Elephant Stampede
March 29, 2011
From Rep. Raúl Grijalva:
If you have ever seen a herd of elephants on the run, then you know what a destructive force they can be. They move fast, they are out of control, and they usually have no idea where they are headed.
This is exactly what is going on in Washington today. With our nation in crisis, the Republicans’ stampede away from their responsibilities as elected officials is trampling America’s working families. While watching out for their corporate buddies and ultra wealthy donors, the GOP is trying to repeal health care reform, leaving millions of people at the mercy of the insurance companies. And with unemployment nearing 10%, the GOP sees fit to cut back on jobless assistance.
As elected officials, we are tasked with ensuring that government represents all the people and works for all Americans. But the GOP and their No Jobs agenda are intent on doing all they can for their wealthy friends, and then shutting government down.
What is more important?
Creating jobs to get America moving forward or promoting wedge issues and cutting funds for public radio and women’s health services?
Ensuring millions of people have access to affordable healthcare or letting the insurance companies and Big Pharma run rampant and unregulated?
Preserving the natural beauty of the Grand Canyon or mining for uranium and polluting the crown jewel of our National Parks system?
A Rampaging Bull in a China Shop Can't Do Nearly as Much Damage as a Herd of Out-of-Control, Stampeding Elephants!
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47 comments:
To compare an elephant stampede with the GOP horde is insulting to the elephants.
Keep drinking that kool-aide...
So, what do you think? Like that Libyan thing? Just what we needed. Billions more spent per week on another war that isnt a war yet!
Wanna arm them? Your idol Obama is thinking about it! Don't know who these "rebels" are---but what the Hell---let's arm them!
Funny. Not a single comment or post about the biggest story in the news right now.
oh this is true...
Still nothing? Weird...Obama has us in another conflict and you say nothing??? If this were Bush you would be jumping up and down and screaming!!!
Like I said---a big mistake! Who the Hell did you elect? You don't even know.
Lovin this "change"!
Why are the liberals crying about the republicans cutting back the fedal budget by 1% after Obama increased it by 35%? The liberal are crying murder over the purposed 1% cut.
yeah. 1%. but these are the same people that think that we don't have a budget problem. they are in denial BIG TIME. They don't want to even talk about the Libyan agression. Turn it over to NATO? WE are the biggest part of NATO! So in other words---it will still be US!
Hey, Brandon---are you liking this "change"? Oh, I see Change! I see that we are worse off now then we were 3 years ago!
How you liking the gas prices? How about giving Brazil money to drill while our companies sit idle? How about that Brilliant "Fast and Furious" program? Guns to Mexico! WOW. Another brilliant Obama administration move.
Yep. We have change alright!
Casey
Do you think the liberals will wake up and realize the national debt is out of control?
No. Sadly they wont. They are uninformed. They are crying about cuts to NPR! Are you kidding me?
I stopped to get gas this morning. $3.90 per gallon. When the prices went up under Bush---remember that? They were calling for his blood. Yet with Obama? Nothing...Crickets.
And Obama is making his plans for a 2nd term! God help us all! We can't take another term of this.
Crickets chirping...nothing...
Are you all ashamed to speak up? Has your bubble burst? Do you feel betrayed?
Military trials for the terrorists, high gas prices, new conflict in Libya, oil drilling contract to Brazil, guns to Mexico, and now I hear about a new 365 Billion Excise tax hidden in the new budget? possilby to be added as a new gas tax!
WOW. I would be hiding too, if I had been responsible for putting this guy in the White House!
Change? Oh we have CHANGE!!!
