Cleo's Mom

I don't see any failures - just successes. -healthcare reform - passed -stimulus that turned economy around (job losses to job gains) -financial reform - about to pass -clean energy bill - on horizon -replaced insubordinate McCrystal - done -got $20 billion from bp for people and recovery - done Plus all the other ones I listed. Why don't you list all of bush's successes in EIGHT YEARS? I would like to see that list. Not a cut and paste, just your list.

You said the government payroll outpaces the private sector. This does not prove that statement. This shows that the government is hiring more than the private sector and THAT IS A GOOD THING. A government job is a job and it does not take a job away from the private sector. If the private sector would hire and quit trying to get more work (for free ) from existing workers then the federal government wouldn't have to hire people. Keep in mind that when a person is hired by the federal government, the pay taxes, buy things and stimulate the economy. As the economy improves, the deficit is reduced and fewer people depend on government programs (aid). They become productive members of our society. And that is a good thing. I wish the government would do more hiring, like the WPA program under FDR. Another great president the neocons hate.

Where did I say I was? My point was that you attack me personally when you have nothing substantial in your arguements.

And I also notice that when you have nothing to support your flawed arguments then you attack me personally. Like when I supported teachers with my teaching experiences after your teacher bashing post, you called me a terrible teacher. Very christian of you. And again shows you have nothing.

Because bush's policies nearly destroyed this country and brought our economy to near collapse. I know the neocons would like to forget this (I'll make sure that doesn't happen) but we are living the results of his failures every day. Now, Pres. Obama's policies have turned job losses into job gains but the republicans want to go into reverse back to job losses. And the people who support this aren't stupid?

I just tell it like it is. That's your problem if you don't like it.

Originally Posted by Cleo's Mom I never said the majority of Americans are inferior to me. Trust a neocon to lie. And I never said you said that. I believe that's how you feel. That the majority of Americans are inferior to you (intellectually). Don't try to tell ME what I believe. And don't try to nitpick with your slight nuance of words. You said I believe most Americans are inferior to me and again, you don't know what I believe. Voters who believe the lies, fear tactics, misrepresentations and half-truths by the tea party, fox news or the republicans are stupid. They need to educate themselves on the facts. The tea party movement is not lying about anything. Nor do they use fear tactics. This is your opinion only. I have posted many, many posts that illustrate their lies, hatred of Obama, racism, etc.. Do I really need to do it again? And it isn't only my opinion. Many others who are not easily duped share my opinion. For example: I saw a fox news clip with the 3 anchors - names? the blonde woman and some pointy nosed guy - and they had Newt Gingrich on camera and here is what they asked: "President Obama took no time in replacing Gen. McCrystal, so why is it taking him so long to cap the oil spill? Is that a fair question?" Newt Gingrich looked like that was the most stupid question he ever heard (and I'm sure it was) and said "No" People who get their news from fox are stupid. Period. This is what I mean about you. You are critical of others who don't agree with you politically, or who don't feel as you do on an issue. Fox news has a conservative mindset because the people who work for them are usually independents, republicans or conservatives. MSNBC has a liberal mindset for the same reasons. YOU are critical of those who are not liberal, and it shows up as an inferior stand that reeks from you. You call those who don't think as you do stupid. You feel that you are superior intellectually, which in doing so, only makes you look foolish. Why would anyone watch a news channel with supposedly serious anchors who would ask such a stupid question? You wouldn't see that kind of idocy on any other legitimate news program. You are critical of those who don't support your conservative viewpoints. And you continue to bash our president and mock those who support him, so what's your point? And BTW, I don't claim to be clever. Just educated with the ability to fact find and dismiss the lies from the right. I also can read, do research, etc.. I will never apologize for being educated and smart.

Keep in mind that much of the spending we are currently doing is for bush's failed policies: the two wars (both unfunded), the 2 tax cuts for the rich (both unfunded) and the medicare part D (unfunded). Plus our biggest expenditures are mandated: social security, medicare, medicaid and then there's the military. Let's see what plans the neocons who are running for office have for reducing any of THESE programs. And as for Pres. Obama's poll numbers - what would you expect when the bashing continues day after day from the conservative media who find fault with everything he does and the stupid people can't discern fact from fiction? I can and do which is why I know he's doing a great job. I will concede that the democrats need to do a better job at getting the message out, so here's my part: In the last six months more jobs were created than in the 8 years of the bush administration.

