Watch Out Patriots, The Conservative Wall Street Plutocrats Are Coming After Your Pension

Watch Out Patriots, The Conservative Wall Street Plutocrats Are Coming After Your Pension

Lips are smacking on Wall Street. Today’s tasty treat? The pensions of hard-working people across America. Financial hustlers have been working overtime to convince the population that we are in the midst of an “unfunded liability crisis” in which states and cities can no longer afford to pay pensions to public workers. Here’s the truth: Wall Street predators have had their hands in the pension cookie jar for decades, and now they’re poised to gobble up the retirements of teachers and firefighters in yet another orgy of greed.

Unknown to much of the public, Wall Street has been soaking state and municipal coffers with derivatives schemes and various frauds for years [3]. As Alexander Arapoglou and Jerri-Lynn Scofield have explained, not only have Wall Street banks screwed public finances with fancy credit default swaps and other "innovative" financial products that blow up in the faces of cities and states, they have also been engaged in widespread frauds that squeeze pension yields. This happened in the LIBOR rate-rigging scandal [4], in which big banks were found to be manipulating interest rates, which has resulted in lower returns on pension fund investments and has caused shortfalls in pension plans. The lack of actions from authorities means this kind of hustling will surely continue.

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi has just published an article [5] outlining how this gigantic heist is going down. While Wall Street has been on its scam-a-licious rampage, no-good politicians have been taking taxpayer money meant for pensions and spending it on whatever they wanted, depleting funds. (This is actually securities fraud, but the nearly toothless SEC has barely lifted a finger to address it.) Even so, pensions were still in fairly decent shape when the crash of 2008 came and wrecked budgets across America. The Wall Street-driven financial crisis crushed state and local revenues, and the financiers decided this was the perfect moment to dive in for yet another helping of public money by seizing control of public pensions.

In Taibbi’s colorful words: “This is the third act in an improbable triple-fucking of ordinary people that Wall Street is seeking to pull off as a shocker epilogue to the crisis era.”

Wall Street has plenty of politicians in its pockets to grease the wheels. Taibbi hones in on the notorious example of Rhode Island treasurer Gina Raimondo, a former venture capitalist who made the war against pensions her raison d’etre and handed over a billion in pension funds to hedge funds that could charge the strapped state boatloads of hidden fees to manage them. Firms like Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital, along with predators like billionaire John Arnolds, formerly of Enron, are overwhelmed with joy and have filled Raimondo’s coffers for a 2014 gubernatorial run. They know a good thing when they see it.

Wall Street’s PR message? The country’s financial woes were the fault of hard-working elementary school teachers and cops. It’s an audacious, shockingly cynical lie, but with enough money thrown behind it, the lie has spread like a cancer through the media and the political world. Rapacious bankers have successfully pitted private sector workers who have been losing their pensions against public sector folks who were still hanging on to theirs—a tried and true divide-and-conquer tactic that means big money for criminal banksters.

The villains who have helped spread this lie include the folks at Pew Charitable Trusts, an organization known for its centrism and number-crunching. Starting in 2007, Pew started rolling out studies suggesting that pensions were unsustainable, and found an eager accomplice in the form of noxious billionaire John Arnold, a right-winger and former Enron commodities trader who, as Taibbi reports, was “helping himself to an $8 million bonus while the company's pension fund was vaporizing.”

Arnold created a foundation named after himself to focus on “reforming” pensions, and got some big-name Republicans and Tea Partiers, like Dick Armey and Orrin Hatch, to get the game going. “Arnold and Pew struck up a relationship,” writes Taibbi, “and both have since been proselytizing pension reform all over America, including California, Florida, Kansas, Arizona, Kentucky and Montana.” Over and over, they cited an “unfunded liability crisis” conveniently overlooking the glaring fact that the financial crisis and various Wall Street investment schemes are the reason states and cities are having a hard time paying workers what they were owed. They pretend the problem is that worker pensions are too expensive—a big fat whopper that blames the victims of Wall Street’s own shenanigans.

Meanwhile, hedge funds continue to take over state pension funds with guarantees that their fees and hustling will be kept hidden from the public, all the while delivering underperforming returns on shitty investments. (Now it becomes clear why Wall Street had a massive freak-out at the idea that Eliot Spitzer, who understands their tricks, was nearly put in charge of managing New York City’s pensions in his recent run for comptroller.)

As Taibbi correctly concludes, the "unfunded liability" is largely a fiction. There are legitimate issues with pensions, “but the idea that these benefit packages are causing the fiscal crises in our states is almost entirely a fabrication crafted by the very people who actually caused the problem.”