Country is more divided than ever, inflation is driving food prices up, unemployment is a bit better (thanks to the extension of the tax cuts---NOT to the policies of this admin)it just keeps getting better by the day!
its sad the republican don't have the ball to cut a trillion dollars from the budget.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/huckabee-says-he-wants-americans-be-indoct
Huckabee Says He Wants Americans To Be Indoctrinated At Gunpoint
"Did Mike Huckabee just flush his presidential aspirations down the proverbial toilet? Well, if American mainstream media has an ounce of journalistic gumption remaining the answer most certainly would be “yes”. Huckabee has just been caught on video, at a Christian supremacist conference, stating that Americans should be forcibly indoctrinated at gunpoint. The organization which hosted the “Rediscover God In America” conference, United in Purpose, has edited Huckabee’s comment from footage of his speech, but not before People For The American Way’s Kyle Mantyla captured the unedited footage, in which Mike Huckabee states, “I almost wish that there would be, like, a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced–forced at gunpoint no less–to listen to every David Barton message, and I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen.”
Another CON crazy who lost his marbles.
Conservative vision of "less Government", one which provides for less basic services but is far more intrusive in citizen's private lives.
The above proves that CONS are Fascists. Who in the USA remembers McCarthyism?
Read up on the laws that Arizona wants to proceed with:
$50 fine for every smoker
$50 fine for every diabetic
$50 fine for every obese.
Will doctors be the ones who will report these people to the government? Do they therefore become government workers?
Again, CONS ARE FASCISTS. Only something like the above would come out of the pea sized brains of these type of animals.
LESS GOVERNMENT? You got to be kidding!!
That's MORE government intrusion, NOT LESS.
Huckabee: "I almost wish that there would be, like, a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced–forced at gunpoint no less–to listen to every David Barton message, and I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen.”
Erm.... would that be telecasted by Fox Fascist Noise?
"Huckabee: "I almost wish that there would be, like, a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced–forced at gunpoint no less–to listen to every David Barton message, and I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen.”
Where would he get all these gun pointers? I'm sure EVERY CON WOULD VOLUNTEER TO PULL THE TRIGGER. They're criminals and terrorists anyway.
Totalitarian, theocratic dictatorship is the CON's agenda.
Isn't it strange that the "USA" always wants to bring "freedom and liberty" through arms to other countries but is turning itself into a fascist country? The signs are there - obvious to the naked eye ....
Nah - bringing "freedom" to other countries is only done to protect their own (American Corporate) interests. Millions of starving Africans in dirt poor countries without valuable resources never saw any "liberating" USA forces.
The views that Americans have of themselves are totally unrealistic.
USA has 248 military bases across the world. If that is not imperialism ...... read - colonialism to protect the USA Corporatists ..... aka American interests.
You're on the path of the
ZEE THURD REICH or collapse.
"The views that many Americans have of themselves are totally unrealistic."
They want other countries to have "freedom" as they know it (by force) but don't realize that they're manipulated by the Kochroaches = CONS-TBaggers and don't realize they've been had already for decades and more is yet to come.
Who remembers Reaganomics?
Who is so dumb to vote against themselves?
do you feel better now?
watched it. it was obvious that it was said "tongue in cheek" he does not REALLY want to make people watch anything at gunpoint. You are such a drama queen! just like when you insist that Michele Bachmann "looks to the God in the sky when she talks!" If that is what you want to see---that's what you see. have you had a check up lately? I mean, seriously, you ARE getting to be that age...
Part 1:
"Mickey D's recent announcement that it's hiring 40,000 workers bodes ill for the future of job growth in America. According to the National Employment Law Project, while 40% of the jobs lost in the recession were in high-wage industries only 14% of new jobs created were, with 49% of new jobs paying less than $15 an hour. In other words, Mickey D's job growth is very likely driven by laid-off factory workers who need to grab McMuffins on the way to their new lousy jobs at Wal-Mart that they were forced to take when their unemployment benefits ran out.
When globalization is discussed it's usually focused on the outsourcing of factory and service jobs to low-wage emerging markets such as China and India. But the bigger news that's rarely covered is that high-wage Europe is not only overtaking the U.S. as the global leader but as a leader whose corporate chieftains actually pay its rank and file decently, provide them generous benefits and tend not to "divorce them," i.e., lay them off when economic times are challenging.
