James O'Keefe, a conservative activist who had posed as a pimp in order to set up ACORN has been arrested by the FBI for having attempted to commit a felony. O'Keefe and two others, wearing telephone company uniforms, were busted last night for allegedly wiretapping the phones in Senator Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office.
Landrieu said: "This is a very unusual situation and somewhat unsettling for me and my staff. The individuals responsible have been charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purposes of committing a felony. I am as interested as everyone else about their motives and purpose, which I hope will become clear as the investigation moves forward."
Brace yourselves folks as the list of Texas Republicans who honored James O'Keefe is quite long. My U.S. House Rep. John Culberson is on the list. Is your representative? See the list below the fold.
To all of you who have written emails and comments, I really wish I could respond to every one of you. I truly appreciate your taking the time to write, even if we may be on different sides of the political fence. If there is one thing that my politically mixed San Francisco/Idaho background has taught me, it is benefit of continuing a discussion even if you don't agree. Too often these days, the Left and the Right immediately shut down if you are deemed to be from the opposing camp. Here's to good discussion even if we don't agree.
Last Sunday, on Meet the Press, Kay Bailey Hutchison spewed one whopper after another about the recently passed Senate health care reform bill. KBH spouted the same fear mongering myths as had John Cornyn in his recent newsletter to his so-called constituents. Kay and John's grotesquely misleading talking points are also a clone of what John Culberson (TX7-TeabaggerR) stated in his pricey and slick brochure.
This week alone I have been bombarded by snail mail and electronic mail from my Texas lawmakers mentioned above. Sadly and outrageously, all of the letters and brochures are filled with nothing but fear mongering tactics and blatant lies.
From Hutchison:
After hearing from constituents over the last several months, some members of Congress have now learned that using the term "government plan" elicits a strong negative from voters (because you have been scaring voters about government for years.) so they have now latched onto a new way to describe the same thing: a co-op. Texans should not be confused by this new packaging of the same idea. The co-op is a back door to a government takeover of our health care. (Really? According to whom? You?) The co-op would be started with federal funds, and it remains unclear whether or not taxpayer dollars would be used if the co-ops begin to fail. The Administration has tried to bail out the banking, housing and auto-industry. Would the co-ops be next?
Wow. Let's talk about an exercise in deceitful fear mongering. This is the first time I have heard about a co-op that would replace the public option and would ultimately become single payer health care. This would be a true dream come true for the American people.
But it ain't going to happen.
Because if a single payer, universal health care reform bill had been introduced there is no way in hell that Republican enabling Lieberman and the three sell-out Democrats known as Blue Dogs would have ever in their dreams voted for the Senate HCR Bill. Like Cornyn and Hutchison, Lieberman and the Blue Dogs serve as major pimps and go to bitches for the insurance industry.
Kay Bailey Hutchison should also remind herself that banking, housing and the auto-industry collapsed under her and her Party's watch. Like most Republicans Kay Bailey has always been in favor of dismantling every living regulatory legislation and she has never supported government oversight, transparency nor checks and balances of any sort.
Based on the mail I have read from Senators Hutchison, Cornyn and my U.S. House Rep. John Culberson, it is obvious that the Republicans are repeating the same lies over and over. The cover of Culberson's brochure reads:
HEALTH CARE TAKEOVER
.
The brochure shows a stethoscope lying on a flag draped on top of a building called:
INSURANCE
A couple of Culberson's bullet pointed lies:
2.5% tax on all individuals who do not purchase government run health care.
8% tax on businesses who cannot afford to purchase government run health care.
Notice how the Republicans frequently use the term government run. They do this to attach a negative and fearful meaning of government. The intended message? The evil government will take over one's life and control one's destiny. The Republican Party has spent years demonizing government run anything b/c they'd rather have the sharks, i.e. their cash cow donors, on Wall St.,in corporate America and the insurance industry to remain permanently in the driver seats.
Let's take a peek at Republican and other pimped out lawmakers willingness to enable corporate greed and corruption.
First up, Culberson's lies. His are only the tip of the iceberg.
Hey dude, I am one of your constituents and quite frankly you are full of stupid nonsense. It is stunning to me that you would include me and other progressives in your district among your special interest groups and deluded teabaggers. I'd venture to suggest that you will have an election challenge in the very near future.
According to Culberson's brochure.
The uninsured should 1. don't get sick or 2. if you do, die quickly.
The Democratic leadership bill, H.R. 3962 costs over $1.2 trillion; contains $729.5 billion in new taxes, adds 111 new offices to the government (jobs anyone?); and creates, expands and extends 43 entitlement programs. (There they go again with their entitlement obsession. Apparently the only ones who are entitled to be entitled are Republicans.) Now here is a really huge whopper: The bill also prohibits the sale of private insurance after 2013; cuts more than $150 billion from Medicare; and exempts members of Congress from the public options but no one else.