And let’s just add a final twist to this tortuous story: Even if you’re not a public sector worker, Wall Street is determined to get its hands on your retirement, too, and it has got politicians in Washington, including President Obama, talking about cuts to Social Security [6] in the name of a phony debt ceiling crisis. It's the wet dream of Wall Street to weaken Social Security and take hold of American retirement money so that scam artists can charge outrageous fees and continue their rampage of thievery against people who work hard serving their communities and simply want to retire with some modicum of dignity.

To be fair president Obama has offered the possibility of making future increase in Social Security tied to an inflation mechanism called chained  CPI. While probably not a good idea since it fails to take into account prices for some items that cannot be bought at discount or have generic substitutes, it is not thief. The rest is the usual story - anything, any kind of greed, abhorrent behavior is OK for Wall Street because they're doing it in the name of capitalism. They're giving capitalism a really bad reputation at this point since it seems to mean stealing from the middle-class and working poor to give to millionaires..

Patriotic American Veterans and Seniors have No Reason To Support The Radical Conservative Agenda

Patriotic American Seniors have No Reason To Support The Radical Conservative Agenda

Heritage Foundation president and former Senator Jim DeMint suggested to a town hall audience in Wilmington, Delaware, Thursday that health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid are “un-American” and built on the principles of “socialism and collectivism.”

“I cannot think of anything that’s more un-American than national government-run health care,” DeMint said. “Those who believe in those principles of socialism and collectivism we’ve seen over the centuries, they see as their holy grail taking control of the health care system.”

Though DeMint was referring specifically to the Affordable Care Act, a law the Heritage Foundation is urging Congress to defund in next month’s continuing resolution, his comments could also apply to existing programs that have more direct government involvement than the ACA.

While the federal government does establish the rules and guidelines private insurers must follow in offering coverage for the uninsured though reform and directly finances insurance expansion for lower-income Americans who are eligible for Medicaid — often by contracting with private insurers — numerous other popular government programs like Medicare, the Veterans Health Administration and even the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP) (which DeMint himself relied on for health care coverage as a member of the Senate) are operated by the government.

Public health comprises more than 40 percent [2] of the nation’s health care spending and that percentage will remain stable [3] as the Affordable Care Act is implemented. By 2014,“private health insurance is anticipated to account forroughly 31 percent [4]of national health spending, or about the same share as was expected without enactment of the Affordable Care Act,” actuaries at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid estimate.

DeMint warned his town hall audience that the system threatens Americans’ freedoms. “[Health care is] such a personal service, it’s such a big part of the economy,” he said. “If [Democrats] can control that, they can control most areas of our lives.”

Nothing could be more American than Americans taking care of Americans. What is Medicare? It is an insurance program that Americans pay into to help ourselves, our families and our neighbors. And if any kind of public program is anti-American socialism as freaky radical conservative Jim DeMint says, than every veteran who has ever received any benefits from government health care is a socialist. Why can't seniors, vets and the disabled pay their own way. Well, the fact is they do. One way or another they contribute money, work or economic activity to the system, run by and for the people. What could be more democratic about that. DeMint and the increasingly radical conservative movement are preaching a dangerous UnAmerican philosophy called social-darwinism. It is time to stop being fooled by conservative doubletalk that wraps deeply radical UnAmerican ideas in the flag and the Bible.

This Week's Links For True Blue Patriots

This Week's Links For True Blue Patriots

Good News: Gilberton Police Chief  and Neo-Confederate Conservative Mark Kessler Suspended Indefinitely

 GOP’s destructive grifter: Super Conservative America Hater Jim DeMint peddles political poison - Republicans are starting to realize that Jim DeMint's “Defund Obamacare” campaign is all about funding his empire

National Right to Kill Children member and draft dodging America hater Ted Nugent: Great Society "Responsible For More Destruction To Black America" Than Slavery, KKK

In fact, the President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society initiative -- which included Medicare, Medicaid and a variety of other anti-poverty programs -- was responsible for significant and lasting reductions in poverty. As Washington Post reporter Dylan Matthews noted, "the best evidence indicates that the War on Poverty made a real and lasting difference"

Health Insurance "Coverage Gap" Coming to a Red State Near You

Roughly 260 million Americans (roughly 85 percent) already have health insurance provided by their employers, the government or through individual policies they purchased. In places like Oregon, Colorado, New York, California and other, mostly Democratic states, governors and state legislators accepted the expansion of Medicaid to provide free health insurance for those earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty (FPL). For those earning between 138 and 400 percent of the FPL, the Affordable Care Act's subsidies will help them purchase insurance in the private market. But in the states where Republicans said "no" to the expansion of Medicaid, the picture is much different. As the AP explained the coverage gap:

    Nearly 2 in 3 uninsured people who would qualify for health coverage under an expansion of Medicaid live in states which won't broaden the program or have not yet decided on expansion.