Americans can smugly dismiss the European Union's role as merely the bailer-outer of dysfunctional countries, i.e., Portugal, Ireland and Greece. But the more significant news isn't just that the New York Stock Exchange has been bought by NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Borse, but that as of 2007 the value of the European stock market surpassed that of the U.S., according to the excellent book Europe's Promise: Why the European Way in the Best Hope in an Insecure Age, by Steven Hill. Not surprisingly, the rising value is reflective of the fact that the European Union is now the world's wealthiest trading bloc, accounting for nearly a third of the world's economy -- almost as large as the U.S. and China combined, says Hill. From 2000 to 2005, Europe added jobs faster than the U.S., posting higher productivity gains and enjoyed a $3 billion trade surplus. Oh, and these Europeans pay high sales and income taxes. Take that, Rep. Paul Ryan!"
Part 2:
"Not only did Germany overtake the U.S. as the world's largest exporter in 2005, as pointed out in a 2006 Newsweek article entitled "Europe is a House Divided," but it did so by selling high-quality/cost goods produced by generously compensated workers -- its average hourly wage is $48, compared to $32 in the U.S.
A little-discussed feature of the European Union is that it's a partnership between large employers and their workers, not just between countries. Since 1994 when the EU issued a directive on works councils, defined as "composed of both employer and employees convened to discuss matters of common interest," every multinational company with at least 1,000 workers within the EU and 150 workers in each of two or member states must negotiate agreements with works councils if employees petition the employer to create one, Susan Ladka writes in a June 2005 HRMagazine article entitled "Working Together." Works councils not only enjoy veto power over job losses but have the right to meet with management to discuss mergers and the introduction of new technologies, says Hill in Europe's Promise.
In fact, works councils existed long before the EU did. According to a 2001 article in The Economist, "Europe: You're Fired," Germany had them after the Weimar Republic and after 1945 required any company with more than 500 employees to have a "supervisory board, in which workers hold one third of the seats. A few decades later, other countries in Europe followed suit, including Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden. While the UK resisted the notion at first, because, as The Economist put it, the British approach is "sack 'em now and argue afterwards" -- it ultimately passed local works council legislation a few years ago to meet a 2005 EU deadline, Ladka writes. Incredibly, as far as I can tell, no discussion or debate about creating works councils has ever taken the place within "sack-'em-now" American workplaces, much less on Capitol Hill."
Part 3:
"So our counterparts in Europe are enjoying American-style prosperity while continuing to receive European style benefits, including health care, a free or cheap college education, pensions, and generous unemployment benefits."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-white/did-the-american-dream-im_b_845680.html
T-Baggers and CONS are death panels, murderers. Who says they care for their neighbors? NONE OF THEM!! Just for their MASTERS. Criminals.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/07/rand-paul-black-lung-big-coal_n_845840.html
Excerpt:
Rand Paul: Regulating Black Lung Could Be Too Pricey For Big Coal
"WASHINGTON -- With American miners still succumbing to black lung disease, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has proposed a plan to reduce the number of such deaths through the stricter regulation of mining sites. But at a congressional committee meeting last week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) voiced concern that the new regulations may not be worth the cost to coal companies -- even though pockets of his state have been designated black lung “hot spots” by the federal government.
In a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, Paul also asserted that the number of black lung cases has been on the decline. But according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSHA), in recent years such incidences have in fact been on the rise in certain areas of coal country.
"Every regulation doesn't save lives," Paul said in the hearing, later adding that the regulations so far have done a “pretty good job” of reducing black lung. "There is a point or a balancing act between when a regulation becomes burdensome enough that our energy production is stifled. We have to assess the costs of regulation and whether they save lives."
Paul’s comments didn’t escape the notice of mining safety advocates.
“I thought it was outrageous,” said Stephen Sanders, director of the Appalachian Citizens' Law Center, a Kentucky-based non-profit that supports black lung prevention regulations and other mine safety causes. “What he’s suggesting is to keep the cost of coal down we would jeopardize the health of coal miners.”