I never said the majority of Americans are inferior to me. Trust a neocon to lie. Voters who believe the lies, fear tactics, misrepresentations and half-truths by the tea party, fox news or the republicans are stupid. They need to educate themselves on the facts. For example: I saw a fox news clip with the 3 anchors - names? the blonde woman and some pointy nosed guy - and they had Newt Gingrich on camera and here is what they asked: "President Obama took no time in replacing Gen. McCrystal, so why is it taking him so long to cap the oil spill? Is that a fair question?" Newt Gingrich looked like that was the most stupid question he ever heard (and I'm sure it was) and said "No" People who get their news from fox are stupid. Period. And BTW, I don't claim to be clever. Just educated with the ability to fact find and dismiss the lies from the right. I also can read, do research, etc.. I will never apologize for being educated and smart. :smile2:

Given what he inherited from the bush failures, the obstuctionist republicans and the DINOs, it's amazing what Pres. Obama has accomplished so far. Am I sorry I voted for him? :smile: NO WAY!!! It turns out that a lot of things that have happened in the less than two years of this administration are the biggest or first or most important in generations. On the occasion of the Wall Street reform announcement today, Taegan Goddard at 'CQ Politics' wrote, 'Not since FDR has a president done so much to transform this country.' Ms. Maddow could have stopped right here and I would have been extremely gratified, but she continued: Even before today`s historic Wall Street reform agreement, President Obama, of course, did what politicians have been trying to do for more than 60 years. He passed health reform, which, for the first time, establishes government responsibility for the health care of American citizens. Consider also the stimulus bill. It didn`t just throw a lasso around our entire economy and yank and yank it back from the brink. It also pumped about $100 billion into the crumbling embarrassment of our national infrastructure and transportation system. Did she just say President Obama yanked the US economy back from the brink? At this point I’m smiling from ear to ear, but still she continued: It was the largest investment in infrastructure since Ike. For solving our country`s energy problems, something Obama has compared to man walking on the moon, it contained about $60 billion in spending and tax incentives for renewable and clean energy, also a historic investment. It also included an unheralded but giant investment in science and tech, amping up the budgets at NASA, the National Science Foundation, and an experimental energy research agency that was created under President George W. Bush, but never funded until now. President Obama’s contribution so far to science and technology is one of the most under reported items of his still nascent administration. But there is more to come: President Obama also expanded state kids` health insurance to cover another four million kids. He signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act amending the 1964 civil rights act for equal pay for equal work. He signed a nuclear arms deal with Russia that would reduce both countries` arsenals by a third. He created a new global nonproliferation initiative to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists. Did all this happen in just 18 months? I thought this President was such a disappointment. Ms. Maddow: He set forth an international way forward on that radical left-wing proposition of Ronald Reagan, a world without nuclear weapons. Then there are the legislative and policy achievements that don`t just build on previously-set precedents, but set new ones. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act. It had languished in Congress for years. The Food and Drug Administration permitted for the first time to regulate tobacco. Obama fired two wartime commanding generals in little over a year. He overhauled the astonishing stupidity of the student loan system in which banks were being subsidized to give loans that were guaranteed by the government anyway, a license to print money. That was ended in the savings put toward actual aid to students. He canceled a weapons program that was bloated, unnecessary and totally irrelevant to either of our current wars, the F-22. Why even mention the cancellation of a single weapons system? Because that never happens. Weapons systems never get canceled. The F-22 did, which is itself a miracle. Maddow also spoke of disappointments, but the difference in her expressed disappointment was the fact that she did not allow her disappointment to vilify or characterized this President as being worthless or the same as Bush: In each of these achievements and in the list of things he has yet to do -'Don`t Ask, Don`t Tell,' closing Guantanamo - in each of these things, there is room for liberal disappointment. I sing a bittersweet lullaby to the lost public option when I go to sleep at night. But presidential legacies are complex. Not even the Reagan administration`s legacy is pure as the conservative-driven snow. But Taegan Goddard at CQ Politics was right today about nothing this big happening since FDR. This was certainly an amazing broadcast and one that actually left me stunned. Maddow ended with this: The list of legislative accomplishments of this president in half a term even before energy reform which he`s probably going to get to is, to quote the vice president, 'a big freaking deal.' Love this administration or hate it, this president is getting a lot done. The last time any president did this much in office, booze was illegal. If you believe in policy, if you believe in government that addresses problems, cheers to that. Good night.

A short memory? Are you kidding? The republicans will do everything they can to sabotage this economic recovery, filibuster unemployement benefits and then come November will blame it all on the democrats and the stupid voters will believe them.