The resulting Republican body count is staggering. Thanks to the GOP's rejection of Medicaid expansion, 1.3 million people in Texas, 1 million in Florida, 534,000 in Georgia and 267,000 in Missouri will be ensnared in the coverage gap.

How can this be, the conservative movement claims to be pro-life. It truns out they mean they only care about clumps of cells.

National Public Radio, which the wacky conservative movement claims has a pro-American liberal bias, Pushes Myth That Raising Minimum Wage Would Kill Jobs. These large corporations are making historic profits and paying their executives historically high wages and bonuses. They could pay themselves something reasonable for not doing much except seating at a desk and going to meetings, take the money saved and pay it to the people who do the actual work that makes these companies have a profit.

In Effort To Woo Female Voters, The UnAmerican plastic patriot from Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell(R) Touts Women’s Law He Voted Against

Wacky Conservative David Marsters of Sabattus, Maine Has a Mouth But No Brain or American Values

Wacky Conservative David Marsters of Sabattus, Maine Has a Mouth But No Brain or American Values

David Marsters, a conservative candidate for a town position in Sabattus, Maine, was surprised by a visit from the Secret Service after he posted an article on his Facebook about President Obama along with the words “Shoot the ni**er.” But even after the Secret Service visit, Marsters continues to defend his comment as freedom of speech — although he deleted the original posting.

“[They] didn’t see no pictures of Obama with bullet holes in his head,” Marsters said. “It’s not a threatening statement, in my opinion. People take it out of context as a threat.” Marsters maintains his comment isn’t racist, because “white people are ni**ers, too.” In addition to subscribing to the conspiracy that Obama faked his birth certificate, Marsters has pushed for a town law to require a gun in every house.

Marsters told the Bangor Daily News that he is worried Obamacare will take his and his wife Mary’s health insurance away at a time she has been in and out of the hospital. “I’m pissed off at the system, OK,” he said. “We’re about to lose our benefits because of this asshole.”

Losing spousal insurance is a common myth about Obamacare. For example, the headlines blamed Obamacare when UPS recently announced it would cut 15,000 spouses of employees from insurance coverage. However, experts note that Obamacare simply provides an excuse for UPS to cut its overall health costs. Indeed, this type of cost-shifting was a trend long before Obamacare became law. UPS’ move actually only affects spouses who have jobs that provide coverage, which will become more common when Obamacare fully kicks in.

The health care law, in fact, is good news for Marsters’ wife. If either did lose insurance, they would be able to purchase individual plans on the statewide market, while subsidies could help reduce the cost. And because of Obamacare, insurance companies cannot discriminate based on Mary or Marsters’ pre-existing conditions.

Despite the vitriol surrounding the law, its individual provisions are actually quite popular among conservatives. Yet sometimes they only realize how Obamacare protects them when they or loved ones fall ill.

American values like honor and truth, like the rest of the fake birth certificates freaks, David Marsters will have none of that. he believes he and his wife are going to lose their medical benefits. Some people still believe the earth and flat and the flat earthers claim they can prove it. Marsters is not mentally capable of comprehending the truth so how is that he feels he can rant and wave with any integrity. he looks to be of retirement age - it would not surprise me if he and his wife were getting liberal government benefits like Medicare or Medicaid. Dave? Do you know what the words lying two faced hypocrite mean?

Note that of hundreds of lawsuit claiming that Obama's birth certificate is a fake, the freaks who have brought those law suits have lost every time. Even the Supreme Court with a conservative majority will not hear appeals because nut cases like Marsters have no evidence. making stuff up is not evidence.

For Americans Who Need a Job, Conservatives Are Enemy Number One

For Americans Who Need a Job, Conservatives Are Enemy Number One

The August congressional recess is here, and many members of Congress will head home and touch base with their constituents. Some will have town halls. Others might conclude: better not.

Especially if you’re a House Republican. Because then you might have to answer: What have you been doing instead of trying to create jobs?

Two months ago, MSNBC’s Ari Melber tallied up [3] all 183 bills the House Republican leadership put on the floor, and found only one had anything to do with creating jobs. [3]And that was a bill to force the President to approve a single oil pipeline project that would create a few thousand jobs.

What’s happened since?

No jobs bills have been voted on that were serious attempts at reaching the president’s desk.

The most significant “jobs” bill was another attack at the President’s energy policies, this one challenging the President’s temerity to have tighter regulations on coastal oil drilling since the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill. House Republicans claimed [4] their bill expanding coastal drilling would create 1.2 million jobs … over an unspecified time period. And that flimsy statistic came from an oil industry-backed “institute.” [5]

So House Republicans yet again didn’t try very hard to create any jobs. Surely they must have been busy with more pressing matters, right?

