Our esteemed Texas Republican lawmakers, especially U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, seem to have their lips perpetually super glued to the derrieres of BP and big oil.
I guess our Texas Republican lawmakers are completely incapable of thinking outside of any box that is unrelated to stuffing bucks into their personal campaign coffers.
As we all know by now, Governor Rick Perry has also super glued his lips to the derrieres of any big money that moves in his direction.
Meanwhile, back in a reality residing outside of the Texas GOP world of groveling and self serving pimpitude to corporate interests, there are grave and challenging issues that must be dealt with on national, state and local levels.
I would also like to offer my deepest and heartfelt gratitude and thanks to my U.S. House Representative John Culberson (R-Houston) and to the Texas GOP for its blind and enabling support of the oil and gas industry.
Perhaps our Republican leaders would like to inform us about their rationale for enabling the devastating carnage in the Gulf of Mexico.
In our nation's Capitol, the GOP voted tonight to protect Wall St. while throwing Main St. under the bus. The Republican Party also threw its teabagger base under the bus.
Kay Bailey Hutchison joined forces with her Party's attempts to mislead the American people on the Wall St. reform bill.
I guess Kay Bailey is trying to find a new job in the U.S. Senate now that Rick Perry kicked her butt back to Washington D.C., a place she would rather not be.
Kay Bailey Hutchison and the GOP continue to serve as tools for Goldman Sachs.
As we should well know by now, Goldman Sachs boasted about making boatloads of bucks while, at the same time, the firm is responsible for its role in the destruction and loss of millions of jobs in the U.S economy. While backing compromised sub prime mortgages the firm, at the very same time, also made bets that most of the bad loans would fail. In other words, Goldman Sachs and Wall St. created and drove a home mortgage meltdown tsunami in which hundreds if not thousands of Americans were/are being thrown into the streets. Meanwhile, back on Wall St., the greedy fat cats stuffed their pockets thanks to their bets on the side of the foreclosures.
Yesterday I had emailed Senators Cornyn and Hutchison in a hopeless attempt to prevail upon them to work with President Obama on passing health care reform. I knew that my plea was very likely a useless exercise in both the hopeless and the impossible.
At the very least, I thought, the horrible statistics I presented would perhaps grab the attention of one of their staff members.
Surely, I thought, both U.S. Senators would put aside their partisan differences, at least for a few hours, in order to serve the needs of those who elected them to office.
23 million folks will lose their insurance this year, 930,000 will file bankruptcy and 45,000 more people will die.
As we know Texas has the highest number of uninsured resident. Folks can learn about the appalling state of our health care system here and here.
Below is Senator Hutchison's response.
Hint: My efforts were a miserable failure. I did not get through. Senator Hutchison, it seems, has received $619,450 from the insurance industry and she is obviously working overtime to protect it.
None of the above statistics had any impact on her whatsoever. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison could care less about the plight of hard working Texans.
Texans are particularly aware of the need for health care reform, but it cannot come with a trillion dollar price tag and a government takeover of our health care system. Our state has over 6 million uninsured residents, the highest percentage of uninsured in the nation. This number poses a huge challenge for our hospitals, taxpayers, and many working individuals and families who cannot afford the health care coverage they need.
Lie 1: Several months ago, Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC challenged Senator Hutchison's assertions that the current proposals for HCR are a government takeover of health care. HCR is not a government takeover of the insurance industry. Mitchell is correct, Hutchison lied.
As far as 6 million uninsured residents in Texas are concerned, all have been posing problems 24/7/365 for doctors, hospitals and taxpayers. Senator Hutchison has been in the U.S. Senate since 1993. If she was so concerned about affordable insurance for Texans she would have done something about it by now.
It seems that we voters need to hold or obtain doctorate degrees in psychology or medical degrees in psychiatry to understand the twisted and dysfunctional behavior emanating from our fearless Republican leaders in Washington and Austin.
Both Senators Cornyn and Hutchison have trashed the stimulus bill (The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act,) railing against its waste and its abysmal failure to deliver cash infusions to our state while they extol the bill's virtues at the very same time. Maybe a little bird told the Senators that the recovery act they've been attacking for all kinds of reasons is actually a success.
