Bad Deeds for 7-7-2011

 

Republican: Only Millionaires “Actually Worked Hard” – Why are Republicans so intent on protecting the top .03 percent of Minnesotans from paying any increase in taxes, preferring instead to cut health care services for the poor, the sick and the elderly? According to Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer, the former Secretary of State under Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty, the state really doesn’t need revenue, it just wants to punish rich people. “It’s not about revenue,” Kiffmeyer said. “It’s about a tax increase, because they want to go after those who’ve actually worked hard.”

Those who’ve actually worked hard? For the GOP, the single mother holding down two jobs to try and make enough to pay her rent and still manage to bring home some food for her family doesn’t work hard? The middle class family who is losing their house because of an unexpected layoff and who found a new job but no longer has health insurance and must pay individual premiums out of pocket doesn’t work hard?

No, for the Republican party, the only proof that you “actually work hard” is if you bring over $1 million a year in earnings (running a hedge fund, doing leveraged buyouts, or foreclosing on homes). And if you do, you deserve all the protection the Republican party can offer.

 

Michele Bachmann Denounces Medicaid While Her Husband Got $137,000 in Medicaid Funds – While Rep. Michele Bachmann has forcefully denounced the Medicaid program for swelling the “welfare rolls,” the mental health clinic run by her husband has been collecting annual Medicaid payments totaling over $137,000 for the treatment of patients since 2005. The previously unreported payments are on top of the $24,000 in federal and state funds that Bachmann & Associates received in recent years under a state grant to train its employees, state records show.

Questions about the Bachmann family’s receipt of government funds arose this week after a Los Angeles Times story reported that a family farm in which Michelle Bachmann is a partner had received nearly $260,000 in federal farm subsidies.

When asked by anchor Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” about the story’s assertion that her husband’s counseling clinic had also gotten federal and state funds, Bachmann replied that it was “one-time training money that came from the federal government. And it certainly didn’t help our clinic.”

At another point, she said, “My husband and I did not get the money,” adding that it was “mental health training money that went to the employees.” But state records show that Bachmann & Associates has been collecting payments under the Minnesota’s Medicaid program every year for the past six years.

 

Reaching the Debt Ceiling Could Wipe Out Two Years of American Families’ 401K Gains and Reduce Jobs – Testifying before a Congressional committee on Thursday, economist Heather Boushey said that reaching the debt ceiling could trigger a stock market plunge that would wipe out nearly two years of 401(k) gains.

“Reaching the debt ceiling will, in all likelihood, trigger a sharp fall in the stock market, which also will likely reduce employment,” Boushey told the Congressional Democratic Policy and Steering Committee.

 

Republican Party Threatening To ‘Blow Your Brains Out’ Over Debt Ceiling According to Warren Buffet – Republicans are playing a dangerous game by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, according to Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. “We raised the debt ceiling seven times during the Bush Administration,” Buffett told CNBC on Thursday. Now, the Republican-controlled Congress is “trying to use the incentive now that we’re going to blow your brains out, America, in terms of your debt worthiness over time.” In May, Buffett stated at a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder’s meeting that if the Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling, it would constitute “the most asinine act” in the nation’s history.

 

Senate Bill Would Erode Our Liberties – Senate Bill S.1253, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA), includes several dangerous provisions that would erode our civil liberties by giving the military expanded powers to investigate and detain civilians both abroad and inside the United States. If enacted in its current form, sections 1031, 1032 and 1036 of the NDAA bill would:

Explicitly authorize the federal government to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial civilians arrested within the United States itself, including some U.S. citizens.
Mandate military detention of some civilians who would otherwise be outside of military control, including suspects arrested within the United States itself.

Transfer to the Department of Defense core prosecutorial, investigative, law enforcement, penal, and custodial authority and responsibility now held by the Department of Justice.

We need a full public examination of these dangerous measures before this bill reaches the Senate floor.

 

Latest Republican Thinking About Running for President: White Supremacist David Duke – Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke is launching a 25 state tour to drum up support for a presidential run, according to the The Daily Beast. While the presidential hopeful claims his views have evolved, he recently described himself as a “white civil rights advocate” to The Daily Beast’s Eve Conant. Duke last held office in 1992, when he served as a state representative in Louisana. Until 2000, he was Republican executive-committee chairman in his district.

“David Duke is launching a Duke for President exploratory committee, and will soon start a year long tour across America from his home base in Mandeville, LA,” Duke’s website claimed last year. “He plans to speak in every state and gauge the political response to his possible entry into the race for the Republican nomination.”

“Over the past few weeks, since the release of his, ‘David Duke Speaks to the Tea Party’ video, thousands of Tea Party activists have urged him to run for President.”

 

Rupert Murdoch’s Paper for Hacked Phones of Relatives of British Soldiers Killed in Action – A scandal rocking Rupert Murdoch’s media empire deepened on Thursday with claims his News of the World paper hacked the phones of relatives of British soldiers killed in action. The main accusations are that journalists, or their hired investigators, took advantage of often limited security on mobile phone voicemail boxes to listen in to messages left for celebrities, politicians or people involved in major stories. Disclosure that the practice involved victims of crime came when police said a private detective working for the News of the World in 2002 hacked into messages left on the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler while police were still looking for her. The Murdoch empire includes Fox television and the Wall Street Journal in the United States as well as four British newspapers, the second-largest British broadcaster and a monopoly on film rights and first-view movies.

 

Chase Bank Should be Chased Out of Town for This – Ikenna [Njoku], a 28-year old construction worker, went to deposit a $8,463.21 Chase cashier’s check at his local Chase branch, only for the teller to decide that neither he nor his check looked right and he got tossed in jail for forgery, KING 5 reports. The next day, a Friday, the bank realized its mistake and left a message with the detective. But it was her day off, so he spent the entire weekend in jail.

By the time he got out, he had been fired from his job for not showing up to work. His car had been towed as well. It ended up getting sold off at auction because he couldn’t afford to get it out of the pound. He had been relying on that cashier’s check for his money but it was taken as evidence and by the time he got it back it was auctioned off.

All this while the cashier’s check had been issued by the very bank he was trying to cash it at.

Chase didn’t even apologize, not even after a year. A lawyer volunteered to help write a strongly-worded letter requesting damages. After trying hard to get a response, they sent KING 5 a two-sentence reply: “We received the letter and are reviewing the situation. We’ll be reaching out to the customer.”

 

A Thought …

Never in history has cutting taxes resulted in an increase in jobs. The problem now is there is little consumer demand. Corporations have a lot of money now but they are not expanding due to no demand. How would giving corporations more money increase consumer demand?

We, the American taxpayers, have put a ton of resources on the table, creating a stable and highly productive environment for business people. They’re benefiting from our public schools, our roads, our courts and so much more that America provides to help them succeed. But they aren’t paying us — their real anchor investors — back. Simply put, it’s unpatriotic. “Those who do well IN America, should do well BY America.”

Instead we just keep seeing more tax shelters, tax breaks, and tax loopholes. Now some of these folks are even willing to put our entire country’s financial future at risk by using the debt ceiling crisis to push for more cuts to critical government programs—while refusing to consider closing some of those loopholes or raising tax rates on the wealthy.

This has to stop. You have to make it stop.

Regards,

Jim

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. – John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, January 20, 1961, 35th president of US 1961-1963 (1917 – 1963)