Republicans to the unemployed: Go F*** yourself. Fri Jun 25, 2010 at 03:52:12 AM PDT Republicans fillibuster the jobs bill, but that's not the ugliest aspect of this strategy (HP): Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said she believes Republicans are trying to prevent the economy from improving in order to foster an anti-incumbent mood come November. "Cynically, for them, It doesn't serve them in terms of the elections in the fall if things are beginning to turn around," she said. "If they can stop the recovery from occurring, If they can create as much pain as possible, the cynical view is people will be angry and either drop out and not vote at all or vote against those in the majority." Having this bill linger is not an option. The fact of the matter is that bread lines don't exist in the same way they did in the 30s and the results of this fillibuster will be catastrophic: Extended unemployment benefits lapsed at the beginning of June. By Friday, more than 1.2 million people out of work for longer than six months will have found themselves ineligible for the next tier of extended benefits, which were originally provided by the stimulus bill to fight the recession. Other programs that lapsed include elevated federal aid for state Medicaid programs and a "Doc Fix" that prevents doctors from a 21-percent drop in reimbursement for seeing Medicare patients. Simply put, your republican representatives would prefer you die in the street, starve, succumb to an expensive illness, go bankrupt, homeless, fall in to a pit of despair and off yourself before they will provide one cintilla of help or further support. "F**k you!" is the simple message to their actions. Now, with corporations like BP, they apologize for the inconvenience of questioning them about an environmental disaster that will have a generation's worth of problems. They will insert themselves into the financial bill to make sure that multi-billionaire CEO's won't have to worry that their companies will have to conform to any "pesky regulation" to ensure they don't send us into a spiral again. They'll do everything they can to make sure their lobby contacts and job opportunities remain robust for that moment when they jettison from their useless government jobs and make the real money as lobbyists. But as far as you go? F**k you. You can die. You are of no interest to them since you cannot further their future careers. dailykos Stand with the big corporations while kicking the regular people, that's the republican agenda. And these are the people who some want to elect more of? :bored:

laura - maybe post this on the immigration thread.

Leave it to a conservative, republican, neocon to come up with this convuluted and hypocritical logic: :thumbup: "I am not a parasite" - funniest GOP fail of the day. Thu Jun 24, 2010 at 07:53:07 AM PDT Think Progress scores again: Farmer who put up sign claiming Democrats are ‘party of parasites’ has taken $1 million in farm subsidies. A Missouri farmer has parked one of those ugly semi-trailer signs on his land, facing a highway, proclaiming "Are you a Producer or Parasite Democrats - Party of the Parasites". However..... The Kansas City Starhad a little nose around and found that said farmer has received more than $1 million in federal crop subsidies since 1995. "That’s just my money coming back to me," Jungerman, 72, said Monday. "I pay a lot in taxes. I’m not a parasite." LOL! But wait, there is more: Jungerman said he put up the sign to protest people who pay no taxes, but, "Always have their hand out for whatever the government will give them" in social programs. Crop subsidies are different, he said. When crop prices dip below a certain point, the federal government makes up the difference with a subsidy payment. I look forward to the farmer's audition on Last Comic Standing. dailykos That's right folks, when neocons get a free handout from the government it's called a "subsidy" and of course they deserve it, but when someone else gets something from the government it's called a handout. I'll bet this man believes in the free market with no government intervention (read: regulations), too. I guess it depends on which side of the corn stalk you're standing on. :eek:

Yes, you absolutely have a right to ALL of your test results, operative report (now you will need to get two) and follow up doctor visit reports. It is very important that you have these. I got all mine and took them to another doctor for a second opinion and found out I had a different size band than I was told and that my band had a slight slip (not told that either). I switched to that second surgeon and never looked back.

bush's policies have done the most damage to the deficit because we're still paying for them: And as another recent CBPP analysis revealed, over the next 10 years, the Bush tax cuts will contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession - combined. An AP chart of data from the Congress Budget Office showed the explosion of federal debt that will ensue if the Tea Baggers and their Republican allies get their way in making the Bush tax cuts permanent. As David Leonhardt documented in the New York Times in last June, "President Obama's agenda, ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying." In a jaw-dropping chart illustrating how today's trillion-dollar deficits were created, the Times concluded that even before the Bush recession commenced in December 2007, Dubya's dangerously irresponsible tax cuts and unfunded spending produced an ocean of red ink that dwarfed the impact of President Obama's stimulus and other spending programs: "The economic growth under George W. Bush did not generate nearly enough tax revenue to pay for his agenda, which included tax cuts, the Iraq war, and Medicare prescription drug coverage." And like most of the other Republican born-again deficit virgins, John Boehner voted for all of it. Of course, that didn't stop him from grandstanding in November that "Washington Democrats' so-called 'war on deficits' is about a year late and more than a trillion dollars short." And just 10 days ago, Boehner asked fellow Meet the Press guess Steny Hoyer (D-MD), "How long are you going to blame the Bush administration? Come on. When is someone in Washington going to take responsibility for what they are in charge of?" Of course, when it comes to the Republican debt orgy, John Boehner refuses to follow his advice. dailykos