Judge for yourself. Which of these was more important than working with Democrats to create jobs?

* Voting for the 40th time [6] to repeal ObamaCare. (Real Americans love Obamacare)
* Voting to ban nearly all abortions after 20 weeks following conception [7], an explicitly unconstitutional standard that punishes women who need abortions for medical reasons.

* After failing to pass legislation to cut food stamp funding by $20 billion – five times greater than in the Senate version – proposing new legislation to cut food stamps by $40 billion. [8] ( many Americans need food assistance because conservative businesses like McDonalds, Walmart and Hobby Lobby do not pay a living wage)

* Voting to send major regulations – which are issued when the executive branch implements laws enacted by Congress – back to Congress for another vote, effectively nullifying the power of the executive branch to implement laws as designed by our nation’s founders.

Yes, those are the kind of junk bills that made it out of the House, only to be properly ignored by the Senate. That’s why we now have the  “least productive Congress ever [9]“ despite the lingering jobs crisis. That’s what your Republican leadership has been spending its time on, instead of trying to find a middle ground with Democrats on how to create more jobs.

To those Republicans who dare hold a town hall this month to explain this sorry record to their constitutions: Good luck with that.

[1] http://www.ourfuture.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/bill-scher-0
[3] http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/05/29/what-the-do-nothing-congress-has-actually-done/
[4] http://naturalresources.house.gov/legislation/hr2231/
[5] http://www.npr.org/blogs/secretmoney/2008/09/udall_radio_ad.html
[6] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/02/gop-obamacare-vote_n_3695871.html
[7] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/18/house-takes-up-bill-banning-most-abortions-after-20-week-mark/
[8] http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/02/19831109-republicans-to-propose-40-billion-cut-over-decade-to-food-stamps-program?lite
[9] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/07/17/the-least-productive-congress-ever/

 Conservatives have created this fantasy world inside their heads where lazy exploiters for profit like Mitt Romney create jobs, instead of the very basic economic fact that workers with good wages create demand which creates jobs. Obamacare, while it may not be perfect will save the American people billions in health care costs over the next decade - so much for conservatives knowing or caring about saving money. 

America is Being Robbed by the Conservative Nanny State

America is Being Robbed by the Conservative Nanny State

CEOs are legendary for defending their tax paying records, and eager to imply that government is responsible for any of their tax delinquencies. Apple CEO Tim Cook announced, "We pay all the taxes we owe - every single dollar." Whole Foods co-founder John Mackey supported the iPhone maker, saying "It's not Apple's fault that they're seeking to avoid paying taxes. They're not lying, cheating or stealing. They're following the rules that were created by governments. If the government doesn't like the rules, they can change them."

Mackey didn't mention that changing the tax rules is a specialty of big business. As is flouting the tax rules. The following four tales of corporate malfeasance are particularly disturbing.

1. Just 32 companies avoided enough in 2012 taxes to pay the ENTIRE 2013 federal education budget.

In 2012 an Apple executive protested, "We shouldn't be criticized for using Chinese workers. The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need." His comment was somewhat accurate. Half of the companies surveyed by The Chronicle said they couldn't find qualified graduates for positions within their organizations.

Yet one of the major reasons for job-unpreparedness is quietly ignored by the big companies, just as their taxes are. A Pay Up Now analysis of SEC tax filings found that the total 2012 income taxes (federal and foreign) of thirty-two large companies amounted to just 17% of pre-tax worldwide income. The result was the same in 2011. The figures are consistent with a recent analysis of 2010 data by the Government Accountability Office.

The shortfall from the required 35% statutory rate comes to about $72 billion, about the same as the federal education budget for 2013. Apple Corp., the biggest offender by far, avoided more than the combined National Science Foundation and Small Business Administration budgets.

This helps to explain why "the U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need."

2. Bank of America: 82% of Revenue in U.S., $7 billion loss. (But big foreign profits.)

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan once complained that nobody understood "how much good" his employees do. But his company, with a whopping 82% of its 2011-12 revenue in the U.S., declared $7 billion in U.S. losses and $10 billion in foreign profits.

Citigroup is close behind. With 42% of its 2011-12 revenue in North America (almost all U.S.), it declared a $5 billion U.S. loss and a $27 billion foreign profit.

Also scornworthy is Pfizer, which had 40% of its 2011-12 revenues in the U.S., but declared almost $7 billion in U.S. losses to go along with $31 billion in foreign profits. After the SEC questioned Pfizer in 2012 about four straight years of U.S. losses despite large worldwide incomes, the company responded by declaring a fifth straight U.S. loss.

