Bush Tax Cuts Cost More Than 2X Dems' Health Care Bill

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/

“We only hear all this crying and moaning about the deficit when it's something for regular working people, and not a powerful lobby. And of course, the Republican'ts are right out there in front of the Hypocrisy Parade:

“And yet, many of the lawmakers who argue that the health care reform legislation is “too costly” are the same lawmakers who supported the Bush tax cuts.

“Their own voting record demonstrates that health care reform is not a matter of costs, but a matter of priorities.

“It’s difficult to see how the Bush tax cuts could provide us with two and a half times the benefits of health care reform. In 2010, when all the Bush tax cuts are finally phased in, a staggering 52.5 percent of the benefits will go to the richest 5 percent of taxpayers.

“President Bush and his supporters argued that these high-income tax cuts would benefit everybody because they would unleash investment that would spark widespread economic prosperity. There seems to be no evidence of this, particularly given the collapse of the economy at the end of the Bush years.”

Secret Fundie Cult Pulls Strings of Brownback, Sanford, Tiahrt, Many Others in Power

On today’s Fresh Air on NPR, I was shocked to learn what has been transpiring in the halls of power since I’ve been away from the blog. But it is deeper than that: this organization has been influential in Washington since 1935. Here’s some links you need to check out.

The Fresh Air Story

'Family': Fundamentalism, Friends In High Places

July 1, 2009

In the book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, author Jeff Sharlet examines the power wielded by a secretive Christian group known as the Family, or the Fellowship.

Founded in 1935 in opposition to FDR's New Deal, the evangelical group's views on religion and politics are so singular that some other Christian-right organizations consider them heretical

The group also has a connection to a house in Washington, D.C., known as C Street. Owned by a foundation affiliated with the Family, C Street is officially registered as a church; in practice, it serves as a meeting place and residence for politicians like South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, Nevada Sen. John Ensign and Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn…

From Counterpunch

Sex Scandals, Moral Hypocrisy and the Far Right Agenda in Central America

C Street Band

By Nikolas Kozloff

July 10-12, 2009

As the Republican Party implodes the public is becoming aware of a secretive Christian society known as the Family or the Fellowship.  The group was founded in 1935 in opposition to FDR's New Deal and its adherents subscribe to a far right Christian fundamentalist and free market ideology.  A minister named Abraham Vereide founded the Family after having a vision in which God visited him in the person of the head of the United States Steel Corporation (no, I’m not making this up).  The Family has a connection to house on C Street in Washington, D.C., known simply as C Street.  Officially registered as a church, the building serves as a meeting place and residence for conservative politicians…

Lawmakers who live there include Reps. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn.; Bart Stupak, D-Mich.; Jim DeMint, R-S.C.; Mike Doyle, D-Pa.; and Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, and Sam Brownback, R-Kan.  The lawmakers, all Christians, live in private rooms upstairs and pay an incredibly low rent --- a paltry $600 --- to live at C Street.

And from Channel 12, KWCH, Wichita, Kansas

By Kim Wilhelm

It's known as C Street - a three story building two blocks from the Capitol in Washington D.C.  Until recently, most people had never heard of it.

But C Street and the politicians associated with it are now in the spotlight because of recent political sex scandals. In June, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford admitted to having an affair and referred to C Street during a press conference. Sanford said he had received counseling there. He described it as "believe it or not - a Christian bible study."

Nevada Senator John Ensign revealed he also had ties to C Street. Ensign admitted to having an affair with Cynthia Hampton, the wife of a top staffer in his office. Hampton's husband said he went to the members of C Street to ask them to intervene so Ensign would end the affair. 

Then, the ex-wife of former Mississippi Congressman Chip Pickering claims he had an affair while living at C Street….

