Scoundrel patriotism

The government ‘shut down’ is creating a lot of uncertainty for Americans.

The Head Start program and the WIC (Women with Infant Children) program have been stopped. Veterans services have been suspended including combat pay for our fighting men and women. Restaurants and retail businesses are devoid of customers in a Kentucky town where the IRS office is empty.

Speaker John Boehner is against government creating uncertainty went it comes to businesses offering health insurance to their workers, but when it comes to ordinary working Americans, the Speaker doesn’t mind creating uncertainty about weekly paychecks or daily meals for poor kids, the elderly, and babies.

The director of WIC said “these families don’t need uncertainty in their lives, they’re already challenged enough.” This shut down has literally taken food out of the mouths of babies.

Representative Eric Cantor said, “since the President gave businesses a waiver for implementation of the Health Care law, then the President should extend that same waiver to all Americans“. His concern for fairness is unimpressive, homes and food for all citizens, is not his concern.

Neil Barofsky Special Inspector for TARP in his book “Bailout an Inside Account of how Washington abandoned Main Street while rescuing Wall Street“, said, “…to hear Rick Santelli, a CNBC anchor, in midrant against the new TARP mortgage modification program. He described it as a plan for “losers” and compared it to Castro’s Cuba. At one point, he turned to the roaring traders on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and asked, “How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills? Raise their hands.” “Finally, in a phrase that would change the landscape of conservative politics in the country, “We’re thinking of having a Chicago tea party in July.” Barofsky says in his book, Treasury, along with this rant “…had just helped give birth to the Tea Party.”

There were millions of dollars in the same TARP funds that bailed out the banks to help millions of Americans modify their mortgage payments. This was the catalyst for the Tea Party, resentment over helping ordinary working Americans stay in their homes. Where was Representative Cantor’s concern for fairness when Americans were doling out trillions to banks, the very same people who created and benefited from the financial collapse while millions of Americans lost their homes?

Edmund Burke said “the last refuge of a scoundrel is patriotism.” Increasing unemployment and taking food away from infants; the elderly, and invalids is not patriotism, it’s a cruelty the Tea Party politicians embrace, born out of resentment and adverse to reason, logic or humanness.

It’s no wonder they are willing to shut down government over health insurance and food for those whose lives are already filled with uncertainty.

This is only the beginning, for the tea party politicians,’ cruelty knows no bounds…

The suffering is coming, the suffering is coming… Brought to us by tea party scoundrels, and dumbfounded, ‘blinded by the lights’ Democrats.

The government who cried wolf

The government is beginning to sound like the boy who cried wolf. First it was Bradley Manning and his leaks which damaged national security. Those leaks occurred in 2010 and we’ve yet to see how in any way they’ve damaged our national security.

Over 500 hundred people have died in Iraq just this month alone. Seems that’s more damaging to national security than Bradley Manning, who, by the way leaked documents showing the number of people killed in Iraq is greater than what the government is reporting. We’ve been here before, the Pentagon Papers proved that what the government knew and what they were telling the country about what was going on in Vietnam, were two different things.

Now they’re saying the same thing about Edward Snowden and his leaks telling of government collection and storage of data, they say the leaks are a great threat to our national security.

Yet we’re to believe the price of oil rose because of the turmoil in Egypt. And because of this turmoil, the US is not going to send them four F-16’s, but the billions in military aid will keep flowing. Not only will we continue to send money to Egypt, the government is mulling whether or not to supply the Syrian rebels with weapons funneled through the CIA. How do we know those weapons won’t be used against our troops in the future? That would damage national security and our troops on the ground a lot more then Snowden has.

US meddling in the Middle East is a greater threat to national security than either one of these people whose sole purpose of risking their future was to generate discussion amongst the American public as to what our government is doing behind our backs.

Bradley Manning has been tortured and held in a brig since his arrest, and Snowden is being called a criminal and a traitor before he’s even been tried in a court of law. Which just goes to show that when anyone dares to tell the American public what their government is doing to them behind their backs, they will pay a hefty price, with their lives and fortunes.

Hmm, I seem to remember that there were others who risked their lives and fortunes for our country once upon a time. Didn’t England declare Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Hancock, all the men who signed our Declaration of Independence, and all the forgotten names of their compatriots were traitors? Where would we be now if they hadn’t risked everything, even death, for the rights of their fellow man?

Spying is Security

Big Brother is here in the from of corporatism, which is when government and corporations combine as a means of providing services. The NSA, a secret government agency has combined with telecommunications corporations as a means of providing services, in this case, “security from terrorist attacks.”

The NSA employs 700,000 contractors. For those who want to reduce the size of the federal government, not hiring federal employees looks good, but tax payer dollars are funding these NSA contractors, meaning we’re indirectly paying contractors six figure salaries to spy on us.