3. Relative to workers' payroll tax, corporate taxes have dropped from $1.00 to 7 cents.

In 1953, as the most productive era in U.S. history was beginning, corporations contributed over a dollar for every 33 cents paid by workers. In 2011, the corporate contribution was about 7 cents for every 33 cents paid by workers.

For those who believe that entitlements are the problem, Urban Institute figures should help them reconsider. The typical two-earner couple making average wages throughout their lifetimes will receive less in Social Security benefits than they paid in. Same for single males. Almost the same for single females.

4. Sales tax on school supplies: 10%. Sales tax on $1,000,000,000,000,000 of financial securities: ZERO.

Estimates of the financial derivatives market vary, from $708 trillion to $1.2 quadrillion to $3 quadrillion to a gazillion. This money is a largely speculative and unproductive figment of the financial fantasy world. But speculative financial activity is so inflationary that the world's total wealth, according to the authors of the Global Wealth Report, has doubled in ten years, from $113 trillion to $223 trillion, and is expected to reach $330 trillion by 2017.

The sales tax on the U.S. portion of a quadrillion dollars of trades? Zero. Only a tiny fee is charged to cover SEC expenses.

"If the government doesn't like the rules, they can change them." Except that the people with the money and the power like the rules just the way they are.
  

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org)

All wealth, as president Lincoln once said, is created by labor. That has not stooped the conservative movement and corporate American from stealing that wealth.

Anti-Freedom Wall Street Journal Recommends That Egypt Gets Itself a Pro Free Market Murderer

Anti-Freedom Wall Street Journal Recommends That Egypt Gets Itself a Pro Free Market Murderer

Wall Street Journal says Egypt needs a Pinochet
The Chilean dictator presided over the torture and murder of thousands, yet still the free-market right revers his name

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial entitled “After the Coup in Cairo”. Its final paragraph contained these words:

Egyptians would be lucky if their new ruling generals turn out to be in the mold of Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, who took over power amid chaos but hired free-market reformers and midwifed a transition to democracy.

Presumably, this means that those who speak for the Wall Street Journal – the editorial was unsigned – think Egypt should think itself lucky if its ruling generals now preside over a 17-year reign of terror. I also take it the WSJ means us to associate two governments removed by generals – the one led by Salvador Allende in Chile and the one led by Mohamed Morsi in Egypt. Islamist, socialist … elected, legitimate … who cares?

Presumably, the WSJ thinks the Egyptians now have 17 years in which to think themselves lucky when any who dissent are tortured with electricity, raped, thrown from planes or – if they’re really lucky – just shot. That’s what happened in Chile after 1973, causing the deaths of between 1,000 and 3,000 people. Around 30,000 were tortured.

This attitude is one of the most dangerous and anti-American ideologies of the conservative movement, that being able to do business and make a profit is a more basic right than democratic republicanism. 

Today's Links For Patriots

The IRS "Scandal" Was A Scam

Monday's revelation that progressive as well as conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status had been singled out for review by the Internal Revenue Service left one pressing question: Why [[then]] did the inspector general's report detailing improper scrutiny only mention conservative groups?

Last night we got the answer: The IG only reported on conservative groups because that's what Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the notoriously partisan chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told him to do.

The Pay of Corporate Executives and Financial Professionals is Evidence of Rent Seeking in Top 1 Percent Incomes. Rent seeking is a kind of modern conservative form of feudalism.

This decision didn't make the headlines, Conservatives on Supreme Court Serve A Legal Blow to Sustainable Development

Conservatives On Supreme Court Steal Voting Rights From Millions of Americans

Wendy Davis Showed Texas' GOP Boys How to Respect Women

Conservative Ohio Thugs Are Using Their State Budget To Try To Restrict Abortion And Redefine Pregnancy. As soon as Ohio governor Kasich grows a uterus he can have dictatorial control of women's bodies.

Where Are The Patriots in Elwood, Indiana A Town That Has Embraced Rape Culture

Where Are The Patriots in Elwood, Indiana A Town That Has Embraced Rape Culture

Several high-profile cases of sexual assault have shown the consequences of rape culture: From Rehtaeh Parsons’ suicide to the Steubenville rape trial, these girls were re-victimized by the harassment and public shaming that followed the sexual assault.

Now, a 14-year-old in Elwood, Indiana who is eight months pregnant faces ongoing harassment simply because her neighborhood sees her as a very young pregnant girl. But a reporter at the Indianapolis Star writes that her town does not know the full story of the 17-year-old boy who physically overpowered her after she told him “no.” On Tuesday, he faces sentencing for three counts of child molestation.

