Never pass up a chance to sit down or relieve yourself. -old Apache saying

Monday, June 13, 2011

Perry=bad news

Rick Perry actually looks worse than George W. Bush, if that's possible. I hope we can head off this ass at the pass before he craps in the White House. We tried to warn the country about Bush to no avail. Well, actually, that's not true. Gore did get about a million more votes than Bush, and it took the Supreme Court to give the White House to Bush. That was actually a massive crime, in retrospect.


Top 10 Things That Texas Gov. Rick Perry Doesn't Want You To Know About Him

With widespread discontent on the right over their current presidential field, all eyes are trained on a likely new entrant: Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R).

Perry, who has been elected governor three times and served for more than 10 years, enjoys bona fides from social conservatives and Tea Party-types alike. Glenn Beck even described Perry as a man he was so enamored with that he wanted to “French kiss.”

However, as conservatives fawn over their newest presidential hopeful, it’s worth taking a closer examination at his record as governor. On issues across the board, from Perry’s support for dropping out of Social Security and Medicaid to his state’s abysmal pollution levels and his proposal that Texas secede from the United States, the Republican governor has amassed a record of far-right extremism.

ThinkProgress has assembled the top ten hits from Perry’s tenure as governor:

(1) PERRY ALLOWED THE EXECUTION OF A LIKELY INNOCENT MAN, THEN IMPEDED AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE MATTER: In 2004, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Huntsville, Texas after being convicted of arson and the murder of his three children. Even after significant evidence emerged showing that arson had not caused the fire (thus exonerating Willingham), Perry refused to grant a stay of execution. Five years after Willingham was executed, a report from a Texas Forensic Science Commission investigator found that the fire could not have been arson. As the commission prepared to hear testimony from the investigator in October 2009, Perry quickly fired and replaced three of its members, forcing an indefinite delay in the hearing.

(2) PERRY WANTS TO REPEAL THE 16th AND 17th AMENDMENTS, ENDING DIRECT ELECTION OF U.S. SENATORS AND THE FEDERAL INCOME TAX: In his 2010 book Fed Up!, Perry called the 16th and 17th Amendments “mistaken” and said they resulted from “a fit of populist rage.” The 16th Amendment allows the federal government to collect income taxes, which is the single biggest source of revenue, accounting for 45 percent of all receipts. The 17th Amendment took electing U.S. senators out of the hands of political insiders and allowed the American public to decide their representation instead. If Perry had his way, the federal government would be stripped of its current ability to fund highway construction projects, food inspectors, and the military, and the American public would not even be permitted to elect their own senators.

(3) PERRY PROPOSED LETTING STATES DROP OUT OF SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICAID: Despite the programs’ importance and popularity, Perry has argued that states like Texas should be allowed to opt out of Social Security and Medicaid. Were Perry to have his way on Social Security, “the entire system would collapse under the weight of too many Social Security beneficiaries who had not paid into the system,” notes Ian Millhiser. On Medicaid, in addition to stripping 3.6 million low-income Texans of their health care, Perry’s proposal would actually hurt, not help, the state’s budget deficit. This is because, as Igor Volsky writes, opting out of Medicaid would take “billions out of the state economy that goes on to support hospitals and other providers,” while forcing hospitals “to swallow the costs of caring for uninsured individuals who will continue to use the emergency room as their primary source of care.”

(4) TEXAS IS THE COUNTRY’S BIGGEST POLLUTER, BUT PERRY SUED THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FOR DISAPPROVING OF THE STATE’S AIR QUALITY STANDARDS: Texas is the biggest polluter in the country, leading the nation in carbon dioxide emissions. However, when the EPA published its “disapproval” of the state’s air quality standards for falling short of the Clean Air Act’s requirements, Perry sued the federal government to challenge the ruling. Perry’s environmental record doesn’t end there. He is a global warming denier who called the 2010 BP oil spill an “act of God” while speaking at a trade association funded by BP.

