicaid now covers an estimated 70 million Americans and would cover an estimated 7 million more in 2014 under the Obama health law's expansion. In contrast, Ryan's plan could mean 14 million to 27 million Americans would ultimately lose coverage, even beyond the effect of a repeal of the health law, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation of Ryan's 2011 budget plan.



For now, most states don't cover childless adults, but all states cover some low-income parents. The income cutoff, however, varies widely from state to state.

Most states cover children in low-income families. Manuel and Sandra Pico's 15-year-old daughter is covered by Medicaid. But the suburban Miami couple can't afford private insurance for themselves and they make too much for Florida's Medicaid.

Manuel Pico, a carpenter, used to make more than $20,000 a year, but has struggled to find work in the last three years after the real estate market collapsed. He occasionally picks up day jobs or takes care of the neighbor's yard. Sandra Pico would like to work full time, but can't afford to pay someone to watch her 34-year-old sister, who has Down syndrome.

"No matter how hard I work, I'm not going to get anywhere," Sandra Pico said. "If you're not rich, you just don't have it."

In San Juan, Texas, 22-year-old Matthew Solis makes about $8,700 a year - too much to qualify for Medicaid in that state. Solis, a single father with joint custody of his 4-year-old daughter, said he works about 25 hours per week at a building supply store making minimum wage and is a full-time college student at the University of Texas-Pan American. He aspires to be a school counselor.

He recently sought medical care for food poisoning, visiting a federally funded clinic. But he doesn't see a doctor regularly because he can't afford private insurance. The new health law allows young adults to remain on their parents' insurance until age 26. But that doesn't help Solis, whose father is uninsured and whose mother died of leukemia when he was 8.

"I voted for him (Obama) because he promised we would have insurance," Solis said. "I'm pretty upset because I worked for Obama and I still don't have coverage."

His governor, Rick Perry, like Pico's governor, Rick Scott, is rejecting the Medicaid expansion. So Solis too is out of luck unless his circumstances dramatically change.

In most of the states where governors are rejecting or leaning against the expansion, the income level that disqualifies a parent from Medicaid is stunningly low. Only in New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie has said he's leaning against the expansion, is Medicaid available to parents with incomes at the poverty line and slightly above. New Jersey will cover a parent making $24,645 in a family of three.

Most states base Medicaid eligibility for parents on household income and how it compares to the federal poverty level, which was $18,530 for a family of three in 2011, the year being used for easier state-by-state comparisons.

In Louisiana, the eligibility cutoff for a working parent is 25 percent of federal poverty, or $4,633 for a family of three. In Nevada, it's 87 percent of the federal poverty level, or $16,121 for a family of three.

That's been the range in states where governors are likely saying no to expanded Medicaid.

In contrast, states where governors have said they'll expand Medicaid are more generous with working parents. The Medicaid eligibility cutoff ranges in those states from Washington's $13,527 to Minnesota's $39,840.

To be sure, some states with generous coverage for parents have been forced to cut back. Illinois, facing a financial crisis, ended coverage last month for more than 25,000 working parents. Even so, the state still covers working parents with incomes slightly higher than the poverty line.

The national health law's Medicaid expansion would start covering all citizens in 2014 who make up to roughly $15,400 for an individual, $30,650 for a family of four.

The federal government will pay the full cost of the Medicaid expansion through 2016. After that, the states will only pick up 5 percent of the cost through 2019, and 10 percent of the cost thereafter.

So why would any governor say no to such a great deal?

These governors are in favor of smaller government. In principle, they don't want the federal government to expand - even if that expansion would help their own citizens. And they say they don't want their own states paying any more of the Medicaid tab even if it's years down the road.

"We don't need the federal government telling us what to do when it comes to meeting the needs of the citizens of our states," Florida Gov. Rick Scott wrote recently in an opinion piece for U.S. News and World Report. "And we don't need Washington putting states on the hook for future budget obligations."

Also, many conservatives view Medicaid as a wasteful, highly flawed program, akin to no health coverage. Many doctors across the country won't treat Medicaid patients because the payments they receive are so low.

When the Supreme Court ruled that states could opt out of the health law's Medicaid expansion, it raised the chances for inequity at a time when more Americans have fallen from the middle class into poverty, said Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

"Why should a sick person in Connecticut have access to health care when they don't in Mississippi and Texas?" Sawhill asked. "We really do have a very high level of poverty as a result of the recession. And the safety net is weaker than ever."

Medicaid, the nation's single largest insurer, is a state and federal program created in 1965 as a companion program to welfare cash assistance to single parents. Today, the elderly and disabled cost nearly 70 cents of every Medicaid dollar, not the stereotypical single mother and her children.

What's largely unknown to many Americans is who is left out of the safety net, said Cheryl Camillo, a senior researcher at Mathematica Policy Research. "A huge chunk of the populace is not covered, even by Medicaid," she said.

The political rhetoric during a presidential campaign focuses on the middle class and leaves the uninsured working poor largely invisible, said Rand Corp. researcher Dr. Art Kellermann.

"We hear a lot of talk about unemployment and the aspirations of middle-class Americans. But we don't hear about the consequences of unemployment and the consequences of the collapsing middle class," Kellermann said. Losing health insurance is one of those consequences.

"It's like the public just doesn't want to believe anything else until it hits home," he said, "Until it's their own child, brother or parent that got laid off when they were 58, until then, it's not real."


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