At the same time the girl has encountered vicious public shaming from her community, she and her mother Kristy Green have spoken out because they worry her assailant will walk free in juvenile court:

    “I can’t walk out the door without someone calling me a whore or slut,” the girl said. “I used to have a lot of friends, or people I thought were my friends, but as soon as this happened I just isolated myself.”

    The repeated vandalism incidents at the family’s home — including the words “whore” and “slut” scrawled on the garage doors — were reported to police. But Green said no charges were filed because there were no witnesses to the acts.

    Her daughter also has been the target of mean-spirited rumors and speculation that her pregnancy is the result of promiscuous behavior.


This ordeal is all too common for victims of sexual assault — a reality that affects not just U.S. teens in school, but also pervades military and sports culture. The Chicago Tribune Editorial Board recently noted that “it’s still news when a rape victim stands in front of the cameras to state what ought to be obvious, which is that she has nothing to be ashamed of.”

But the people in Elwood — lacking the details of the rape due to privacy in the juvenile court system — reverted to alienating the teen for her pregnancy because they assumed she must have been “promiscuous.” That’s true for many teen moms across the country, who are often on the receiving end of this stigma precisely at the time they most need support. Public awareness campaigns attempting to prevent teen pregnancy often put inordinate focus on “slut-shaming” abstinence over comprehensive sexual health resources.

A patriotic American town would not allow this kind of harassment to happen. They would form citizen patrols, they'd be finding ways to help that girl and her family. They'd be shaming the rapist, not the victim. Patriots never defend rape and make victims feel like they have done something wrong. Rape culture is part of conservative culture, one that believes, oh well, men will be men.

Wacky Anti-America Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) and Crazy Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) Fight for Corporate Welfare and Corruption of the Army

Wacky Anti-America Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) and Crazy Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) Fight for Corporate Welfare and Corruption of the Army

Congress is forcing the Army to spend nearly half a billion dollars building tanks that Army officials insist they don’t want, with money they say could be better spent elsewhere, according to a new report from the AP.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) are the two members of congress at the helm of the effort to spend $436 million on upgrading the Abrams tank, “a weapon the experts explicitly say is not needed.” The reason? Both represent Ohio, home to the nation’s only tank manufacturing plant, which would profit from the money.

The move is contradictory for the two politicians; both are also vocal advocates for fiscal austerity, and have made careers insisting that the government cut what they see as wasteful spending. It would seem that pushing for tank production against the will of the Army — as Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno put it, “If we had our choice, we would use that money in a different way” — is in direct contradiction to that aim.

Still, Rep. Jordan defended his request for the funding, saying, “The one area where we are supposed to spend taxpayer money is in defense of the country.” This is a common line among Republicans. The House GOP’s proposed budget also seeks to restore funding the military says it doesn’t need.

Indeed, Republicans have tried to maintain defense spending while pushing for cuts to mental health programs, cancer treatment, food safety inspectors, and preschool programs. They have repeatedly ignored or dismissed the assertion from military generals that President Obama’s budget, which would have made targeted cuts to military programs, was an acceptable path to spending reduction.

A cut to one specific program would by no means be a drastic setback for the military; between 2001 and 2011, military spending nearly doubled. American voters, much like the military’s generals, also support scaling back the military’s spending.

So plastic patriots Portman and Jordan want to waste tax dollars. They want to weaken our national defense. They want to go against the best judgment of military experts. yep, sounds like more conservatism in action. Isn't that what conservatism is all about, making America weaker and more corrupt, while wrapping it's dangerous agenda in the flag and fear.

The Freaky Koch Brothers Have Another Bill on Their Anti-American Agenda

The Freaky Koch Brothers Have Another Bill on Their Anti-American Agenda

Will the "Koch Brothers Bill" Make Industrial Accidents More Likely?
Such accidents are all too common in chemical country. So why are congressmen fighting to keep the EPA from doing anything about it?

Last Wednesday’s explosion at a West, Texas, fertilizer plant, which left at least 15 people dead and more than a hundred injured, was made possible by an ultra-lax [1] state- and federal oversight climate that make inspections of such facilities all but a rubber-stamp process—when they even happen. If the chemical lobby and its allies in Congress get their way, a regulatory process dismissed by environmental activists and labor unions as extremely weak would be watered down even more.

In February, 11 congressmen—10 Republicans and 1 Democrat—joined some two dozen [2] industry groups, including the Fertilizer Institute, the American Chemistry Council, and the International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration, to back the General Duty Clarification Act [3]. The bill is designed to sap the Environmental Protection Agency of its powers to regulate safety and security at major chemical sites, as prescribed by the Clean Air Act.