If Culberson had really read the bill instead of dancing with teabaggers he would have known that his claim about prohibiting private insurance is a bald faced lie. It is outrageous for Culberson to think he can willfully insult the intelligence of so many of his constituents with such stupid nonsense.
What Republicans are not telling us is the fact that HCR will cut the deficit by $127 billion, coverage will be extended to 94% Americans, 31 million more than have coverage today.
What the heck is wrong with that?
Remember those evil doing non-existent WMDs in Iraq? And Iraq's non-existent ties to Al-Qaeda?
The GOP is promoting health care reform as if it is a WMD. It is one that exists only in their heads.
Today, in the U.S. Congress, while Republican lawmakers teabagged outside the Capitol with the manipulated, misled and mostly racist and ignorant teabaggers who associate health care reform with the Jewish Holocaust of World War II(??!!!), fascism, Nazis, concentration camps, Hitler, McCarthy, and God knows what else, Alan Grayson spoke the truth on the House floor. Grayson is hard at work for the people he represents.
Update on yesterday teabagging event in Washington. Investigative reporters and bloggers learned that yesterday's event was sponsored by Koch Industries, a firm whose owners give large donations to right wing causes. It provided 40 buses, free transportation, signs and doughnuts for participants. In other words, yesterday's teabagging was yet another ginned up and fake populist, grassroots movement.
Unfortunately for far too many Texans, our lawmakers are either too out of touch, lazy or corrupted by greed to even read the health care reform bill. The Party of No, Never seems to be far more comfortable partying in a wacko world of lies, fear and hate.
All Texas Republicans are opposed to health care reform with or without a public option. They are opposed to competition and the freedom to choose one's insurer. Texas Republicans prefer to protect the profits of the health insurance industry rather than address the needs of their constituents in their home districts.
The uninsured dead in Texas district by district follows below the fold.
Where are our Texas leaders who possess both the guts to stand up to the big moneyed and powerfully influential insurance industry and, at the very same time, possess a heartfelt and deep understanding of the pain and suffering of those who have died because they cannot afford health care insurance?
According to the DCCC there are 67 House Republicans who voted against the stimulus package. But when these no voters are back in their home states they like to brag and swagger about bringing home the bacon. On a different level, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison joins these ranks. She voted against the stimulus bill and yet she criticized Rick Perry for turning down federal funding for extended unemployment benefits.
Texas has its fair share of outstanding hypocrites. Check the list below to see if your U.S. House Rep. is included in the GOP Hall of Hypocrites. I am not shocked to admit that my Rep. is among them. I betcha your's are too.
As we know by now, there is very little, if any, competition in the health insurance industry. Some states have only one provider. Everyone and that would be everyone involved in the discussions about health care reform knows this is the case nationwide.
So why is the very notion of introducing competition into the health insurance industry such a big deal for Congress? It should be a no brainer. I mean, isn't capitalism and the belief in free markets as the be all and end all of everything perfect and sacred all about competition?
If members of Congress truly embrace the principles of competitive capitalism they would not obstruct health care reform that includes a public option. Indeed, by resisting a competitive force in the health insurance industry Republicans, especially, clearly demonstrate their unbending support for non-competitive monopolies.
Monopolies!? But I thought that is what Communism is all about.
This morning MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan had a debate with Betsy McCaughey, a well known Republican opponent of health care reform. Her remarks about health care reform and its impact on seniors have been so extreme that AARP found it necessary to call her out. The organization said her remarks bordered on the cruel.
Cruella McCaughey obviously did not like Ratigan's questions, especially when he described the current state of health insurance as
Corporate Communism.
Predictably, when a Republican does not like the questions, (s)he will hammer the interviewer. When an interviewer will not let a Republican hack spew talking point BS non-stop, the hack will always go for the jugular.
As our fearless elected leaders work day in and day out to kill off meaningful healthcare reform, more and more of their constituents continue to lose jobs. When most folks lose jobs they also lose health insurance. Obtaining affordable independent health insurance is impossible because 1. it is too expensive for folks with jobs much less those without and 2. even if one could afford it, well hells bells, it seems that insurance companies do not take patients with pre-existing conditions. A pre-existing condition can include acne and pregnancy. Under present day insurance guidelines one can safely assume that not one human being on the planet is without a pre-existing condition.
Thanks to former Cigna executive, Wendall Potter, we know how the insurance companies pull off $13 billion, that would be billion in profits per year. The insurance industry also has $1.4 million a day to burn on killing health care reform efforts.
So, how does the industry realize such awesome profits?
Who would have thought?
Deny care. Hand out death sentences.
Senators Cornyn and Hutchison have to make a choice. Will they continue to support their sugar daddies in insurance or will they support those who elected them into office?
