Monday, May 28, 2012 The stunning truth about healthcare pricing (1 comments)
Healthcare costs are neither realistic nor consistent. Americans purchase insurance with the expectation of getting reduced out-of-pocket healthcare costs, but instead pay more than they would if they just paid cash -- sometimes, much, much more.
Saturday, May 19, 2012 Catholic bishops threaten to sue for their right to hate lady parts (4 comments)
The bishops got their puppets in Congress to introduce bills on their behalf -- which the American people overwhelmingly opposed. They even got themselves invited to the boys-only congressional hearing on birth control -- because who understands birth control better than a bunch of supposedly celibate men?
Thursday, May 17, 2012 James O'Keefe's 'dead' North Carolina voter not dead yet
You'd think at this point James O'Keefe would have been burned enough to either do his homework better, or leave out the stuff that it's so easy to catch him lying about. Of course, if he were actually committed to telling the truth, I guess there wouldn't be anything to put in any of his videos. Because, outside of his stunts, voter fraud doesn't really happen.
Thursday, April 19, 2012 ALEC Sends Out an SOS to Breitbart Bloggers (2 comments)
Shortly after issuing a press release announcing that it was disbanding its "Public Safety and Elections Task Force" after 30 years, theAmerican Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) held a training for the right-wing blogosphere.
Thursday, April 19, 2012 A Tea Partier Just Called Me "Communist." Watch My SLAM DUNK Response (12 comments)
So I'm working this morning, like I do everyday, trying to come up with ways to promote my film, when I get this email from a guy who used to call my radio show over in Jackonville.
His name is Rod, and here's what he sent.
Rep. Allen West states that 81 Democratic House members are communists.
A CPUSA official is outraged & I agree. Isn't every Democrat a communist?
I wasn't getting a whole lot done, so I figured..
Wednesday, March 21, 2012 Bloomberg Bans Food Donations to Homeless Shelters
The Bloomberg administration is taking the term "food police" to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the homeless. The Department of Homeless Services recently started enforcing new nutritional rules for food served at city shelters. Since DHS can't assess the content of donated food, shelters have to turn away good Samaritans...
Monday, March 19, 2012 Groups backing reproductive freedom, including candidate-backer EMILY's List, see funding surge
The increased visibility of the right-wing war on women's reproductive rights is generating significant increases in funding, according to leaders of organizations such as EMILY's List and Planned Parenthood. The 27-year-old EMILY's List is dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women to office
Wednesday, March 7, 2012 Republicans losing lady voters. Gee, no one saw that coming! (7 comments)
After spending a solid year trying to pass laws to ban women's health care, redefine rape, protect the "religious liberty" of hospitals that would prefer to let women die rather than provide necessary health care to them, Republicans weren't certain they'd made it clear just how anti-woman the party is. So they decided to turn the dial to 11 by attacking basic health care as a violation of their "religious liberty."
Thursday, March 1, 2012 Fannie Mae Slaps The SEC
Fannie Mae's latest financial disclosures belie the SEC's allegations against former company executives. The government lawsuit claims that the company understated its "true," holdings in subprime and Alt-A mortgages back in 2007-2008. Yet four years later, Fannie still refuses to change the way that it calculates and reports its exposure to subprime and Alt-A mortgages.
Thursday, March 1, 2012 "Americans For Prosperity" Co-opts "Occupy" Name (3 comments)
Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity plans fake "Occupy" event. Occupy NH is not amused and plans to Occupy the fake Occupiers.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012 Santorum's attack on college education is no joke
When Mitt Romney attacks "liberals" for questioning his many homes and cars as showing they are "jealous of success," and Romney, Santorum and many others attack the Occupy Wall Street movement for questioning what the 1 percent has done to America, they are making it clear they like the way things are and they intend to keep it that way.
Saturday, February 11, 2012 An open letter to Occupy Wall Street, lose the masks (3 comments)
I am asking you to lose the masks.
When we put our faces out in the world we put a face on human suffering and economic exploitation. The issues can not have a human face if the people fighting for those issues hide behind masks.
When we take off our masks we are stronger.
The violence that has plagued Occupy Wall Street can not be ignored. That violence has largely been committed by people in masks.
Thursday, February 2, 2012 Anonymous Finds Ron Paul under Supremacist Rock (14 comments)
Twitter is a atwitter this evening with the news that the hacker group Anonymous mounted an attack against a series of White Supremacist groups, generally smashing, exposing, and defacing the sites. That in itself is at a minimum, worthy of note, but the kicker is what they found at one of the sites.