“He has no knowledge of coal mining, no knowledge of mine safety or health issues,” Tony Oppegard, a Kentucky attorney who’s represented miners, said of Paul."
Read the entire article. This a$$hole shit of a beast (Paul) should be sent off to the mines for the rest of his live to get a taste of what it is like. Or better yet, instead of taking canaries ahead of the miners into the mines like they did in the past, let him be the canary.
That recent mine *accident* was no accident. That Co was charged with numerous safety violations prior to the accident but had never heeded and improved them.
CONS=T-BAGGERS choose to kill people rather than make life better for them. This just to please their MASTERS (Corporatists)
Anyone who votes for these bastards (GOP&Baggers) are also accessories to murders on a big scale. They're destroying the country, THEY KNOW THAT and they LOVE THAT!!
Water goes to the seas. (Where there is already plenty off, more will always flow there)
RAND PAUL: How much money did you get from the mining companies?
MURDERER!
Kochroaches, CONS-BAGGERS want America to be the same as CHINA!!
Work a buck a day and f.o. with safety regulations.
Blatantly different in Europe where working people are seen as contributors to the wealth of the Co's and society unlike the USA where all they think of is that working people=COST and expendable. Read my previous article about Europe. They treat people like HUMANS over there where as in the USA many get treated like animals by their employers.
We are treated like "animals"? Who the Hell do you think you are to make that kind of accusation? You don't know anything and I really wish that you would take your hateful retoric and eat shit and die!
The sad part is, that I can tell by your conviction and venom that you actually believe all of this tripe that you spew.
like it or not, the USA STILL has one of the highest standards of living in the world. Sorry. We do. LOOK IT UP. As for your European Utopia, their system hasn't stood the test of time. This wonderland of Socialism is relatively new in comparison to the 200+ years of freedom and wealth that my country has withstood.
Yes we are having troubles right now, and it has been exaserbated by Marixt like you who hate what we stand for----for whatever reason.
I think you should take your great "love of humanity" as you so claim---and put your money where your stupid mouth is. Go help the poor. Go do some volunteer work. I never hear you talk of doing any of that---you freak.
BTW--your rants are getting a bit off the deep end. You are begining to sound like a raving maniac. Must be your age...
The t-baggers-GOP-Rethuglikkklans are criminals.
As for Europe. Which country invented the first stock market?
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Which_country_invented_the_first_stock_market
"The Netherlands (Amsterdam Stock Exchange) in the early 1700's."
That's way before your supposedly *civil* country. Proves that Europe is and was NOT ever socialist! Civility can still not be found in the USA at this time. Smoke and mirrors and outright LIES broadcasted as news by Beck and his ilk.
A 2 party system is no democracy and therefore Europeans have been enjoying and are enjoying real democracy due to multiparty system.
Get the facts and grow up 2 year old. Big slut mouth and no substance. Typical T-Bagger!! You're just a JEALOUS BITCH, highly likely on welfare!
Read up on history. Go to school and get yourself educated - that is if your pea brain can manage that. However, I suspect wannabe murderers like you rather watch Fixed News.
Okay. now you don't make ANY sense. To begin, we do not have a democracy. we have a Rupublic---and there IS a difference. I suggest YOU look THAT up. Great for the Netherlands---or that would have been Holland at the time--- our country took teams of immigrants from Holland. Most Dutch came to America simply because they calculated that the future promised more prosperity for them and their children in America than in Holland. LOOK IT UP. AND Holland was a monarchy, and was under FRENCH rule from 1747-1815. You are truley an IDIOT!
"That's way before your supposedly *civil* country. Proves that Europe is and was NOT ever socialist!"
That is a very STUPID statement. Yes, it was before my country, as my country wasn't on its feet. We didnt get independence until the late 1700's.
AND you MORON, there IS something called MARKET SOCIALISM. LOOK THAT UP!!!
GEE...where is your liberal bleeding heart? You showed your true colors with that welfare statement.
No, actually I am not on welfare. I am self employed and do quite well even in this country that you spit on.