To further complicate the Senators' stand on the stimulus package that both hate but love, John Cornyn has begged the EPA to deliver bucks for clean diesel projects in San Antonio and Houston.
Kay Bailey Hutchison praised the Port of Houston for its clean air strategy. Residents of the area may have a different definition of "clean air."
The Wall St. Journal obtained letters written by stimulus bashing Republicans who solicited federal recovery money for their states. When the funding is awarded the Republicans that hate the stimulus bill in Washington take credit for it in their home districts.
The Wall St. Journal included letters submitted by Senators Cornyn and Hutchison.
The Environmental Protection Agency received two letters from Sen. John Cornyn of Texas asking for consideration of grants for clean diesel projects in San Antonio and Houston. Mr. Cornyn is the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
One of the letters was signed jointly with Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, also of Texas. The letter said that the Port of Houston Authority "has informed me of the positive impact this grant will have in the region by serving as a foundation for PHA's Clean Air Strategy Plan, creating jobs, and significantly reducing diesel emissions." Houston received millions of dollars in diesel funding.
Meanwhile, outside the Washington D.C. beltway bubble, our revered Texas Governor Rick Perry issued a fatwa against the EPA.
Gov. Rick Perry announced today Texas would legally challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's finding that carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming endanger the public's health and welfare.
The federal agency issued the finding in December in an attempt to regulate the heat-trapping gases under the Clean Air Act.
Texas is the nation's leading emitter of carbon dioxide, releasing enough each year that the state would rank seventh worldwide if it were a country.
The Senators and Rick Perry's behavior would be downright comical and would make great material for a new series of Homer Simpson cartoons or a Three Stooges redux except that the consequences of their hypocritical stupidity is downright dangerous to our financial security.
With this kind of leadership in power, I think we can safely assume
Texas we have a huge problem. If we don't fix it we are screwed.
Now is the time to throw at least one of the bums out. By 2014 we may have a modicum of responsible and sane leadership in both Austin and Washington.
It won't happen unless we Vote, Baby, Vote.
The polls opened yesterday.
Sadly, there is very bad news for a city that is located west of the Houston area. Sealy recently lost an Army contract that will result in 3,000 lost jobs. This is devastating for a small city in which the Army contractor, BAE Systems, is a major employer.
In late November and early December several progressive bloggers, including me revealed just how Texas fell victim to an impending and significant job loss thanks to do nothing, self-serving Texas lawmakers who are too busy palling around with fat cat sugar daddy donors to have given a rat's derriere about their lowly constituents.
Did the powers that be at BAE submit a renewal bid to retain the contract or did the company rely on its go to boys and girls in Washington to make it happen?
How come the Texas lawmakers in Austin and in Washington D.C. failed to notice that 3,000 jobs were about to be lost? What were they thinking? Were they thinking about Texas at all?
As Phillip Martin over at The Burnt Orange Report (cited above) reports:
Today, McCaul is blaming Washington and the Obama administration. However, there was no effective effort to save it by McCaul, Senator Hutchison, or Governor Rick Perry. It was not until after the contract was announced that any of the state's Republican elected officials began to work on saving the contract -- something they have now failed to do, and are now quickly trying to point fingers at President Obama to avoid accepting the responsibility of their failures.
John Cornyn's threat to block the confirmation of a top Army acquisition official is not only too little and too late, but the American people are fed up with the never ending Republican blocks and obstruction that are paralyzing our federal government. Go ahead Senator, block the acquisition guy and show us how much you support our troops and the two wars that you voted for.
BAE and Texas politicians should have known, given today's economy and the devastation in the Midwestern region of the country, considering the number of closed factories, the contract renewal in Sealy would have been almost a literal battle to the death. Either all involved did not have the fortitude for such a fight. Or perhaps all grew too arrogant and complacent after decades of a Republican majority in both Texas and in the U.S. Congress.
Kay Bailey Hutchison joins the vast majority of her Republican colleagues in Washington in the GOP Hall of Hypocritical and Cowardly Shame.
Many Republicans voted for the stimulus bill and now they trash it day in and day out, at least when they are in Washington.
And yet when Republican lawmakers visit their home districts, all take credit for the projects and jobs that the stimulus bill made possible. In Texas we received:
1148 contracts: $1,178,584,964=1,398,97 jobs.