The building itself is registered as a church with the IRS. The group rents out rooms to members of Congress. Kansas Congressman Jerry Moran's staff confirms he stays at C Street. His office refused to answer questions or comment further. Sharlet's book has no mention of Moran, but it does list Senator Sam Brownback and Congressman Todd Tiahrt as members…

On the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Tiahrt asked whether President Barack Obama and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' mothers would've sought abortions if it was publically funded:

"If you think of it in human terms, there is a financial incentive that will be put in place, paid for by tax dollars, that will encourage women who are -- single parents, living below the poverty level, to have the opportunity for a free abortion," said Tiahrt. "If you take that scenario and apply it to many of the great minds we have today, who would we have been deprived of? Our president grew up in a similar circumstance."

"If that financial incentive was in place, is it possible that his mother may have taken advantage of it?" Tiahrt asked. "Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court Justice, if those circumstances were in place, is it possible that we would be denied his great mind? The opportunity to have tax-funded abortions, a financial incentive, is something that I think most of us want to oppose in America and it's certainly deserves a clean up or down vote."

When Sharlet heard this, he recalled a time he saw Tiahrt in C Street talking with The Family's leader, Doug Coe…

Sharlet claims Tiahrt asked Coe "The best way for the Christian to win the race with the Muslim...because the Muslim has too many babies while Americans kill too many of theirs."  Sharlet says Coe urged Tiahrt to form a covenant - like the Mafia. Coe listed "other men who had changed the world through the strength of the covenants, including Hitler, Lenin, Ho chi Minh, and bin Laden."

But when Eyewitness News contacted Tiahrt, he denied all of Sharlet's claims…Brownback's office would not comment to Eyewitness News.

This is All Blowing Up Now: from WBUR

You may recognize these names from recent headlines: Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Bart Stupak and Rep. Joe Pitts. Stupak and Pitts have become familiar names through the media's health care overhaul coverage; their abortion funding amendment introduced an 11th-hour twist as the House of Representatives approached a vote on a landmark health care bill.

Ensign was the focus of media attention over his affair with a campaign staffer. Just last night, a Nevada man disclosed that he found out about his wife's affair with the state's junior senator — his best friend — via a text message.

The common factor among these political players is their involvement with the Family, a secretive fellowship of powerful Christian politicians that centers on a Washington, D.C., townhouse. Investigative journalist Jeff Sharlet has written extensively about the influential group in his book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.

Today's Fresh Air Broadcast

Obviously, this is longer than my normal post… a duty which I have been absent from lately. It reflects my shock at this conspiracy which has been going on under our noses for years. I’m nominally a Christian myself, but, sad to say, here is another example – the most egregious in my memory – of a perversion of the faith.

Sally Kern's Proclamation for Morality

Right Wing Watch

We mentioned this earlier this week, but via HRC's Back Story we see that Oklahoma's News 9 has done a segment on Rep. Sally Kern's Proclamation for Morality in which she blames the nation's current economic and other problems on gays, abortion, divorce, and all around lack of Christian faith.

Coulter Says Tiller’s Assassination Was “Understandable”

Crooks and Liars

The right-wing pundits have been busy whipping a fresh batch of eliminationist rhetoric this week.

Leading the parade, as is often the case, was Ann Coulter, appearing on Bill O'Reilly's show on Monday:

Coulter: Well, apparently, this one random nut who shot Tiller -- I don't really like to think of it as a murder. It was terminating Tiller in the 203rd trimester.

... I am personally opposed to shooting abortionists, but I don't want to impose my moral values on others.

... OK, their logic is, if you don't believe in abortion, don't have an abortion. If you don't believe in shooting abortionists, don't shoot an abortionist.

Coulter actually was just regurgitating this week's column for cable consumption:

I'm not justifying it, but I understand when you take democracy away from people, some of them will react violently. The total number of deaths attributable to Roe were seven abortion clinic workers and 40 million unborn babies.

... I wouldn't kill an abortionist myself, but I wouldn't want to impose my moral values on others. No one is for shooting abortionists. But how will criminalizing men making difficult, often tragic, decisions be an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the shootings of abortionists?

Following the moral precepts of liberals, I believe the correct position is: If you don't believe in shooting abortionists, then don't shoot one.

Bill O'Reilly's Argument For Abolishing Freedom Of The Press

Daily Kos

Once again, Bill O'Reilly has proven that what he said two years ago regarding his lack of journalistic standards is still true: “There are few journalistic standards left these days as we’ve proven on this broadcast again and again”.