Why are you having another fill if you are losing and barely able to eat now and worried about not being able to eat again? This is your body. You should have another fill when YOU think you are ready for one and your doctor agrees. Don't be bullied into having something done that you are uncomfortable with. If you pay for your fills and your doctor overfills you is he going to give you your money back? No. And BTW, getting another fill and becoming overfilled CAN hurt you. You could have reflux, heartburn, pain, vomiting and risk band slippage. My suggestion? Don't have the fill. You seem to be doing fine without it. And if your doctor gives you a hard time, find another doctor. This should be a collaborative effort not just him telling you what to do. Good luck.

I will give you the same advice I give so many on these boards who have complications. Get copies of all your test results, including and most importantly your operative report. Get all the follow up doctor visit reports. You might be surprised at what you learn. I agree that your port infection could have traveled to your band. Was the type of infection identified? You should proceed with caution with these doctors since they were looking for an erosion so soon after surgery they must have had reason to believe that it could have happened so soon. Or maybe that's what they told you but were actually looking for something else. Definitely get a copy of the test results that told the doctor it was band erosion. And if you can actually get pictures of that endoscopy, even better. Good luck.

Out of the mouths of idiots: Contrarian Michele Bachmann worries BP will get 'fleeced' By Brian Lambert | Thursday, June 17, 2010 Finally, someone showing a little Christian concern for poor, embattled British Petroleum. With Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, the only thing for certain is a predictable level of batty contrarianism. But this one ... She's getting plenty of attention in some sectors, if not her two local dailies, for her Wednesday comments, which followed the announcement of the $20 billion escrow fund to cover claims coming out of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. She says that BP, currently turning the Gulf into a waste holding tank, needs to watch out so it doesn't get played for a "chump" and get "fleeced" by President Obama. The Washington Post's David Weigel, the paper's designated reporter for "the conservative movement and the Republican Party," cornered Bachmann after a Heritage Foundation luncheon. This is where she said: "They shouldn't have to be fleeced and made chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest The gulf coast is in ruins. Millions of gallons of oil spew forth each day. Whole industries and thousands of people's livelihoods are being destroyed and bachman is worried about BP? :smile2: Typical neocon priorities!! But not surprising that some on these boards support what she has to say, considering their pro-corporate, anti-government stance.