Today in Houston nearly 2000 folks came to Reliant Stadium for, in some cases, desperately needed medical treatment. Shamefully, Texas has the highest number of uninsured residents. The story is particularly ugly in Houston where 1 in 3 adults are uninsured.
Dr. Oz who runs the free health clinic compared the number of uninsured, untreated people as a national disaster comparable to that of Hurricane Katrina. According to him, Houston and the rest of Texas, a health care Katrina happens everyday.
Despite the shameful statistics on the lack of health coverage, our elected U.S. lawmakers John Cornyn, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and in my case, John Culberson (Houston-7), continue to wage war against health care reform. As with Katrina while the world watched, Republicans showed they were not in the least bit concerned about the hurricane's victims, some of whom horribly drowned and others who, to this very day, are displaced. Republican behavior with health care reform is exactly the same. The message: Let 'em eat Advil or drop dead. It ain't our problem. Me and mine are just fine.
When lawmakers oppose transformational health care reform or lie about it by calling it a "government run program" that will create death panels and impose tax-payer funded abortions, they show cruel contempt for many of their constituents. These lawmakers are especially heartless toward those who are suffering from lack of decent health care. And those who will go bankrupt in attempt to get well. Politicians who rail against health care reform are most likely shilling for the insurance companies.
Anti-reform politicians prove that they approve of the insurance company death panels that do indeed exist, as we can see below.
To learn who is contributing to your U.S. elected officials, go to OpenSecrets.org.
During her career, Senator Kay Bailey "government take-over" Hutchison received $937,340 from the health professional industry. She has received $257,849 from health care professionls this year alone. My U.S. House Rep. (TX-7 Houston) John Culberson received $10,600 this year from Pharma and Health Professional groups.
A for-profit health care system run by monopolies with no competition is wrong. It is immoral, un-American and undemocratic. For some, it is also a death sentence.
Today Republicans are running around the country like a bunch of chickens with their heads chopped off. They are screaming and raving about socialism and death panels. They are yelling about taking their country back. The GOP is distributing scary flyers to fearful seniors and it is holding ginned up fear fests at town hall meetings at which some are showing up with guns, including assault rifles, as readers will see below. Republican leader Rush Limbaugh and other propagandists for the RNC are frantically hurling barrels of gasoline on the orchestrated red hot fires of fear, mayhem and panic.
THE SOCIALISTS ARE COMING. THE SOCIALIST ARE COMING. THEY'RE GOING TO TAKE AWAY MEDICARE AND KILL YOUR GRANNY! THEY TOOK AWAY OUR COUNTRY!
As MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out to TX-7 U.S. Rep Culberson, Medicare is evil doing socialism to its very core. O'Donnell reminded Culberson that Medicare had been imported from Germany and was a creation of Bismark.
O'Donnell asked Culberson if he was against Medicare given the fact that it is socialism at its very finest. Culberson did not like the question, or simply did not know the facts and responded by throwing a hissy fit on national TV.
My U.S. House Rep (Houston) never fails to embarrass the living daylights out of many of his constituents. That would be those of us who are not invited to Culberson's orchestrated town hall meetings.
GOP Playbook, Chapter I: When you don't like the question posed by a journalist or if you simply can't handle it, change the subject.
Chapter 2: If the journalist won't let you change the subject, ties you into a pretzel and if you fall into his/her trap, attack the interviewer's network.
What happens when none of the above works?
Play dumb.
Or
Throw a tantrum. Look like a deer caught in the headlights because you really, really believe your own fabricated spin.
It was so very naive and silly of me to suggest that the GOP should step up and take responsibility, as any adult would do, by calling a halt to the brown shirt shout downs at town hall meetings on healthcare reform.
Silly, silly me. That won't happen. Never. Ever. Even if hell freezes over and the entire country is in the throes of death, the answer remains to be no, never, in your dreams, not even if hell freezes over.
Despite GOP cries for freedom, its flag waving, its prominence of lapel wearing flag pins, its highly orchestrated scenarios of patriotism and noble words about freedom, the GOP's behavior has nothing to do with any of the principles mentioned above.
Actions speak louder than words. Shouting down and shutting out the questions and opinions that fellow Americans want to ask and share with their elected representative is:
anti-democratic,
anti-patriotic and
anti-American.
When political rhetoric goes over the top, inaction by a party's leadership is the same as blind acquiescence.
According to former right wing Republican and evangelical Christian leader, Frank Schaeffer, the GOP, its conservative pundits and the self-serving corporate sharks in the healthcare industry know no bounds in pulling off what is best for them.
For right wing Republicans, conservative pundits, the corporate sharks and their now enabled fruit loop nut jobs, it is a fight to the death.
It seems that the senior Senator from Texas wants Governor Perry to quit his job so she can keep her Senate seat while running for his post. Kay Bailey Hutchison wants to hang on to her Senate seat so she can obstruct health care reform and vote against Sonia Sotomayor.