Thursday, February 2, 2012 The Cancerous Politics and Ideology of the Susan G. Komen Foundation (1 comments)
This week it became clear there are things more important to the Susan G. Komen Foundation--the fundraising giant that each year during breast cancer awareness month virtually swathes the United States in pink, a la Christo--than ensuring women are able to access exams for early detection of breast cancer. In a word: Politics.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 Susan G. Komen for the Cure caves to anti-choicers, stops funding Planned Parenthood (2 comments)
For many low-income women, Planned Parenthood is their only source of health care. By caving to the anti-choice extremists who are determined to put Planned Parenthood out of business, Susan G. Komen for the Cure is essentially telling low-income women they're better off dying of cancer than having access to the screening and prevention that saves lives.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 Why You Should Care About What is Going on in Tucson (1 comments)
Look. America cannot make the best of the 21st century and reach whatever potential might be there to reach by 2100 unless as a country, we learn to face reality. We have issues. The business of getting it together and trying to progress is the business of seeing clearly...
Saturday, January 21, 2012 RNC Decides to Finish Destroying Democracy - Citizens United on Steroids (5 comments)
Republican National Committee Files Brief Seeking To Allow Corporations To Donate Directly To Campaigns. This law would mean that a corporation like Citibank could write a check to Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich for $5 billion and no one could do anything about it. This is Citizens United on steroids.
Friday, January 20, 2012 16 year old girl threatened by Christians with beatings and worse (11 comments)
In Cranston, Rhode Island, 16 year old Jessica Ahlquist, a student at Cranston High School West, filed suit back in April along with the American Civil Liberties Union objecting on First Amendment grounds to a prayer banner hung in that school's auditorium.
Thursday, January 19, 2012 Hedge Funds Have Human Rights Too (2 comments)
Hedge funds have been known to use hardball tactics to make money. Now they have come up with a new one: suing Greece in a human rights court to make good on its bond payments. The novel approach would have the funds arguing in the European Court of Human Rights that Greece had violated bondholder rights[.]
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 New Polls: Economy Still Bush's Fault, GOP Responsible For Gridlock (2 comments)
We've written for quite some time that the longer Obama is in office (and the longer Bush is out of it), the more likely it is that blame for the economy would shift toward him. But, these numbers suggest -- gasp! -- we were wrong.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 NSA buŸllshitt: Refusing to Return Whistleblowers' Computers (1 comments)
You'd think after the malicious classification chicanery in the Drake case, the Justice Department and NSA would have learned their lesson. They didn't...
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 Billionaire Funds Santorum Run; Call Koch Brothers A "National Treasure" (1 comments)
I for one am delighted to have our elections decided by people with ungodly amounts of wealth. That way I don't have to worry about which candidates are successful and which are not.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Begs New Yorkers To Protect Him From Out-Of-State Forces
Walker has repeatedly slammed the influence of out-of-state money in the recall effort against him, and also repeatedly claimed that his "reforms" are helping the Wisconsin economy. So, naturally, on the day that one million recall signatures are filed against him, he is in New York City collecting money from the founder of the Wall Street group that played a key role in crashing the worldwide economy.
Friday, January 13, 2012 Occupy Wall Street and the Scent of Revolution (8 comments)
Loss of patience by the masses means the force of change has been unchained; there is no longer the weight of mass disapproval damping down the protests.
When the power elite see the masses slip away from them, they know they are down to their own resources: police and army.
Sunday, January 8, 2012 Meet Foster Friess, Billionaire who Bought Iowa for Santorum (9 comments)
Foster Friess. The Wyoming born-again billionaire mutual fund manager has been lauded by the Koch brothers at their 2011 secret shindig for giving more than $1M to Koch-friendly causes. Never heard of him? That's the way he's wanted it. After Rick Santorum's huge pop in Iowa, though, a flashlight into the cockroach-infested giving of the SuperPACs to Santorum's campaign flushed him out of the shadows.
Saturday, January 7, 2012 UH-OH! The Tea Party + OWS alliance that the banksters were $hitting themselves over has arrived (2 comments)
Remember that memo that leaked out of Wall Street a while ago where they said the thing banksters fear more than anything else was an alliance between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street? Well, it is happening, and it is going to turn into the perfect storm, and that perfect storm is headed straight for a Wall Street Millionaires' yacht, The S.S. Mittens.