A must read. This guy nails it: here is the transcript of the speech, courtesy of the Senator Whitehouse official website Mr. President, we have watched with horror the unfolding disaster in the Gulf. We have seen precious lives lost; hard-earned livelihoods hammered; treasured ways of life imperiled. We have seen the largest deployment of resources ever against an environmental disaster. We have seen astonishing corporate negligence. But we have seen something else too-something that ought to be a lasting lesson from this catastrophe: we have seen the revolting specter of an agency of government subservient to - captive to - the industry it is supposed to regulate. From the Minerals Management Service, supposed to regulate deep sea oil drilling, here's what we have seen: From the 2008 Inspector General's report on MMS's Royalty in Kind program based in Colorado: • Senior executives steering lucrative contracts to an outside company created by the executives; • Staff failing to collect millions of dollars in royalties owed to the American people and allowing oil and gas companies to revise their own multi-million-dollar bids; • Staff accepting gifts and money from oil and gas companies with whom the office was conducting official business; and • Staff participating in social events with industry representatives that included illegal drug use and sex. From the IG report, the Inspector's General's report, released last month on the MMS office in Lake Charles, Louisiana: • The District Manager telling investigators: "obviously we're all oil industry." • Employees accepting numerous gifts from companies doing business with the MMS, including a trip to the 2005 Peach Bowl on a private airplane, skeet shooting contests, hunting and fishing trips, and golf tournaments. • An MMS inspector conducting four inspections of oil drilling platforms while negotiating a job for himself with the company that owned those platforms, and finding (guess what?) no violations during those inspections. And a 2007 Inspector General Report into the MMS' Minerals Revenue Management office cited, and I quote: • "Significant issues worthy of separate investigation, including ethical lapses, program mismanagement, and process failures." As my hometown Providence Journal wrote in a recent editorial, "The Deepwater Horizon accident has made it painfully clear that, in its current form, MMS is a pathetic public guardian. Neither it nor BP was prepared for a disaster of this magnitude, and MMS' cozy relationship with industry is a big reason why." I agree with the Providence Journal. The scope, the extent, the insidious nature of corporate influence in regulatory agencies of government - this question of regulatory capture - is something we should attend to here. It is the lesson. And it raises the question, beyond the Minerals Management Service, how far does this corporate influence reach into our agencies of government? The wealth of the international corporate world is staggering. The five biggest oil companies just this quarter posted profits of $23 billion dollars. That's a 23 with twelve zeros behind it-in just one quarter. The Republican appointees on the Supreme Court just overturned decades of precedent and a hundred years of practice to give these big corporations freedom to spend unlimited funds in our American elections. Put it to scale; consider $23 billion of pure profit, just in one quarter, by Big Oil. And compare: the Obama and McCain campaigns together spent about $1 billion in the last election. Do the math: for 5% of one quarter's profits, Big Oil could outspend both American presidential campaigns. That may be some politicians' idea of a happy day, because that is who they work to please, but it is wrong and needs to be stopped. But think: if that's what corporate influence could do in a national election, think of what those vast powerful tentacles of corporate influence can do to a little government agency like the Minerals Management Service: • Revolving doors to lucrative jobs in the industry so you're set for life; • Sports tickets, gifts, drugs; • Constant, relentless lobby pressure and threats of litigation; • Steadily inserting industry operatives into regulatory positions. Inch by inch, the tentacles of industry reach further and further into the regulator, until it silently and invisibly comes under industry control, and becomes the industry's puppet; until it is serving the special interests, and not the public interest. This is no new phenomenon. Marver Bernstein wrote about regulatory capture 55 years ago. He explained that a regulator tends over time to "become more concerned with the general health of the industry and tries to prevent changes which will adversely affect it," to become "passive toward the public interest." This, he said, "is a problem of ethics and morality as well as administrative method," and he called it "a blow to democratic government and responsible political institutions." Ultimately, this leads to what he called "surrender:" "the commission finally becomes a captive of the regulated groups." If you don't want to go back half a century for a discussion of regulatory capture, look to last week's Wall Street Journal editorial page, where a senior fellow at the Cato Institute writes, "By all accounts, MMS operated as a rubber stamp for BP. It is a striking example of regulatory capture: Agencies tasked with protecting the public interest come to identify with the regulated industry and protect its interests against that of the public. The result: Government fails to protect the public." There is plenty of evidence that the oil and gas industry had captured MMS. And when you have a captured agency, you get what we've seen: • Altering, deleting, or ignoring warnings and recommendations from government scientists. A draft environmental analysis for drilling in the Gulf from May of 2000 included the haunting prediction that "the oil industry's experience base in deep-water well control is limited" and a massive oil spill "could easily turn out to be a potential showstopper for the [outer continental shelf] program if the industry and MMS do not come together as a whole to prevent such an incident." This unwelcome observation was deleted from the final analysis published. • Oil and gas company employees filled out official inspection forms in pencil, for the MMS inspectors to trace over in pen. • Nearly 400 categorical exclusions, shielded even deepwater drilling from thorough environmental review. • Cut-and-paste Environmental Assessments were provided by oil and gas companies. BP's Environmental Assessment listed walruses as a species of concern in the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. President, there are not, and never have been, in the memory of man, walruses in the Gulf of Mexico. When they are writing about walruses in the Gulf of Mexico, you know 1) they are cutting and pasting out of documents in Alaska, 2) they are paying no attention to what they write because they know it doesn't matter, and 3) they know perfectly well that MMS will never catch the fact that they've cut and pasted, because they're not looking at it either. • MMS adopted wholesale for its oil and gas drilling "best practices" proposals of the American Petroleum Institute, and then they made most of those best practices only suggestions. • There's been virtually no enforcement: According to the MMS website, between 2000 and 2009, civil penalties averaged less than $130 per well per year on our Outer Continental Shelf; and only three criminal referrals were made to the Department since 1990 in the last twenty years. Add it all up, and there is no real question MMS was a captive regulator. So the question is, after all those years of corporate control of government in the Bush years, how far-reaching is the insinuation of corporate influence? We know big Pharma wrote the Bush pharmacy benefit legislation. We know big oil and big coal sat down in secret with Dick Cheney to write their energy policy. But down below the decks, down in the guts of the administration's agencies, how far were the tentacles of corporate influence allowed to reach? How many industry plants are stealthily embedded in the government, there to serve the industry, not the administration or the public. Well, how is it looking, Mr. President? Well, it is not looking good. The Securities and Exchange Commission, for instance, gave up its watchdog role years ago and became the lap dog of the big Wall Street financiers: raising leverage limits; refusing to investigate Bernie Madoff; and helping to precipitate the biggest financial disaster since the Great Depression. 29 miners were killed in a West Virginia mine with a safety record that President Obama called troubled." The Mine Safety and Health Administration has been described as a "revolving door" with industry, staffed by people with mining companies' interests at heart, even at the expense of worker safety. The Bush head of MSHA, for instance, oversaw the rewriting of regulations in 2004 that allowed conveyor belt tunnels to double as ventilation shafts, a practice that contributed to a fatal 2006 Massey mine disaster. Who knows how far it leads? Think of the timber rights the taxpayer gives up every year, the grazing rights, the multi-billion dollar contracts to big government contractors, the oil and coal leases on land, the carnival of public wealth at which these big corporations feed. The vital question is this: are these assets of our nation still in the hands of servants of the nation? Or have the servants of the nation quietly and insidiously become the servants of the big private corporations who want to profit from that public wealth-corporations for whom every dollar of a sweet deal, every avoided expense allowed by a cozy regulator, every corner cut in safety or environmental protection, goes straight to their bottom line and right into their pockets? The big, multi-billion dollar corporations - Is this who we want safeguarding our national assets? Is this who we want controlling agencies of the United States government? Mr. President, Winston Churchill once said, in a phrase that I like, that history turns on sharp agate points. What is the sharp agate point on which the history of this Gulf catastrophe should turn? What lesson of history, if left unlearned after this disaster, are we condemned to repeat? I hope that the lesson we learn is this one: that we can never, never, never again let agencies of the government of the United States of America fall so far under the influence of the corporations they are supposed to regulate. This government of ours, founded in a Revolution pledging the lives, fortunes and sacred honor of those early patriots; This government of ours, which has raised for more than two centuries the promise of freedom in human hearts; This government that lifts its lamp aloft to brighten the darkness of chaos and despair in far distant corners of the globe; This government, whose finely tuned balance, crafted by those Founders, has seen us through civil war and world war, through westward expansion and great depression, through the light bulb and the Model T and the Boeing 747 and the iPod. This government, of ours, formed by Washington and Madison, Jefferson and Adams, and led by each of them; and later led by Abraham Lincoln, and by Harry Truman, and by Theodore Roosevelt and by Franklin Roosevelt and by John Fitzgerald Kennedy. This American government of ours should never, never be on its knees before corporate power, no matter how strong. It should never be in the thrall of corporate wealth no matter how vast. This American government of ours should never give the American citizen reason to question whose interests are being served. Never. In this complex world of ours, Mr. President, government must protect us in remote and specialized precincts in the economy. In those remote precincts, few people are watching, but big money is made. We must be able to trust our government, both in plain view in front of