8852 grants:
$11,229,522,199=27,057,60 jobs.
Loan: (partially because Governor Perry refused to accept extended federal unemployment benefits)
$25,517,309. What were you thinking, Governor?
So, Senator Hutchison, given your stance on the evil doing stimulus package in Washington, do you suggest that Texas send the above back?
Who would have thought? In its true and hypocritical form The Party of No and Obstruction opposes President Obama's proposed fees on banks.
Dick Cheney must be hard at work at that printing press in his undisclosed basement.
Prominent Republicans are coming out in opposition to President Barack Obama's proposal for a $90-billion fee on large banks that took bailout money, a move that political observers say could force the GOP to choose between their traditional anti-tax position and populist anger over the bailout.
On Thursday, GOP Chairman Michael Steele declared that the bank fee -- which would be levied only on banks that took bailout money and have more than $50 billion in assets -- is "another tax on the American public."
The GOP is standing by fat cat the banker in yet another effort to oppose President Obama. Republicans demonstrate time and time again that they are willing to put politics ahead of working on solutions to solve the daunting challenges that we face on local, state and national levels.
The Republican Party threw the American people under a high speed train fast tracked straight to hell.
Again.
Predictably Republicans made a pact with yet another devil. This time the GOP sold its and our souls, too, to the hottest and most irresponsible devil in hell.
Let me introduce the banking devil for whom we emptied our U.S. Treasury in an extraordinary effort to save the American economy.
Tragically the Bush Administration and its rubber stamping Republicans in Congress failed to set up any rules, enforcement mechanisms, proposals for accountability, transparency or pay back benchmarks before it allowed the devil to empty our national piggy bank. Sure, guys, just back up your 18 wheeler big mother trucks to the U.S. Treasury and we will help y'all load the bags of taxpayer cash.
Clearly the GOP is totally on board with the banker devil run lawless casinos on Wall St. The devil is gambling with our money that includes our savings accounts, investment portfolios, retirement savings and bail out taxpayer dollars. The GOP also gave its blessing to a continuation of the banks extensive abusive consumer practices. Usury level interests rates and fees anyone? Worse, the GOP obviously does not have a problem with the obscene Wall St. bonuses, earned on the backs of our savings accounts, portfolio investments, not to mention again, the sucker U.S. taxpayer bucks, thank you.
I guess the sold-out Republicans are also supportive of the banks refusal to lend money to small businesses and consumers because it is more profitable for banks to gamble with our money instead.
Hell, at least we know for certain that the Republicans are completely on board with obstructing our nation's economic recovery. If small businesses cannot get jump started with an influx of cash, it cannot do business. It cannot meet its inventory needs nor can it make payroll. If mortgages cannot be re-negotiated, bankrupted homeowners cannot hold on to their homes. Consumers cannot purchase new homes or cars if we cannot borrow money, either. Nor can we improve or make substantial repairs to our homes if the banks won't lend home equity funding.
Republicans don't care. They simply do not care about the people.
Yesterday Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) informed the Huffington Post that the GOP signed a political pact with the banks to kill off regulatory reform measures.
The allegation of a quid pro quo was based on an email that Durbin received last spring after his amendment to allow judges to modify mortgages for homeowners who enter bankruptcy was defeated on the Senate floor. During a discussion to promote publicly-financed elections on Friday, the Illinois Democrat relayed that, shortly after the defeat of his "cram-down" amendment, a "banker friend" forwarded him the note from Tanya Wheeless, president & CEO of Arizona Bankers Association.
Unfortunately for Texas, the Pentagon decided to shift an Army truck building contract from here to Wisconsin. Since 1991, BAE Systems in Sealy has been manufacturing trucks for the U.S. Army.
According to the Houston Chronicle Republican lawmakers and BAE officials were completely unaware of the threat posed by our competitors in Wisconsin.
The Pentagon's decision to shift the production of Army trucks from Texas to Wisconsin after 17 years caught Texas' elected officials by surprise, raising questions about overconfidence, a loss of political clout and the impact of economic incentives provided to the winning company by Wisconsin's Democratic governor.
Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry and the 34-member Senate-House delegation are rallying to salvage a deal for BAE Systems that could be worth $2.6 billion and sustain 10,000 direct and indirect jobs around the sprawling truck manufacturing plant in Sealy.