"We call that the Koch brothers bill," Greenpeace legislative director Rick Hind says, because the bill's sponsor, GOP Rep. Mike Pompeo, represents the conservative mega-donors' home city of Wichita. (The sponsor of the sister legislation in the senate, GOP Sen. Pat Roberts, represents the Kochs' home state of Kansas.) The brothers have huge investments in fertilizer production, and Hind thinks they'll ultimately get what they want, whether or not the bill becomes law. "It's not necessarily intended to achieve legislative passage—it's more about intimidation of a beleaguered agency."

The fight over fertilizer and the Clean Air Act has its origins in the passage of the law back in 1990. Although the original bill included language that would have permitted the EPA to regulate the emissions of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide—both of which are important ingredients and fertilizer manufacturing—a fierce lobbying push from the fertilizer industry resulted in the compounds being stricken from the formal list.

The radical Kochs, their supporters and the Congressional representatives they buy off in Congress say they stand for freedom. Ever been sick or known someone who was seriously ill. How free were they. How much could they enjoy their family, their friends or just enjoy being alive. The Koch-heads want to make a lot of people sick, including children, so they ( already billionaires) can make even more money. The Koch-heads have only one god and that is money. They respect nothing else. Maybe they have figured out a way to take all the money they made off the labor of average workers, with them when they die.

The gun lobby often claims that firearms are used for self-defense an estimated 2.5 million times a year. But according to the Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey, the actual number is just a fraction of that:

The NRA or National Right to Murder Association has already blocked Boston Marathon Investigation

The NRA or National Right to Murder and Get Away With It Association has already blocked Boston Marathon Investigation

One avenue of investigation is already closed off to forensic officials working the Boston Marathon bombing case due to efforts dating back decades by the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers.

The FBI said Tuesday that gunpowder, along with pieces of metal and ball bearings, were packed into at least one pressure cooker and another device to make the crude bombs that killed three people—including an 8-year-old boy—and wounded more than 170 more during the Boston Marathon Monday.

But a crucial piece of evidence called a taggant that could be used to trace the gunpowder used in the bombs to a buyer at a point of sale is not available to investigators.

“If you had a good taggant this would be a good thing for this kind of crime. It could help identify the point of manufacturer, and chain of custody,” Bob Morhard, an explosives consultant and chief executive officer of  Zukovich, Morhard & Wade, LLC., in Pennsylvania, who has traced explosives and detonators in use in the United States and Saudi Arabia, told MSNBC.com. “The problem is nobody wants to know what the material is.”

Explosives manufacturers are required to place tracing elements known as identification taggants only in plastic explosives but not in gunpowder, thanks to lobbying efforts by the NRA and large gun manufacturing groups.

NRA officials at the group’s headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia declined to respond to calls and emails from MSNBC.com requesting comment.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation and the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute, Inc., share a cross-membership of dozens of firearms manufacturers based out of their joint offices in Newtown, Connecticut. Foundation spokesman Bill Brassard, Jr. told MSNBC.com that no one from either group was available for comment.

“They are concerned about tort liability,” Morhard added to MSNBC.com, referring to manufacturers worried about being sued over the improper use of their ammunition or explosives.

Has American noticed that the NRA - worried that gov'mint will take away their right to be part of a well "regulated" militia does done nothing to fight for the civil liberties that conservatives regularly take away from Americans in the form of the Patriot Act and other surveillance state activity. The NRA does nothing to keep the gov'mint from entangling itself with religious fanatics. The NRA does nothing to protect the right of individuals to have autonomy over their own body. I could go on, but the point is easily made, the gov'mint that they say they need their guns to protect themselves against, takes away rights that the NRA supports being taken away. I'm not anit-gun ownership, but I am anti-fanatics.

Related to chart above, Conservative Republicans want America to follow European economic austerity

Conservative Libertarians Think Freedom Means Not Having Dominion Over Your Own Body

Conservative Libertarians Think Freedom Means Not Having Dominion Over Your Own Body

The Mercatus Institute, a libertarian-oriented — and Koch brothers-affiliated — think tank based out of George Mason University (a public university, for whatever that’s worth), regularly releases its ranking of American states in terms of “Freedom.” Their definition of “freedom” largely adheres to the standard American libertarian conception of “liberty,” which is to say it is oriented almost entirely around private property ownership and low taxation. As a result, America’s freest state this year turns out to be North Dakota. [2]

North Dakota has also been in the news for another reason recently. What was it, again? Oh, right, it passed the most restrictive antiabortion laws in the country. [3] Including a law specifically aimed at shutting down the state’s lone abortion provider. It passed this lawknowing it was unconstitutional [4].