us, and in corners far from sight, to be serving always the public interest, not doing the secret bidding of special interests; of corporate interests, because that's where the big money is at stake. Have we now learned, have we now finally learned, from the financial melt-down and the Gulf disaster, the price, the terrible price, of all those quietly cut corners? Have we now learned what price must be paid when the stealthy tentacles of corporate influence are allowed to reach into and capture our agencies of government? I pray, let us have learned this; let us have learned that lesson. I sincerely pray we have learned our lesson, and that this will never happen again. But let's not just pray. In this troubled world God works through our human hands; grows a more perfect union through our human hearts; creates his beloved community through our human thoughts and ideas. So it is not enough to pray. We must act. We must act in defense of the integrity of this great government of ours, which has brought such light to the world, such freedom and equality to our country. We cannot allow this government - that is a model around the world, that inspires people to risk their lives and fortunes to come to our shores - we cannot allow any element of this government to become the tool of corporate power, the avenue of corporate influence, the puppet of corporate tentacles. I propose a simple device, in this country of laws not men - of rule of law - and that is to allow our top national law officer, the Attorney General of the United States, to step in and clean house whenever an agency or element of government is no longer credibly independent of the industry and businesses it is intended to regulate. When a component of government is deemed no longer credibly independent of the corporations or industry it is supposed to regulate, I suggest the Attorney General be allowed to come in and clean up: - To hire and fire and take personnel actions, to assure the integrity of the personnel; - To establish interim regulations and procedures, to assure the integrity of the process; - To audit permits and contracts and assure they were not affected by improper corporate influence; and, if they were, - To rescind them where they are not in the public interest due to that improper corporate influence; - To establish an integrity plan for that component of government; - All subject to appropriate judicial review where private rights are affected; - And then the Attorney General can get back out, with his or her job done: sort of like an ethics trusteeship or receivership. Mr. President, I'll conclude by saying that the damage to America from the corporate takeover of the Securities and Exchange Commission was nothing short of catastrophic - just in my home state, just in Rhode Island, 70,000 Rhode Islanders are unemployed, and many have lost homes, retirement, health insurance. The toll is devastating. The damage from the corporate takeover of the Minerals Management Service has also been catastrophic; and who knows what potentially catastrophic damage lurks in whatever other agencies of government have silently succumbed to corporate takeover, but just have not exploded in disaster? If the financial catastrophe and the Gulf catastrophe, and whatever other catastrophes lurk, if they have any meaning at all, it is that business as usual is no longer enough to stem the tide of corporate influence, insidious, secret corporate influence in agencies of the United States government. It is an institutional problem: relentless, remorseless, constantly grasping and insinuating corporate influence; it will never go away; it will only worsen as corporations get bigger and richer and more global; and there has to be an institutional mechanism in place to resist it, so that it no longer takes a catastrophe to call the failure of governance of an American regulator to proper attention. I think this is the right way. If a colleague has a better idea, I'm more than willing to listen. But, one thing I know: after our economic catastrophe and this environmental catastrophe, this much, at least, is clear: we can no longer wait for catastrophes to root out improper corporate influence in our government, in this government of our United States. We have to at long last address the problem of insidious regulatory capture, of agencies of our government captive to the industries they are suppose to regulate. I thank the Presiding Officer. I yield the floor. America did not revolt against the power of the King of England just to kneel to the power of British Petroleum over 2 centuries later. Or the Banks Or the Military Industrial Complex Or to any Corporate power And amidst all of the shrieking conservatives who shout "Get the guvmint outta my life" while driving on public roads and depending on our tax payer funded military for protection, we have in reality been experiencing the corporate takeover of the US Government. Of course, government has always been dominated by the wealthy and big business interests, but since the passage of NAFTA, The Gramm/Leech/Bliley Act and the Bush/Cheney Administration, the power of Big Business has run amok, and our political process has been enslaved to the whims and campaign financing of the tentacles of Corporate power. This must end. It is legalized bribery. Senator Whitehouse knocked this one out of the park, in a way that I can only discribe as EXPLOSIVE, and not because Senator Whitehouse was as bombastic as Alan Grayson or as witty as Al Franken, but because amidst all the corporate spin, propaganda and PR, such truth as was spoken by the Senator from Rhode Island truly is explosive. Let us hope that the citizens of America are starting to understand the role that Big Business has in the slow motion overthrow of our Democracy to an elitist economic ideology that is unveilied in the words of Joe Barton, Rand Paul and other conservatives who truly think that it is okay to kneel to corporate power. Tentacles indeed. dailykos Regulate, baby, regulate