Corporations like Verizon will store this data forever. Dana Priest explains the danger in the data storage, “…what privacy advocates are most worried about is the storage of this data. So I may not be under suspicion right now; 10 years from now, you know, they're looking at three parts -- three different sets of my digital exhaust, and they may decide something is suspicious.” “And so they can go back and mine the data that they have from 10 years ago. And that's what causes privacy advocates most concern, is that you are going to have this giant database of information about Americans in the Verizon phone records…”

The power of the executive office has been expanded to include the president having the power to label a citizen a terrorist and without due process, throw that person in jail. Add to that the fact that Verizon sent their information directly to the executive office and what do we have? A new ‘label’ that says Spying is now ‘security.’

According to Syndicated columnist Mark Shields, “The president says, I welcome this debate. That's healthy for democracy.” Mark Shields reminds us, “there wouldn't be a debate if we didn't have this disclosure.” and we’d still be in ignorance of the fact.

Thomas Jefferson said: “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people…They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”

A majority of elected representatives want to see Edward Snowden punished for informing the whole mass of the people about what our government is doing to our privacy and liberties, all funded by tax payer dollars.

Which just goes to show that no matter what comes out of the politician’s mouth, they are all on the band wagon for the corporatism of Big Brother. It all “step-by-step, inch by inch“, adds up to enhance the government’s control over the masses, and the politicians, being the ego of the government, will exercise their ego and new found controls to enhance their own power. Don’t believe the ‘double-speak’ message that spying is security and ignorance is protection. Doing so would be a terrible fate to impose upon yourself and future generations.

Who benefits from a negative tax rate?

From the Nation magazine: “Randolph Paul, Wall Street tax lawyer and FDR’s point man on taxes during WWll said in 1947 “If the nation’s wealth flows into the hands of too few rather than into the hands of the many, the resulting amount of saving will be greater than can be absorbed. Our economy can take only so much of this sort of thing before it has a violent conclusion.” In 1947 the long and bloody labor movement could be seen as a “violent conclusion”. “… President Eisenhower saw high taxes on high incomes as an antidote to the “opulence” that inexorably leads a nation to “depravity and ultimate destruction.”

In other words, the richest just pull the money out of the economy and lock it away, never to see it in circulation again, ultimately destroying the economy for all of us. That’s why in the past, tax rates were a lot higher than today. In 1955, the IRS took 51.2 percent of America’s top 400 incomes.” “Tax rates would top off at 94 percent during WW ll and hover around 90 percent for the next two decades.” By doing this Eisenhower led America to the biggest and longest lasting economic boom in history, which all Americans were able to take part in.

Now, from the Nation magazine, “In 2007, America’s top 400 had an average tax bill after loopholes, of just 16.6 percent” but rather than broadcast this information, we get alarmist headlines from newspapers such as the March 4 headline “Tax bills reach 30-year high” with the caption: “Wealthy face another potential tax hike while already paying high tax bills”. According to articles in the Nation magazine, those companies who presently have negative tax rates include “Honeywell, which has a negative tax rate of -0.7 percent.” other “firms that pay a negative tax rate, are GE, Boeing and Verizon, ” to name just a few.

Here’s the AP report: “The average family in the bottom 20 percent of households won’t pay any federal taxes. Instead, many families in this group will get payments from the federal government by claiming more in credit than they owe in taxes, including payroll taxes. That will give them a negative tax rate.” Aren’t “credits” and negative tax rates similar? When it’s global conglomerates paying negative tax rates, it’s neither paid or reported on, however, when it’s poor people paying negative tax rates, well now, that’s front page news!

The top twenty percent, with their media; news, and information distribution syndicates and connections have convinced, by using propaganda; disinformation, and outright lies, a large number of ‘fact deprived; financially, and economically ignorant and truly gullible Americans, that it’s the bottom twenty percent causing all of our economic debt that future generations will get “stuck” paying off, and that all the threats of a “violent conclusion” and “ultimate destruction” don‘t really exist.

Unfortunately, history shows us otherwise. Eventually, when the richest have taken all the money out of and destroyed our economy, the other 90%: the suffering population, will have no choice but to react by ultimately taking desperate measures in self defense, as seen throughout recorded history.

America may have been initially settled for religious freedom concerns, but 200 years later it was intolerable taxes that led to our revolution. Ten years later France followed our lead for the same reasons: the few rich took and kept all the money. “Let them eat cake!” Look at Russia before that and continuing back throughout recorded history of civilized countries. When the money’s gone, it usually continues with the people in power building more prisons and taking the means of self-defense, guns in our case, away from the population. If people would just look to the facts and not the lies put out by the medias which are owned and controlled by the richest, they’ll see there’s a lesson to be learned here, and to ignore it would be to our own inevitable peril.

Shedding crocodile tears over Benghazi

While Republicans cry crocodile tears over Benghazi, it‘s too bad they didn’t have as much concern for the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, which makes their outrage a little misleading. The US troops fighting this “war on terror” are being sent into ambushes, and then left on their own to die after being surrounded by the enemy.

In 2002, soldiers were sent to the top of Takur Gar mountain in Afghanistan. They were told their was no resistance yet when they attempted to gain this vantage point the mountain top was controlled by the enemy. A horrendous fight ensued with many American soldiers dying in this ambush.