O'Reilly can't contain his disdain for anyone who disagrees with him. His outrage is so intense that it led him to say this:

"The most frustrating part about this is that nothing can be done. The Times has an ombudsman, but he's a joke, and no outside agency has any power over the paper. It can pretty much do what it wants, and does."

Stop the presses! You mean to say that a newspaper can do whatever it wants? How the heck did that happen? Why isn't here an outside agency that has power over these papers? No wonder O'Reilly is tee'd off. He would be much happier if journalists all had to have their work approved by editorial boards that could certify the conservative purity of the message before being disseminated to the people. You know, like the way Fox News does it.

OUTFOXED: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism

Outfoxed examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a "race to the bottom" in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public's right to know. Read on »

Pastor Martin Niemoller: First they came for the Communists...

Why is Free Speech so important?...

Why speak up about things that don't seem to affect you?
Perhaps Pastor Martin Neimoller's view in one version of his quote will answer that question.
He supported the Nazis until he realized, too late, what they were really about and was sent to Dachau concentration camp.
He was one of the fortunate to be freed and live until 1984.


First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Social Democrats,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Social Democrat.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew,
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

When DuPont Almost Overthrew the Government | Business Pundit

In the summer of 1933, shortly after Roosevelt’s “First 100 Days,” America’s richest businessmen were in a panic. It was clear that Roosevelt intended to conduct a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Roosevelt had to be stopped at all costs. The answer was a military coup. It was to be secretly financed and organized by leading officers of the Morgan and Du Pont empires...

...The plot fell apart when Butler went public. The general revealed the details of the coup before the McCormack-Dickstein Committee, which would later become the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee. (In the 50s, this committee would destroy the lives of hundreds of innocent Americans with its communist witch hunts.) The Committee heard the testimony of Butler and French, but failed to call in any of the coup plotters for questioning, other than MacGuire. In fact, the Committee whitewashed the public version of its final report, deleting the names of powerful businessmen whose reputations they sought to protect. The most likely reason for this response is that Wall Street had undue influence in Congress also. Even more alarming, the elite-controlled media failed to pick up on the story, and even today the incident remains little known. The elite managed to spin the story as nothing more than the rumors and hearsay of Butler and French, even though Butler was a Quaker of unimpeachable honesty and integrity. Butler, appalled by the cover-up, went on national radio to denounce it, but with little success.

Butler was not vindicated until 1967, when journalist John Spivak uncovered the Committee's internal, secret report. It clearly confirmed Butler's story.

President Obama outraged by slaying of abortion provider George Tiller | News Updates | Wichita Eagle

BY STAN FINGER AND JOE RODRIGUEZ

The Wichita Eagle

The suspect, a 51-year-old male, was arrested without incident on I-35 in Johnson County about three hours after the shooting, Stolz said.

Police did not release the suspect's name.

The investigation is in its "infancy stages," Stolz said. He said the shooting appeared to be an isolated act.

Tiller, 67, was shot once just after 10 a.m. in the lobby of Reformation Lutheran Church at 7601 E. 13th St., where he was a member of the congregation.

Stolz said Tiller was shot in the foyer of the church. There were three or four eyewitnesses, he said. Six to 12 people were in the foyer at the time of the shooting.

Two men attempted to apprehend the suspect, but he pointed a gun at them and threatened them before fleeing, Stolz said.

The suspect's car -- a powder blue Ford Taurus registered to an owner in Merriam -- was spotted just south of Gardner by two Johnson County Sheriff's deputies. The Sheriff's Office had suspected that the man would be coming back to his home on I-35, and the deputies waited for him.

As the car was spotted going north on the highway, the deputies followed and were quickly joined by three other sheriff's patrol cars.

Lt. Mike Pfannenstiel of the Johnson County Sheriff's Office said officers pulled the car over just south of the main Gardner exit and got out with guns drawn. The man then got out of his car with his hands up.

"We took him down without incident," Pfannenstiel said, adding that the man appeared to be driving the speed limit and made no attempt to elude the deputies.