(5) PERRY DESIGNATED AS “EMERGENCY LEGISLATION” A BILL REQUIRING ALL WOMEN SEEKING ABORTIONS TO HAVE SONOGRAMS FIRST: In January, Perry proposed requiring all women seeking abortions to have a sonogram at least 24 hours before the procedure. Under the bill, doctors would be required to “tell a woman the size of her fetus’ limbs and organs, even if she does not want to know.” Before a woman is permitted to have an abortion, physicians are also forced to provide an image of the fetus and make the woman listen to the sound of its heartbeat. Perry designated his proposal as “emergency legislation,” allowing the bill to be rushed through the legislature. He signed it into law last month.

(6) PERRY GUTTED CHILDCARE SERVICES EVEN AS TEXAS CHILDHOOD POVERTY HIT 25 PERCENT: Facing a $27 billion budget deficit this year, Perry decided to gut child support services, despite a report from the Center for Public Policy Priorities that found nearly one in four Texas children lived beneath the poverty line. Instead of raising revenue like California, a state facing a similarly sized deficit, Perry scaled back more than $10 billion of child support over two years. As Think Progress’ Pat Garofalo noted, these cuts were proposed despite Texas’ possession of a $8.2 billion rainy day fund.

(7) PERRY WAS A STRONG SUPPORTER OF TEXAS’S ANTI-SODOMY LAWS: Perry was a strong proponent of Texas’s anti-sodomy law that was struck down in 2003 by the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas. Calling the law “appropriate,” Perry dismissed the Court decision as the result of “nine oligarchs in robes.” Even after being struck down, Perry supported the Texas legislature’s refusal to remove the law from its books.

(8) PERRY IS A STIMULUS HYPOCRITE WHO LOUDLY CRITICIZED FEDERAL RECOVERY MONEY BUT USED IT TO BALANCE HIS STATE’S BUDGET: As the nation struggled to avoid economic collapse in 2009, Perry was a vocal critic of Congress’s recovery package, even advocating that Texas reject the money because “we can take care of ourselves.” Months later, after Perry was able to balance the state’s budget only with the aid of billions in federal stimulus dollars, Perry again repeated that he would reject federal funding, arguing that the government “spends money they don’t have.” Five months later, Perry again took advantage of federal funding to issue $2 billion in bonds for highway improvements in Texas. Even so, the state faces a $27 billion budget deficit.

(9) PERRY SAID THAT TEXAS MIGHT HAVE TO SECEDE FROM THE UNITED STATES: One hundred and fifty years ago, Texas and other southern states seceded from the Union, resulting in a bloody Civil War. 148 years later, Perry floated the idea that Texas may again have to secede because of a federal government that “continues to thumb their nose at the American people.” Perry was roundly criticized for his proposal, yet he repeated his threat the next month on Fox News, telling host Neil Cavuto, “If Washington continues to force these programs on the states, if Washington continues to disregard the tenth amendment, who knows what happens.”

(10) DESPITE HAVING THE WORST UNINSURED RATE IN THE COUNTRY, PERRY CLAIMS THAT TEXAS HAS “THE BEST HEALTH CARE IN THE COUNTRY” : On Bill Bennett’s radio show last year, Perry claimed that “Texas has the best health care in the country.” In reality, Texas has the highest rate of uninsured residents of any state. More than one in four Texans lack coverage; the national average is just 15.4 percent. As such, there are more uninsured residents in Texas than there are people in 33 states. Despite Texas’s low coverage rates, the state has some of the most restrictive Medicaid eligibility thresholds, and Perry has even proposed dropping out of the program. Texas also has an inordinately high percentage of impoverished children, yet Perry opposed expanding the successful State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

ThinkProgress intern Sean Savett contributed to this report.

Original. There will most likely be many more than 10. Question is, will the message get through?

Yahoos & Morons

You might need to click the pic to be able to read it.

Hurricane Postcards

Wish you were here, instead of me!





















Kudos to The Houston Press. Original.

Krugman on Medicare

The sky-high cost of private insurance is primarily what is keeping me from retiring.



If I could get into the Medicare program at my current age of (almost) 55, I might just retire from the workforce and allow one of the millions of unemployed to take my job.



My company pays 75% of my health insurance cost, leaving me to pay around $250/month to cover me and my wife. If I had to pay the full cost, I'd have to have an even higher-paying job than I have right now to be able to afford health insurance AND food.