Thursday, January 5, 2012 Republicans continue Richard Cordray appointment hissy fits, with one exception
If you need any evidence to demonstrate what a baldly political sham the Republican fight against Cordray -- against all of Obama's nominees -- is, it's this defection by Brown. Because it's not really a defection; his leadership is absolutely allowing it, because they want to keep that seat. Pretending like he, too, cares about working families is his only hope.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 Rick Ungar: More Proof Big-Profit Insurers Doomed; Single Payer Coming Sooner Rather Than Later (6 comments)
As many of you who follow health care issues are probably aware, Forbes Columnist Rick Ungar recently garnered national attention for his argument that the Affordable Care Act MLR rules will lead to the death of the for-profit, bloodsucking, health insurance industry sooner rather than later.
Well, today, he's back with some more evidence, and let's hope he's correct:
Saturday, December 31, 2011 Got AIDs? Your fault, says Ron Paul. Boss can't keep his hands off you? Switch jobs, says Ron Paul (20 comments)
Only by ignoring all his other odious points of view, offensive, disgusting, hate-filled points of view, can Ron Paul be defended. To ignore those is to condone racism, homophobia, anti-semitism, 1%erism, anti-environmentalism, victim-blaming, social safety net-shredding and conspiracy-mongering.
Sunday, December 18, 2011 How the GOP stole America (23 comments)
If you listen to the news, you might think we went on a spending spree. You might think we shoved fresh billions into social programs, or gave fat pay raises to government workers, or that there's been some huge expansion of the government bureaucracy. That's not quite what happened.
Thursday, December 1, 2011 Eric Cantor Trying to Negotiate Year-end Trigger Bargain (1 comments)
This is really nothing more than an effort by Republicans to change the subject from taxes. They're sustaining some real damage from their insistence on protecting the rich from tax hikes, and are looking for any way to divert attention from that issue and to change the narrative.
Thursday, December 1, 2011 Nests of Snakes Revealed: A Story of Fear, Intimidation and Threat in Walker's Wisconsin (15 comments)
Though I had never met Mary before, I messaged her when I saw that some rightwing Walker support groups had published her home address and phone number on Facebook. They've posted her private info five times since summer, and have relentlessly harassed her. What follows is a chilling story of bullying, implicit physical threat, and coordinated intimidation.
Friday, November 18, 2011 Unions and progressive groups launching 'Occupy Congress' (4 comments)
The occupy movement is morphing and changing in creative, powerful ways.
A coalition of unions and progressive groups including the SEIU, the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the Center for Community Change and others is launching "Occupy Congress":
"Thousands of people have signed up to come to Capitol Hill during the first week in December,"
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 Breaking: Homeland Security, FBI, Others Advise Coordinated Occupy Crackdowns (8 comments)
Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict "Occupy" protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night's move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.
Monday, October 24, 2011 Republican's Score On Job Creation Is...zero!
Stonewalling the President's program, and offering none of their own, gives Republicans a zero score on job creation legislation. And America is the loser.
Thursday, September 22, 2011 House Republican leadership scrambling after yesterday's budget defeat (3 comments)
The stunning defeat yesterday of the Republican House leadership's continuing resolution has made for a sticky wicket for Speaker John Boehner. To recap: the government will run out of operating money at the end of September, so this continuing resolution has to be passed, and next week Congress is supposed to be out in order to accommodate the Jewish high holidays.
Saturday, August 13, 2011 Republicans directly to blame for S&P credit downgrade (9 comments)
It is now becoming readily apparent that yes, rational policy makers, economists, and business leaders do very much resent the moronic stances of the current Republican Party, and have no particular interest in seeing them continue.
Thursday, July 28, 2011 The Power and Failure of Coercion (2 comments)
When my daughter Jessica entered the same school system where I had spent my career as a teacher--my hometown school system as well--I was faced with the challenge of how to balance my role as her father with being a colleague of the teachers she encountered over twelve years
Tuesday, July 26, 2011 VIDEO: WI DMV Tells Boy His Bank Account Doesn't Show Enough "Activity" To Get a Voter ID
A video has surfaced of a boy trying to get one of the new Wisconsin Voter ID's that were ushered in by the signing of new a voting law in the state. Shot by the boy's mother with the clear intention of indicting the process, the video shows the pair going from station to station at the DMV, asking all of the right questions as to why there are so many hurdles to acquiring this constitutionally guaranteed ID card.