I will trust republican secretary of defense Robert Gates when he says the military budget is bloated and needs to be trimmed. You can't increase personnel just by increasing the military budget. That is a separate issue. Recruitment is a problem. But I do agree with increased benefits for the troops, including post-war care and benefits. I just think there is too much of stuff we don't need in the military and a lot of waste that could be cut and what's left better spent. And I don't buy into that "democrats are soft on defense" crap. The democrats are smarter on defense. The Obama adminstration has captured way more terrorists than did the bush adminstration and they had 7 years. He is also more aggressive with his drone attacks in Pakistan and he increased troops in Afghanistan. I would never vote for a republican - ever, ever, ever. They don't make us safer, they just like to make you think so.

During the recent state primaries where more than one republican candidate was running, we saw them tripping over each other to be portrayed as the most conservative (read: extremist) -"I'm the most conservative", "No, I am"- ad infinitum, ad nauseum... So, after the most extremist candidate wins the primary by appealing to the extremist base, they then have to pull back on their wacko positions. We have already seen this start to happen. When Republicans try to pretend to be reasonable by Laurence Lewis Fri Jun 18, 2010 at 07:06:03 AM PDT Add Meg Whitman to the list of Republican nominees who are trying to pivot away from the divisiveness or extremism that helped them get nominated. As reported by Salon's Alex Pareene: According to this ad that will run in California during today's World Cup Mexico-France game, gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman respects the Latino community. The ad is in Spanish, so white Republicans will never know that Whitman suddenly loves those scary immigrants. The ad says Whitman's "the Republican who opposed the Arizona law and opposed Proposition 187." Of course, during the primary Whitman ran ads touting her opposition to amnesty and drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, and suggested that she might even send the National Guard to the border. She didn't take it to the racist extremes of Arizona Republicans, but she wasn't above marginalizing immigrants in order to secure her own Republican base. Now, she's turning around and trying to make nice. She also flat out lied when she denied using the border fence in an ad, even though she actually did. Fences pretty well define Republicanism. Demonize a minority to unify the paranoid. Divide and conquer. The Whitman pivot is part of a trend. Extremist Republican Senate nominees Sharron Angle and Rand Paul are attempting the same tactic. Despite entire careers built on the far right fringe, they are now attempting to recast themselves as reasonable moderates. Of course, Faux News has been there to help. As Sam Stein explained, on June 14: On Monday morning, Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharon Angle told "Fox and Friends" that, contrary to popular belief, she does not in fact want Social Security to be privatized. She now says she wants to "personalize" Social Security, rather than privatize it. Whatever that means. Take a cue from Bush and come up with cute pet names? Media Matters took Faux to task, quoting from Angle's campaign website (emphasis MM): Free market alternatives, which offer retirement choices to employees and employers, must be developed and offered to those still in their wage earning years, as the Social Security system is transitioned out. Young workers must be encouraged to investigate personal retirement account options. But as Media Matters noted, this is how Faux's Steve Doocy posed the question to Angle (emphases mine): Before you go, Sharron, just, you know, perhaps it's misinformation or mischaracterization, but some have said that you are out to get rid of Social Security. That's not true, right? Which is where Angle pivoted to her "personalize" nonsense. Of course, on previous Faux broadcasts, Faux's own people had been clear about Angle's views: On the June 12 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends Saturday, host Alisyn Camerota asked Sarah Palin: "You supported Sharron Angle. I don't have to tell you that she has some controversial positions. She wants to do away with the federal income tax and she wants to phase out Social Security. Do you support those positions?" Stein: Regardless of the set-up, the response remains noteworthy. Angle, as pointed out by Jon Ralston, the dean of the Nevada political press corps, has been fairly unapologetic in the past about her desire to see Social Security privatized. At one point, she said the program itself is "hard to justify." That she's now tempering that position illustrates the clear sense among the national Republican establishment that she needs to moderate her platform if she stands a chance of beating Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the fall. And moderate she will. For the next several months, anyway. And she won't be alone. Stein: Prior to her was Rand Paul, the Tea Party candidate from Kentucky, who insisted during an interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity last week that he certainly would have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, despite refusing to answer the question directly during previous interviews. Paul, similarly, has toned down earlier remarks saying that the government was being too rough on BP in the wake of the oil spill in the Gulf, telling a local Kentucky radio station that the federal regulations in place "apparently wasn't enough." As Angle and Paul, and their enablers at Faux, attempt to fool voters into electing candidates whose positions the voters clearly don't like, it will be incumbent upon us to keep a close watch and to keep the discussions honest. Because whatever Angle and Paul now do isn't what matters most. What matters most is what they will do if they get to Washington. And you can be certain that if they do get to Washington, they won't be the nice, sensible people they are now trying to pretend to be. They will be themselves. As for Whitman, it's hard to say what she will stand for. Or stand on. Or whom she will stand on. It doesn't seem to matter, just so she's the one standing on top dailykos SERIOUSLY, DO THESE PEOPLE NOT THINK WE HAVE THE BENEFIT OF VIDEOS, WEBSITES, PRINTED MEDIA, ETC.. TO CONFIRM THEIR EARLIER EXTREMIST POSITIONS? This must be the "John McCain" style of campaigning - where he was a maverick before he wasn't a maverick. :scared2: :thumbup: And these LIARS are who some want to elect more of? :scared2:

We all work for the benefit of each other. We don't each live on an island isolated from the dynamics of a democratic society. My taxes pay for your roads in Connecticut, your taxes pay for corporate welfare for the oil companies in Texas, etc...People who receive government aid are human beings who need help for life's basic needs. Some abuse this, but there is far more corporate abuse, costing us a lot more, and that should be painfully evident to any thinking, intelligent person, since we are living with an economy reflective of this corporate abuse.

Fred Barnes is a Fox news contributor so right there that makes him have near zero credibility. We have seen what the republicans did when they had power under bush. We are living with the consequences. And Pres. Obama has had to do the mop up duty. The republicans have only two solutions, well, three really. They are: 1) tax cuts for the rich 2) deregulate big business (can you spell Massey and BP?) 3) cut spending for the least among us Yeah, by all means, lets go back to their failed policies. :thumbup: BTW, nothing to say about Barton and his apology to BP?