I wish I could retire early enough that I could still enjoy life with a (mostly) functioning body. But NO, all the plans on Capital Hill seem to be to either RAISE the age of entrance into Medicare or dismantle the program entirely.



Here is yet another example of too-powerful special interests preventing Congress and the American people from doing the right and best thing: allowing EVERYONE access to Medicare.





Medicare Saves Money
By
Published: June 12, 2011


Every once in a while a politician comes up with an idea that’s so bad, so wrongheaded, that you’re almost grateful. For really bad ideas can help illustrate the extent to which policy discourse has gone off the rails.

And so it was with Senator Joseph Lieberman’s proposal, released last week, to raise the age for Medicare eligibility from 65 to 67.


Like Republicans who want to end Medicare as we know it and replace it with (grossly inadequate) insurance vouchers, Mr. Lieberman describes his proposal as a way to save Medicare. It wouldn’t actually do that. But more to the point, our goal shouldn’t be to “save Medicare,” whatever that means. It should be to ensure that Americans get the health care they need, at a cost the nation can afford.


And here’s what you need to know: Medicare actually saves money — a lot of money — compared with relying on private insurance companies. And this in turn means that pushing people out of Medicare, in addition to depriving many Americans of needed care, would almost surely end up increasing total health care costs.


The idea of Medicare as a money-saving program may seem hard to grasp. After all, hasn’t Medicare spending risen dramatically over time? Yes, it has: adjusting for overall inflation, Medicare spending per beneficiary rose more than 400 percent from 1969 to 2009.


But inflation-adjusted premiums on private health insurance rose more than 700 percent over the same period. So while it’s true that Medicare has done an inadequate job of controlling costs, the private sector has done much worse. And if we deny Medicare to 65- and 66-year-olds, we’ll be forcing them to get private insurance — if they can — that will cost much more than it would have cost to provide the same coverage through Medicare.


By the way, we have direct evidence about the higher costs of private insurance via the Medicare Advantage program, which allows Medicare beneficiaries to get their coverage through the private sector. This was supposed to save money; in fact, the program costs taxpayers substantially more per beneficiary than traditional Medicare.


And then there’s the international evidence. The United States has the most privatized health care system in the advanced world; it also has, by far, the most expensive care, without gaining any clear advantage in quality for all that spending. Health is one area in which the public sector consistently does a better job than the private sector at controlling costs.


Indeed, as the economist (and former Reagan adviser) Bruce Bartlett points out, high U.S. private spending on health care, compared with spending in other advanced countries, just about wipes out any benefit we might receive from our relatively low tax burden. So where’s the gain from pushing seniors out of an admittedly expensive system, Medicare, into even more expensive private health insurance?


Wait, it gets worse. Not every 65- or 66-year-old denied Medicare would be able to get private coverage — in fact, many would find themselves uninsured. So what would these seniors do?
Well, as the health economists Austin Frakt and Aaron Carroll document, right now Americans in their early 60s without health insurance routinely delay needed care, only to become very expensive Medicare recipients once they reach 65. This pattern would be even stronger and more destructive if Medicare eligibility were delayed. As a result, Mr. Frakt and Mr. Carroll suggest, Medicare spending might actually go up, not down, under Mr. Lieberman’s proposal.


O.K., the obvious question: If Medicare is so much better than private insurance, why didn’t the Affordable Care Act simply extend Medicare to cover everyone? The answer, of course, was interest-group politics: realistically, given the insurance industry’s power, Medicare for all wasn’t going to pass, so advocates of universal coverage, myself included, were willing to settle for half a loaf. But the fact that it seemed politically necessary to accept a second-best solution for younger Americans is no reason to start dismantling the superior system we already have for those 65 and over.


Now, none of what I have said should be taken as a reason to be complacent about rising health care costs. Both Medicare and private insurance will be unsustainable unless there are major cost-control efforts — the kinds of efforts that are actually in the Affordable Care Act, and which Republicans demagogued with cries of “death panels.”