Monday, July 18, 2011 Fmr. Fox News Executive: Americans' Phones Were Hacked (4 comments)
"Has Roger Ailes been keeping tabs on your phone calls?" That's how Portfolio.com began a post back in 2008, when a former Fox News executive charged that Ailes had outfitted a highly secured "brain room" in Fox's New York headquarters for "counterintelligence" and may have used it to hack into private phone records.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 Cantor's secret memo for $350 billion in Medicare, Medicaid cuts
The $100 billion in Medicaid cuts are likely the cuts offered by the White House already, a cost-shifting to states that the White House said would achieve federal savings of $100 billion over 10 years. It would implement a "blended rate" of reimbursement to states, set significantly lower than the current federal support for the program.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011 Maine Gov. LePage doesn't know what's in child labor law he supports
Even in the process of supporting a backwards leap of about a century, LePage gets it wrong. He describes the bill affecting 14 and 15 year olds, when in fact it lowers wages for people up to 20 years old and eliminates the limit on hours a 16 year old can work on a school day.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 Dick Durbin: Don't rule out cuts to Social Security (2 comments)
Following up on fellow "Gang of Six" member Sen. Mark Warner's disturbing remarks about Social Security, Sen. Dick Durbin today comes right out with it: Social Security cuts are on the table in budget negotiations.
Sunday, April 17, 2011 Toward a balanced budget: First end the Bush era tax cuts (1 comments)
As the Congressional Budget Office and other objective budget analysts begin to reveal that eliminating the Bush era tax cuts is reducing the deficit by a much greater percentage than the president has initially suggested, it will become clear that we have less need to cut the types of programs that make this the America we believe in. We must begin by cutting the Bush era tax cuts.
Friday, April 15, 2011 Financial regulators failed. Crooks went unpunished. Uh-huh. But what will be done about it?
If the government dealt with street crime the way it has handled the financial crisis, the outcry would be registering 8.9's on the Richter scale every day of the week, in and out of Congress. And we'd be building more prisons if that's what it took to house the crooks. Instead we have the cricket chorus.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011 Scott Walker Peeved That NYT Refuses to Publish His Op/Ed (8 comments)
It's pretty obvious why the Times declined to print the piece. In 12 paragraphs, Walker alternately whines about his persecution by liberals and trumpets his grandiose vision of himself as savior of all that "true" Americans hold dear. I've heard less trash talk and whining on school playgrounds during recess.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011 GQR/Democracy Corps poll: GOP House majority in jeopardy already (18 comments)
These are bad early indicators for the new Congress. Voters don't know their new representatives very well, and they don't like them especially well, and they seem quite prepared to vote Democratic in 2012.
Monday, March 21, 2011 Never Forget The Power of the Strike (1 comments)
Strikes are hard, but strike we must. And those of us who have lives of comfort but understand the suffering of the people at large must be ready to sacrifice for those willing to risk it all. I don't know what it will take to finally bring American labor to understand that at some point the powers that be need to feel it where it hurts most, but when it does I'll stand with them with heart, soul, time and money.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011 Busted: Scott Walker fell for Prankster posing as David Koch (23 comments)
We all know that Governor Scott Walker takes his orders from Billionaires and Tea Party loaders Koch Brothers. But thanks to this guy named Murphy, we know how much Scott Walker is in bed with the Koch Brothers.
Scott Walker just got the Sarah Palin's treatment when someone called him while posing as David Koch. Just like Palin, Walker believed it and fall into the trap.
Thursday, February 17, 2011 Mass Mobilization to Save Workers' Rights: From the Front Lines in WI (18 comments)
Wisconsin is in the middle of a massive popular uprising. Last Friday, our newly elected Tea-Party governor, Scott Walker, introduced a "budget repair bill" clearly aimed not at fixing our budget at all, but at eliminating public sector unions in Wisconsin.
This is a naked power grab designed to make the current right-wing control of our state government permanent. Only unions endorsing walker were exempted.
Thursday, January 27, 2011 Clarence Thomas should be INDICTED -- UPDATED (21 comments)
Clarence Thomas, for the past 20 years has checked "None" under "Spouse's Non-Investment Income" on his financial disclosure forms. That, we now know, was untrue. The law that is the basis for the disclosure form, includes reference to possible criminal penalties under 18 U.S. Code.
Friday, January 7, 2011 The German magazine Spiegel says Wall Street banksters committed a monumental insider bank robbery (1 comments)
This mainstream German magazine Der Spiegel in their December 30th issue, tell us that Wall Street banksters committed nothing short of a monumental insider bank robbery, which is responsible for victims like Pam Brown who has become the face of America's nouveau poor and hungry in the minds of the Spiegel's vast readership within the European Union.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011 Debt ceiling: DeMint threatens to blow up government; Ryan, Graham look for hostages
Lindsay Graham knows what he wants in exchange: Social Security cuts in the form of raising the retirement age and means testing. Because, of course, Social Security doesn't add to the deficit and never has. But you can't let a little fact like that get in the way of demagoguery on "shared sacrifice."