"wanna be murderer"? WTF? As I said before, you might want to see someone because you dont seem to be lucid lately.
For someone that was not aware that Canada had slavery, or the KKK or discrimination against its Native Peoples----I think we are aware of who needs to get some education. It is usually the uneducated and uninformed that fall for Marxism. Marx called you guys "useful idiots"
BTW---
Maybe if you learn to READ, you might get it. There is no Socialist country in Europe or better SYSTEM that has been around for 200+ years as ours has. The current system that you glorify in Europe has not been around long and they are deeply in debt! Until your European Utopia has stood the test of TIME as ours has, you can hardly call it better.
Jealous? Hardly. I love my country. I am grateful to have been born a citizen of this country. I am proud of who we are!
"slut mouth"? that is a compliment coming from an old hateful hag like you!
Anon-
Funny stat on your worthless unions!
Currently, 12% of union workers are collecting unemployment benifits while the national average of all Americans is only 9%. The average of non union worker would have to be even less than 9%. It just goes so show you how unions are hurting our country. Let Americans get back to work, bust the unions.
You are so right Brandon! the Unions have become not much more than a political action group---with much of the members' money going to support causes rather than to help their members.
They don't even understand that their Progressive Idol, Franklin Roosevelt, was against collective bargaining for federal and state employees!
But what do I know? I am a "slut mouth" LOL!
As I said before.... This bagger is mentally ill. She believes God is speaking to her. That's why she looks at the sky when she talks. lol The vast majority of the CONS/Baggers are mentally ill. Just look at their eyes and expression on their faces. Anyone with a brain and a pair of eyes can see that. And that is even without them having opened their filthy mouths.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/15/the-2012-speculatron-week_5_n_849970.html
And Bachmann doesn't disappoint. This week she was promising to run for just one term, and that God told her to stop same-sex marriage (not war or poverty though!), and that she wasn't sure if gay people were a "public health crisis," and then she was saying that she was okay with running for two terms and that Al Franken stole the election and passed Obamacare illegally, and finally she's ended up in a feud with Lenscrafters, so roll on, clownshow... more
"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Mohandas Gandhi
Trump says, Michelle is lying as he never talked to her.This is because he thinks he is God himself. It looks like for several generations now there hasn't been a single Republican with all his marbles intact.
Why is Michelle not taking her meds? She's definitely schizophrenic (as the rest of them) or worse.
I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
Susan B. Anthony
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/susanbant148671.html
So this is the republican fruit basket of candidates and mixed nuts?
Come on Anon, are you ever going to challenge my comments or just keep you head in the sand?
With all the other voices in Michelle's head, I'm surprised God could get a word in edgewise.
But I'm a little suspicious. Id be willing to bet the voice she hears and identifies as "G*d" sounds alot like one of the Koch Brothers.
And you guys have George Soros!
don't remember who said it, but you know what they say....sure sign of crazy is when one thinks everyone else is crazy! That about fits you Anon2.
No, Brandon. she doesn't ever answer a challenge. She just goes off on her name calling rants.
She keeps saying that Bachmann looks to the sky when she speaks, but no one has ever seen that. Just another crazy rant.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/representative-ryan-puts_b_850610.html
Part 1
Representative Ryan Puts the Republicans on the Record
For years people have accused the Republican Party of being the servants of the rich and powerful at the expense of the broader public. In the past, they would deny this charge and claim that they just had a different view of how the economy works.
Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan sought to eliminate any confusion on this point. He proposed, and last week the Republican House approved, a budget bill that will transfer tens of trillions (yes, that is "trillions" with a "T") of dollars from ordinary working people to the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and generic rich people from any industry. This money will come in the form of higher payments by seniors in their old age for health insurance and another round of tax breaks for the country's richest people.
The Medicare story is the bigger transfer here. Representative Ryan wants to replace the current Medicare system with a voucher system. The size of the voucher in Ryan's plan is held even with the overall rate of inflation. This means that it will not rise at anywhere near the rate of projected health care cost growth. As a result, a greater portion of the cost of health care will be shifted from the government to retirees.