The point, however, is that privatizing health insurance for seniors, which is what Mr. Lieberman is in effect proposing — and which is the essence of the G.O.P. plan — hurts rather than helps the cause of cost control. If we really want to hold down costs, we should be seeking to offer Medicare-type programs to as many Americans as possible.



Sunday, June 12, 2011

7 Types of Idiots

7 Types Of Republican Idiots
By Matthew Desmond
January 7, 2011
I'm going to start with the most intelligent of the Republican idiots, then work my way down the list getting progressively more stupid.

The Educated Republicans:
These are the rarest of all Republicans. Occasionally you will run into one in public, or in a public-forum online. These Republicans are the smartest of the Republican idiots. They have learned everything there is to know about their position, from a Republican perspective. They’ve educated themselves on all the reasons why their position is correct.

The reason why this type of Republican is an idiot:
Anyone with the internet and 5 minutes can find something that thoroughly discredits their version of the “facts”. Even when confronted with contradictory facts they will continue to fall back on their original arguments, try to change the subject to something they are more comfortable talking about, or start expressing opinions with no factual merit.

What to Remember when debating them:
Keep them on-topic. Don’t let them ignore your counter-points and then change the subject on you. They’re masters of that, but if you can keep them on topic eventually they will just start expressing opinions to which you can say “do you have any facts to back that up?”

Fox News and Conservative Talk Radio Republicans:
These are one of the angriest groups of Republicans. They watch Fox News or listen to Conservative Talk Radio and they think it makes them an expert on politics. The only knowledge they have of politics is parroted talking points without any facts to back them up. When you defeat them in debate they will resort to calling you names like “Liberal”, or “commie” or “socialist” or “baby-killer” etc. They think all liberals are socialists that want to take their money and give it to people who don’t deserve it.

The reason why this type of Republican is an idiot:
They have no idea what they are talking about. Usually they’re just repeating things they have heard from Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. They think that liberals want to take away their freedoms and they clearly don’t know what the word “liberal” means, or what liberals have done for our country and freedom. They think President Obama is comparable to Hitler for passing health-care reform. They accuse you of watching MSNBC if you don’t agree with them. They call you a sheep but expect you to blindly believe everything they tell you, without question.

What to Remember when debating them:
Keep demanding facts from them to back up their assertions until they break down and call you any of the aforementioned names. Ask them to name specific freedoms that liberals have taken away from them. They have a tendency to become violent so watch their hands if you are debating them face to face.

Christian Republicans:
These Republicans are hypocrites. They do everything in the name of Christ, while simultaneously acting as un-Christlike as humanly possible. They support the right to carry assault weapons, are pro-War, and completely ignore the fact that the Bible depicts Christ as a Liberal who was opposed to capitalism and violence. They sincerely believe
that this is God’s country and that God loves us more than anyone else in the world. They think that anyone that is not 100% pro-Israel is anti-semitic. They hate everyone that doesn’t agree with them and think the Bible tells them to, and they hate Gay people because they think they are sinners.

The reason why this type of Republican is an idiot:
They do terrible things in the name of their Lord. They think that anyone that doesn’t agree with them is damned to hell or hates America. They believe that we are a Christian Nation even though the Founding Fathers made sure that they did not brand this country as
a Christian Nation. The Founding Fathers wanted a country of religious freedom, free from religious persecution, but these Republicans will never admit that.

What to Remember when debating them:
There’s a list on the net of all the quotes that prove our Founding Fathers wanted a Country of religious freedom. Go here. Another thing to remember is that the Christian Right is neither. Start asking them questions like “how would Jesus feel about war?”, “how would Jesus feel about assault ri
fles?”, or “do you REALLY think that America is God’s favorite country, in the ENTIRE universe?”. And these questions should yield a response that thoroughly proves that they are hypocrites, and continuing to argue with them would be a waste of time.

Tea Party Republicans:
These Republicans are a dumbed-down combination of the previous 2 groups of Republicans. They think Sarah Palin is intelligent and it’s the media filter’s fault that she looks so stupid. They think Reagan was fiscally Conservative even though he tripled the deficit. They watch Fox News religiously, and think Glenn Beck is credible. They don’t understand why people think they’re racist while they’re standing next to people holding racist signs. They protest higher taxes even though taxes have gone down for 95% of working families.