The Rick and Kay competition is heating up to a bar room brawl level as Rick threatens to throw stuff at Kay. Stuff like moving up the date for a special election because "too many important things are going on in Washington." That and Kay's pulling a Palin is very "irresponsible."
It's funny how these big government, health care reform and Sotomayor loathing politicians sure enjoy their cushy tax payer funded government jobs with Lexus level health care. And our big government, welfare hating governor sure enjoys his tax payer funded free housing that includes a staff of domestic servants to take care of his and his wife's creature comforts.
You know folks, it must be even hotter in Washington DC these days than it has been in Houston because based on some of our Republican lawmakers behaviors of late I am beginning to think many of them are suffering from heat stroke of the brain. Or perhaps heat stroke of one's personal honesty, integrity and courage would be a more accurate description.
Not to mention YES to affordable health care benefits for members of Congress.
So, it was OK to vote to burn billions if not trillions on a ginned up war. It was OK to vote for trillions in bailouts for a bunch of thieving financial crooks and sharks. Now these very same sharks are earning billions and giving themselves fat bonuses again. Hopefully someone bothered to ask them to pay back the bail out bucks.
Our tax dollars are paying for all of the above including BMW level health care insurance for members of Congress. If John McCain had to find his own health care insurance company, like so many other Americans, he would be turned down because of pre-existing conditions. If he would be lucky enough to find a willing provider, McCain would be out of pocket thousands of dollars for or bankrupted by treatments desperately needed but not covered or flat out denied by his plan.
Why are we paying for top notch care for our esteemed lawmakers when many of them are against the same for us? If they say no to us, we should say no to them and demand that the federal government rescind all taxpayer funded health care coverage for members of Congress. Let our revered leaders buy their own freaking insurance like a vast number of Americans have to do. Some may learn they cannot afford to pay for it and college tuition for their kids.
What else can one expect from the Party of Intolerance, No, Never, Hate, Ginned Up Warfare, Obstruction, Torture, Tax Cuts for the Rich, and Whores for the Fat Cats?
Thanks to the Republican jackasses in Austin and Washington, the video clip below gives us a glimpse into how the people of Texas are perceived.
to tax $165 million of the billions of U.S. bail out funds doled out to AIG.
U.S. Taxpayers now own 80% of AIG.
AIG used $165 million of our taxpayer dollars to fund rather generous bonus packages for its executives.
In an attempt to recoup the misused bailout money, a 90% tax penalty on the AIG bonus packages passed in the U.S. Congress today with a vote of 328 for, 93 against.
Uh Oh. Boss Rush won't be happy with his 87 Republicans who voted yes to increased taxes and socialism.
The other 50% of U.S. House Republicans voted YES to the continual plunder, pillage and robbery of our U.S tax dollars by corporate fat cats and lobbyists.
Boss Rush will be very, very happy with his 85 Republican soul mates who voted for the right of corporations to perpetully rape and pillage our national treasury. After all, the Boss is a rather substantial fat cat himself in terms of both his personal wealth and physical appearance.
Meet the faces of the conservative corporate protectors whose ideology supports free, unregulated and unfettered rights for corporations to rob taxpayers blind.
Markos Moulitsas ("Kos") founder of Daily Kos recently observed that his two year old daughter had reached a Republican stage in her development because the majority her vocabulary consisted of two words: "NO!" and "MINE!"
Indeed. At least Markos understands that his two year old will grow out of her stubborn and selfish phase.
But those of us who live in Republican run states do not have the luxury of believing in or hoping for the evolution of maturity where our childlike NO! and MINE! lawmakers are concerned.
According to a source cited over at Daily Kos Kay Bailey Hutchison will not give up her U.S. Senate seat while running for governor.
Well, folks, another one of our Republican leaders in Washington has mortified the living daylights out of us. Again. This time John Culberson wins the Pendejos of the Day Award for mind numbing stupidity and childishness.
Yesterday Culberson threw a temper tantrum on national TV calling Nancy Pelosi a "Marie Antoinette" who had insisted upon riding through the poverty stricken streets of Paris in the finest and most expensive carriages while people starved.
For the record, the Pentagon approved military, private aircraft for House Speakers after 9/11.
Culberson, by the way, inserted $63.6 million for pork spending in the stimulus budget he vehmently rails against.
This morning when I opened the Houston Chronicle, one of the front page articles immediately grabbed my attention.
Texans Rip Budget Yet Add to Cost
The online edition reads:
Texas lawmakers rip budget, but seek millions
The Houston Chronicle does not single out Republicans, of course, because Texas Democrats added to the budget's costs as well. However, the Democrats are not bellowing and bellyaching about the stimulus budget while the Republicans continue to 24/7.
What hypocritical jackasses. Do Republican lawmakers actually believe they can continue to fool us with their double talk and embarrass us by their endless clown shows?