Congressional Medal of Honor winner Dakota Meyer in his book, tells of his own personal harrowing battle in Afghanistan. The troops were sent into an ambush in one of the fiercest battles in Afghanistan, and U.S.troops quickly became surrounded and trapped. Meanwhile, the ones giving the orders are the officers safely ensconced in the ‘rear’, in their air conditioned offices, they’re not even on the field, they’re miles away where a round or an RPG not only won’t whiz by their heads, they won’t even hear it.

From the “PBSNewsHour” and their interview with Jake Tapper and his book about Clinton Romesha, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. “In October of 2009, when nearly 300 Taliban fighters ripped through a lone American outpost on the eastern edges of Afghanistan, Romesha found himself and his army brothers in peril. Outnumbered and facing an enemy force surging through his camp, Romesha repeatedly put himself in the line of fire to muster his fellow soldiers and lead the charge that eventually forced the enemy back.”

Three instances of horrific battles, where two of the battles produced Medal of Honor recipients. The war strategy in Afghanistan, the officers safely away in the rear making the decisions, not the officers fighting for their lives. Which again, is an outrage. Why are the men being trapped, why are they sent into ambushes, why are they out-numbered, why doesn’t artillery arrive to help the stranded soldiers? Where are these questions about this poor leadership and the safe guarding of American lives on the battlefield? The silence is deafening.

If the saving of Americans lives is a concern, then all Americans lives count, not just the ones in the embassies. The soldiers are being set up and they are fighting with one hand tied behind their backs. Afghani civilians help ambush and kill American soldiers, without questions from the public or our politicians.

The only reason Benghazi is a concern is because the President can be hammered politically while holding up his Secretary of Defense nominee. Politicians shed manufactured crocodile tears over some American deaths, but not all. This is Outrageous!

Who gets the credit?

Representative Paul Ryan believes the federal government should have a budget just like families have budgets. In a functional family budget, all members contribute to staying within spending limits. If Paul Ryan was serious about mutual contribution, then he should focus on eliminating tax credits for the rich corporate people. Raising income taxes on the wealthy isn’t the only answer; eliminating tax credits is another solution. From the Nation magazine:

“Oil companies with billions in quarterly profits can deduct costs for drilling wells and receive “manufacturing” tax deductions for simply refining crude oil. Norquist’s pledge (and his foundation’s advocacy) transforms billions in tax payer handouts into “tax cuts” that cannot be removed."

Further explaining Grover‘s non tax pledge“ …-the promise not to cut tax credits--is important for understanding how Norquist has become a proxy for K Street. From a budget stand point, a targeted tax credit is basically equivalent to a subsidy: the main difference between a $1 million tax credit to an ethanol refinery and a $1 million subsidy to the same ethanol refinery, for example, is that one is distributed by the IRS, the other by another federal agency. There are enough of these subsidies in the tax code that many profitable companies, like Duke Energy, can pay an effective negative tax rate.”

“GE made a contribution of $50,000 to Norquist’s foundation in 2011. Consider that for a moment: GE gave more to Norquist in 2011 than it reportedly paid the IRS for income taxes in 2010, a year the corporation made $14.2 billion in profits.”

Along with personhood comes civic responsibilities, that‘s the understanding in America. But because these obscenely wealthy corporate people know where to donate, they pay nothing in taxes, while the ordinary citizen is scrutinized.

Eliminating tax credits for the corporate people should be in the political debt debate, rather than the megaphone over the country’s “spending problem” on social causes. It isn’t just a spending problem, it’s a collection problem. A true budget includes contributions from all, not all from many and nothing from a few.

Republicans realize their goal

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former Congressional Budget Office director was interviewed on the PBSNewsHour and said, “It’s been noted for 10 years by the CBO among others that we cannot grow our way out of this, we can't tax our way out of this. It's an entitlement spending problem that has to be brought under control.”

If this has been noted for the past ten years, then that brings us back to the Bush years when deficits resulting from tax cuts didn’t matter. The point of tax cuts was to shrink government, a decades old Republican ideology promoted throughout the sixties and seventies by economists like Milton Friedman. Reduce taxes, reduce government and let the free market reign. Doing so will being economic harmony and success for the country.

After decades of letting the “free market reign” with tax cuts and sub prime junk bonds wrecking the economy, now, the new scapegoat on the block is: it’s the “people” and their entitlement programs causing all the budget woes.

Focusing solely on cutting entitlement programs blinds them from focusing on jobs creation. So far, the only action Republicans have taken on creating jobs, has been tax cuts for the filthy rich “jobs creators” with very few protections for the workers. Has anyone given any thought to the long term damage high unemployment will bring to the future?

High unemployment is a concern for the Federal Reserve, the central Bank. Maybe the bankers, the real money people, understand high unemployment is the biggest threat to the future, not “entitlement spending”.

Banks and corporations are sitting on trillions, refusing to invest in the future, while billionaires like hedge funder Pete Peterson peddle propaganda to convince a majority that economic salvation is not through jobs, but cuts in Social Security. The real objective behind their focus on the “entitlement spending problem” is the elimination of Social Security; which has been a Republican goal since the Reagan era.