Stolz said police anticipate the suspect will be charged with murder and two counts of aggravated assault. Investigators will present the case to the Sedgwick County District Attorney's Office on Monday.

The District Attorney's Office will determine what charges will be filed, Stolz said. Federal charges are also a possibility, he said.

President Obama said this afternoon that he was "shocked and outraged" by the killing of abortion doctor George Tiller, who was shot while attending church in east Wichita.

Wichita Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz said at a news conference late this afternoon that a suspect in the shooting was in custody and on his way back to Wichita.

"However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence," the president said in a statement issued by the White House.

The suspect, a 51-year-old male, was arrested without incident on I-35 in Johnson County about three hours after the shooting, Stolz said.

Police did not release the suspect's name.

Sean Hannity Attacks Obama For Putting Mustard On His Burger

You know its a slow news day at Fox News when...

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What the fuck is wrong with America?

Written By Word Of The Day on April 24th, 2009

What kind of fucking country do you live in where you have to debate whether torturing someone is a crime? What kind of country do you live in when you can spend 3 years prosecuting the President for a consensual sexual act but won’t prosecute a President for authorizing illegal wiretaps and torturing people? What kind of country do you live in where the supposed ’spiritual’ and ‘religious’ leaders think it’s OK to torture non-Christians? What kind of country do you live in where you can’t even use the word ‘torture’ but have to say ‘interrogation techniques’? What kind of country do you live in when their Nuremberg defense (’We were just following orders’) becomes the mantra for not holding war criminals accountable for their actions? What kind of country do you live in where a major candidate in a Presidential primary openly advocates for doubling the size of America’s illegal detention centers and increasing the use of torture?

read more | digg story

Rush Limbaugh's 10 Dumbest Remarks

A series of quotes from America's king of flatulent utterances.


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How Republican Governors are lying to the Unemployed

"A major talking point of the Republican governors who are not going to take the unemployment funds in the stimulus bill is that it is a permanent tax increase, but by looking at the bill, it is clear that potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, and Mark Sanford are at best wrong, or even worse, lying.

"What is really going on here is that these governors are willing to put their own political ambitions ahead of the needs of the people of their state. All three of these gentlemen want to run for the Republican nomination in 2012, and they think that they will endear themselves to the GOP base by taking a hard line against the stimulus. If this means twisting the truth and hurting the unemployed in their states, so be it. Their position is based on cold political calculus..."

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House conservatives seek Patriot Act extension

More than a dozen of the GOP’s most conservative members on Thursday introduced a bill to reauthorize controversial Patriot Act provisions (“roving” wiretaps, access to library patron information and expanding FISA) set to expire later this year.

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ANALYSIS: Glenn Beck & Bill O’Reilly Save $400,000/year

Conservative commentators Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly regularly rail against President Obama’s budget which would fix the Bush tax system. Maybe it’s because Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck benefit tremendously from the broken status quo. According to a new analysis, Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly each save $400,000 under the current Bush tax system.

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#DiggCons: The HQ for conservatives spamming Digg

From the site: "How do I give? It's simple. When you see a link in the #diggcon Tweet stream, click on it and Digg it, Stumble it, R-igg, it, etc." Provides a realtime stream of right-wing Digg stories, all meant to be upvoted by a cadre of members in a coordinated fashion.

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The "dirty bomb" that disappeared

The curious tale of an Obama hating, cashed up, nuclear Timothy McVeigh from Maine.

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How Deregulation Eviscerated the Banking Sector Safety Net

Read it and weep.

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Frank Schaeffer Explains How The GOP Fucked Us All

MUST SEE - Frank Schaeffer, author of the book _Crazy for God_, on the D.L. Hughley show. Frank, whose father founded the Religious Right, explains how the GOP fucked us all, and what a grim future the GOP has because of it.

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4 million lost health insurance since recession began

An estimated 4 million Americans have lost their health insurance since the recession began, and as many as 14,000 people could be losing their health coverage every day, according to a report by the Center for American Progress' Action Fund...also claims at least half of the 4 million who lost their insurance coverage still are uninsured...

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