The reason why this type of Republican is an idiot:
They parrot Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin talking points. When you discredit one thing they say they immediately move on to the next subject. Anyone that doesn’t agree with them is a socialist, even though they can’t give you the actual definition of socialism. Many of them are on Medicare while protesting “socialism”. They have never met a socialist, so they have no idea what socialists believe. They think liberals are socialists and socialists are Nazis.

What to Remember when debating them:
They have no idea what they’re talking about. Ask them to prove what they are saying. If you ask them a question and they respond with a question refuse to answer their question until they answer yours. Don’t back down. Remind them that taxes have actually been lowered for 95% of working families. If debating them in public be careful because they are known to carry guns in places they don’t need them, like public parks and bars and churches.

Birther Republicans:
The birthers think that Obama was born in Kenya. No matter how much evidence you present them with that is contradictory to that they will continue to insist that he is not the legitimate President. They are sore-losers because McCain lost the election, and they will never support Obama, even if he paid off the entire National Debt.

The reason why this type of Republican is an idiot:
They think Obama was born in Kenya. They think that Orly Taitz, who grew up in a socialist country, is credible, and that Obama is a socialist. They think that Obama’s birth announcements in Hawaiian newspapers were propagated over 40 years in advance of his election, just so that he could be elected someday.

What to Remember when debating them:
Don’t waste your time. You could wave Obama’s actual birth certificate in their face and they would still say it’s a fake. They are sore-losers and they will never be happy as long as Obama is President. Make jokes asking to see their birth certificates, or Sarah Palin’s birth certificate. This is the best way to get them to go away.

Racist Republicans:
(DISCLAIMER: I am putting this one almost last for a reason. I do NOT think that all Republicans are racists. I have Republican family members who are not racist. This section is only about the small percentage of Republicans that are ACTUALLY racist, because they do exist. I'm not "playing the race card" or "race-baiting" , I'm just describing a small group of racists who also affiliate themselves with the Republican Party)

Racist Republicans hate Obama because he’s black. They think that all Muslims are terrorists. They think Obama is a terrorist Muslim. The think anyone with a name like Obama’s is a terrorist.

The reason why this type of Republican is an idiot:
They’re racist, but they think Obama is a racist. They can’t understand why people call them racists when they post racist pictures or racist comments and then claim not to be racist. Whenever they possibly can they will call you a racist, to hide the fact that they are actually racists.

What to Remember when debating them:
They’re racists. Racists are uneducated bigots. You would have a much easier time convincing an apple tree to start growing oranges.

Extremely Idiotic Republicans:
These Republicans are Republicans because they think it’s cool. They know a Republican in one of the other groups listed, so they think they know what they’re talking about. They have terrible spelling and grammar but they expect you to believe whatever they say because they are saying it to you.

The reason why this type of Republican is an idiot:
It’s hard to tell if they ever made it past the 4th grade. Most of their posts are illegible. They don’t know anything about their position other than what they have heard their friends say. They think that Republicans are fiscally conservative because they say that they are, and call anyone that doesn’t agree with them sheep. They ignore all historical information that is contradictory to what they say. They are 100% blind to facts.

What to Remember when debating them:
No amount of facts or logic will ever convince them that their buddies are wrong. You could be a college professor and they will still think that your opinion isn’t credible. Instead of trying to argue with them try explaining Algebra to your dog. I’m sure it will be much more productive.

I hope that this has been an informative resource for you. I hope you will remember some of the things I have said the next time you are engaged in a debate with a Republican idiot.

http://www.addictin ginfo.org/ 2011/01/07/ the-7-types- of-republican- idiots/

remember

remember

deja vu

deja vu

indeed

indeed

Probably

Probably

Delete Fox "News"

Delete Fox "News"

Smells really bad

Smells really bad

Applies to Trump

Applies to Trump

Trump is the enemy

Trump is the enemy

2024 Election

2024 Election

$132 billion

$132 billion

Remember

Remember

too true

too true

Didn't realize the GOP hated America so much.

Didn't realize the GOP hated America so much.