Good luck boys. It's kind of too late to salvage anything, including your humongous egos. If our esteemed Republican lawmakers hadn't been too busy lying to and scaring their constituents at teabagging hate fests this summer and fall, perhaps they would have time to think about the plant in Sealy. And what were those top executives at BAE Systems thinking given the tough times in which we now find ourselves? Companies and academic institutions are engaged in a near dual to the death competition for federal funding.
Unfortunately for Texas, the Pentagon decided to shift an Army truck building contract from here to Wisconsin. Since 1991, BAE Systems in Sealy has been manufacturing trucks for the U.S. Army.
According to the Houston Chronicle Republican lawmakers and BAE officials were completely unaware of the threat posed by our competitors in Wisconsin.
The Pentagon's decision to shift the production of Army trucks from Texas to Wisconsin after 17 years caught Texas' elected officials by surprise, raising questions about overconfidence, a loss of political clout and the impact of economic incentives provided to the winning company by Wisconsin's Democratic governor.
Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry and the 34-member Senate-House delegation are rallying to salvage a deal for BAE Systems that could be worth $2.6 billion and sustain 10,000 direct and indirect jobs around the sprawling truck manufacturing plant in Sealy.
Good luck boys. It's kind of too late to salvage anything, including your humongous egos. If our esteemed Republican lawmakers hadn't been too busy lying to and scaring their constituents at teabagging hate fests this summer and fall, perhaps they would have time to think about the plant in Sealy. And what were those top executives at BAE Systems thinking given the tough times in which we now find ourselves? Companies and academic institutions are engaged in a near dual to the death competition for federal funding.
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.
Of course there is not a civil war brewing in the Republican Party. Someone just made it up. But a leading conservative has recently called the non-civil non-war an impending bloodbath.
After the havoc the Republican Party and its newly formed teabagger faction have wreaked on this country from Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush and culminating with the horror of George W. Bush and his neocon policies, a bloodbath sounds just fine by me. Indeed, one is long overdue.
According to yesterday's Houston Chronicle, the teabaggers in Texas are fed up and want to throw all of the bums out. In Texas, the bums happen to be Republicans.
Even Rick Perry is a target of this group because he apparently is not conservative enough.
While it's too early to determine if the Tea Party movement will prove to be a durable political force, its candidates could prove a costly and unwanted distraction for establishment Republicans who would rather be aiming their fire at Democrats. Case in point: the GOP race for governor, where Tea Party ally Debra Medina of Wharton has announced her candidacy for the Republican nomination against incumbent Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, whom she dismisses derisively as "get-along-style politicians."
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.
To: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
202-224-0776
Senator John Cornyn
202-228-2856
Re: Health Care Reform
I strongly urge you to vote for health care reform that includes a public option.
If a public option is not included in the bill, the health insurance industry will continue to overcharge premiums and deny care to patients. As we know from former Cigna executive, now whistle blower, Wendell Potter, the health insurance industry will continue to make obscene levels of profits, based precisely on denying critical care to very sick and dying patients. It will continue to increase premiums.
We also know from the recent report written by the AHIP that the insurance companies will indeed increase its premiums because insurance doesn't like what it read in the Baucus bill. This goes to show you how arrogant and appallingly greedy the health insurance industry has become.
We also know from the town hall meetings this past August at which we heard much about "death panels, "killing Granny," Hitler, and Pol Pot, that many of these rallies were orchestrated by special interests in the health insurance business and groups led by Dick Armey of Freedom Works and Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity. In other words, many of those town hall meetings were merely staged events to misinform people and foment fear among seniors.
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?
Texas cannot keep up with the demand of those in need of food stamps. According to Lisa Falkenberg of the Houston Chronicle it is taking months to obtain benefits. Folks are growing more desperate by the day.
Meanwhile, Texas isn't coming close to meeting federal requirements to process food stamp applications within a month. Last month, about 38,000 new applicants were left awaiting approval even though the federal deadline had passed. About one in six applications is processed incorrectly.
Food Stamps are 100% funded by the Federal Government. All Texas has to do is distribute the funds. Unfortunately due to either incompetence, stinginess or cold-hearted contempt for the state's struggling jobless, Texas is not doing its job.
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.