Sunday, December 19, 2010 Start breaking stuff-or be Forever Irrelevant
With the latest tax debacle apparently about to become law--and being lapped up by the public as a dish of sweet-and-sour pork, instead of the dish of dog poo-poo that it is, and on top of it all as some sort of "victory" for Obama over the people that put him in office, what are Progressives to do?
Saturday, July 10, 2010 Pentagon Reacts To Heavy Fire Over DADT Survey (4 comments)
Yesterday, gay and lesbian advocates took sharp aim at the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" survey the Pentagon finally made available on Wednesday to 400,000 troops. Alexander Nicholson, Executive Director of Servicemembers United said:
"It is simply impossible to imagine a survey with such derogatory and insulting wording, assumptions, and insinuations going out about any other minority group in the military."
Saturday, June 5, 2010 Israel "Accidentally" Distributes Video Mocking Flotilla Dead (1 comments)
Think of it - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office "accidentally" promoting a video, made by a former adviser of his, that mocks the Gaza aid flotilla dead. Inconceivable? Think again! For such a timely video to be "accidentally" released by a Netanyahu-led Israeli government seems more than a bit suspicious.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010 "vote conservative"? my response to a right wing brother (13 comments)
The writer has very, very conservative men in her family. a recent correspondence led to her brother inviting her to vote conservative in November. She described her response: I do not usually engage any of these men in political discussions because it is usually the verbal equivalent of repeatedly hitting my head into a granite wall, but this time I just couldn't help it.
Thursday, January 21, 2010 It's time to put Howard Dean back in charge (6 comments)
Howard Dean is a winner. He understands exactly what the average Democrat stands for and votes for. He also understands exactly how disgusting the right-wing and the Republican Party are. He's not afraid to spread the truth about the right, and if that truth happens to hurt a few wittle wight-wing feewings, well, TOO F*CKING BAD.
Saturday, January 16, 2010 Rush Limbaugh's Sponsor List (7 comments)
Hmmm. close to 100 sponsors of the Glen Beck show have dropped out...
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Lefties Call for Alliance with Paulies Against War (8 comments)
Speaker after speaker spoke of having worked for, campaign for, raised money for and enthusiastically supported Obama's presidential campaign, but feeling a sense of betrayal at the announcement of the escalation into Afghanistan.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009 President Obama asks Rep. Conyers Why He is "Demeaning" Him (7 comments)
An interesting story in the Hill. Representative Conyers recently received a call from President Obama:
Conyers, the second-longest-serving member of the House, said, "[Obama] called me and told me that he heard that I was demeaning him and I had to explain to him that it wasn't anything personal, it was an honest difference on the issues. And he said, ‘Well, let's talk about it.'"
Monday, November 23, 2009 The Real Irony of Psalms 109 (3 comments)
The rich irony is that those who have chosen this Bible verse as a slogan clearly have no idea of the context and meaning of that which they quote.
The Bible clearly says the exact opposite of that which they imply.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009 We're No. 19! We're No. 19! (4 comments)
or all those people obsessing about the U.S. finishing fourth in the 2016 Olympics sweepstakes, here's a number that ought to be a little more troubling.
We rank last among 19 comparable industrial countries in preventable deaths.
Saturday, September 12, 2009 Why Jews are liberals and Norman Podhoretz is wrong as usual
Norman Podhoretz began his political life on the Trotskyite left but swung sharply to the right and edited the conservative magazine Commentary for more than three decades. His latest book is called "Why Are Jews Liberals?", and he published a few thoughts on the subject in the Wall Street Journal this week.
Saturday, September 12, 2009 House Progressives Ready for PO Showdown Next Week! (3 comments)
The progressives in the House are about to take things up another notch in their fight for a strong public option.
Crossposted from dailykos.com
Wednesday, August 12, 2009 Comcast favors Fox News, charges $204 more for MSNBC package. ACTION NEEDED (8 comments)
As of 8.12.09, Comcast has moved MSNBC from its Digital Starter Package to its Digital Classic Lineup while leaving Fox News on the Starter package. What this means is that one now has to pay an additional $17 per month ($204 per year) to view anything progressive enough to even remotely balance out FNC's right wing extremism