However, this is the less important part of the story. The main reason that retiree health care costs will increase is that the private sector is less efficient at delivering care than the existing Medicare program. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that, under the Ryan plan, the increase in the cost of buying Medicare equivalent policies would be more than $30 trillion over Medicare's planning horizon.
Part 2:
This additional waste comes to almost $100,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. It is approximately equal to six times the size of the projected Social Security shortfall. This waste is a direct transfer from retirees to the insurance industry and the health care industry.
This is not the only way that Representative Ryan and the Republicans dip into the pockets of ordinary workers for the benefit of the obscenely rich. He also wants to give an additional $2.9 trillion in tax breaks to the wealthy over the next decade. These tax breaks would be paid for with cuts to Medicaid, Food Stamps and other programs that middle-income and poor people depend upon.
The tax breaks would be real money for the people who get them. For example, Representative Ryan's tax breaks could give Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, another $3 million a year based on his $20 million annual paycheck. That's the equivalent of more than 2,600 monthly Social Security checks.
Representative Ryan and the Republicans in Congress are likely to justify their budget by saying that they believe that their health care plan will hold down costs and their tax cuts will spur economic growth. While we can never know what politicians believe, we do know that these are not plausible stories.
We have already tested expanding the role of private insurers in the Medicare system. We did this in the 90s when the Gingrich Congress pushed through their Medicare Plus Choice plan. We did it again more recently with the Medicare Advantage program that was promoted by President Bush. These plans did not lower costs; they raised them. That is the basis for the non-partisan CBO's projections that the Ryan plan will raise costs.
Similarly, Representative Ryan and the Republicans claim that tax cuts for the wealthy will spur growth. We have also twice tested this one. The first time was when President Reagan gave us big tax breaks beginning in 1981. The 80s were the worst decade of growth since the Great Depression, prior to the 00s, when President Bush tested his tax cuts for the wealthy. Certainly the economy's bad performance during these decades cannot be blamed solely on the tax breaks for the wealthy, but it is a bit hard to maintain tax cuts to the wealthy gave a big boost to growth in these years.
Part 3:
While Representative Ryan and the Republicans may actually believe that giving private insurers more control over health care lowers costs and that cutting taxes for the rich increases growth, who cares? These people may believe that the moon is made of green cheese, but this does not make the green cheese theory true or even plausible.
We have extensively tested both parts of the Ryan transfer program to the wealthy, and they don't work as he claims. They redistribute money to the rich: end of story. Thanks to Representative Ryan we have the Republican Party on record as supporting these massive transfers to the wealthy. We just have to hope that the Democratic Party takes a different position.
Anon,
Would you support a a flat tax, like what the tea party wants? A simple 15-20% with NO write offs. That would increase taxes on the wealth, since you liberals claim the rich pay a lower percent than the middle class.
Yep, hate to inform you folks but accusing conservatives of Communism and terrorism only makes you look stupid and immature. Not all conservatives are Communists, infact very few are after the left/right split of the "socialist revolutionary" party of Imperial Russia in 1917. the right SR proved a thorn in the side of the Bolshevik government and became exceedingly unpopular with the peasant masses. They tried parliamentary opposition; failed. Then they tried armed opposition and were crushed. From here the idea of right-wing socialism steadily degraded. The shock also comes out of the word 'terrorist' when linked with conservatives because you look so childish; throwing around accusations and the word Communist (GASP!) like its just such a major insult, you sound quite a bit LIKE conservatives. Except with them in makes sense; general fear of left-wing. So what do you say we grow up, eh?
So letting the democrats spend & borrow trillions to ensure the dollar totally collapses is the right thing to do. The cool aide the left is drinking is rotting their non existent brains.
The dems sure were smart asses up till Obama headed our country into the shitter.
they still are, they just never will admit their mistakes! and they made a BIG one!!!
To bad we will be paying for it.
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