The data Mercatus used, as far as I can tell, are largely from 2011. But these laws wouldn’t do a thing to change’s North Dakota’s ranking, because Mercatus doesn’t take reproductive rights into account at all. [5] In fact, no issues specifically related to women’s rights are taken into account. Same-sex marriage is included, but not housing employment anti-discrimination rules. They do weigh “‘smoker protection’ in employment,” though. (I think they are in favor of laws barring companies from firing smokers. Isn’t that the government interfering with the employer’s Freedoms?) There is also a list ranking the states in terms offriendliness to Bachelor Parties. [6]

[UPDATE: Mercatus opposes "smoker protection laws" and a state's rank fell if it had them. I apologize for getting that wrong, and assuming the Institute had an inconsistent position. Thank you to Radley Balko [7], whose work I've always sincerely admired, for correcting me and then calling me a hack.

I'd still note that in the report's scoring system [5], "Tobacco Freedom," which is mainly about smoking bans and cigarette taxes, makes up 4.1 percent of a state's "freedom ranking." "Marriage Freedom" is 2.1 percent. Freedom from "Asset Forfeiture" -- a frequently abused [8]police outgrowth of the drug war [9] -- is 0.1 percent, which would seem to indicate that it's included mainly to say that it was included.]

“Economic freedom” is of course their most important freedom, and so it is weighted the heaviest, with fiscal and regulatory matters making up a bit more than two-thirds of each state’s score. Which is how their No. 1 freest state is ranked 39th on the “Civil Liberties” list. Though that list is fairly useless, as their definition of “civil liberties” is “unrelated policies, such as fireworks laws, prostitution laws, and trans-fat bans.” On the list taking into account “incarceration rates, non-drug crime arrests, and drug enforcement,” Freest State North Dakota is at 24. (Second-freest state South Dakota is 48.) And Arizona has climbed to No. 11 on the overall list, because at no point are the rights of immigrants or people whom the police may suspect are immigrants taken into account.

Also fun is their “Right to Work” list [10], where every single state is either tied for first or tied for last. (It should be noted that many libertarians think there’s nothing particularly libertarian about Right to Work laws [11], which are strictly pro-business, not pro-”market.”)

And they made a cartoon.

So this is how the Mercatus Center defines freedom: the right of people with money to keep it all, and for everyone else to fuck off. Almost any Liberty issue that wouldn’t concern a straight, white, male capitalist is wholly ignored.

The Mercatus Center, coincidentally, is run in large part with money from Koch Industries. Charles Koch sits on its board, along with another high-ranking Koch Industries executive. Mercatus is effectively the in-house think tank for the Kochs, providing reports and research that support the ideological aims of the notorious brothers, and their ideological aims usually also support the long-term goal of the Kochs to make as much money for themselves as possible without anyone telling them to “pollute a bit less” or “pay taxes.”

Looking at the list, it’s clear that most Americans have “voted with their feet” and chosen to live primarily in our least free states. Bottoming out the list are California, the second-least free and most populous state, and New York, third in population and dead last in liberty.

I called North Dakota a “fucking shithole” on Twitter earlier, which was unfair of me, because while it is unreasonably, inhospitably freezing cold in much of the state for much of the year (and I say this as someone who grew up one state away) it is, on the whole, a reasonably pretty part of the country full of decent people (unless you are openly gay or transgendered or in need of an abortion obviously). I can more easily figure out why people, indigenous and immigrant, settled there than, say, Phoenix. But there is a reason that fewer people live in all of North Dakota than in Detroit, and there is a reason why the population of North Dakota slowly declined from the 1920s through the end of the 20th century: Not that many people want to live there. People are moving there now because of a natural resources boom (and those always last forever and always create permanent, stable communities, right?) not because North Dakota suddenly became a much nicer place to live, on account of freedom.

New York and California, though, are both super-nice, even though we confiscate more money than North Dakota, and spend it on things like mass transportation (freedom from having to own cars!) and helping people without means get food and healthcare (freedom from dying!). Koch industries co-owner David Koch, for the record, lives in New York City. Though I imagine he and his brother will soon pack up and relocate to sunny, free Grand Forks.

So Conservative-Libertardians think freedom consists about 90% of low taxes, low wages and having their boot on the back of anyone who makes less money. A nation based on that kind of "freedom" is not a democratic republic, it is an authoritarian nightmare.

How Low Can Morally Corrupt Republicans Go, GOP Opposition Researcher Names Drudge As A Propaganda Model

How Low Can Morally Corrupt Republicans Go, GOP Opposition Researcher Names Drudge As A Propaganda Model

The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin interviewed Tim Miller, executive director of a new conservative political action committee centered on opposition research, who reminisced about how conservative operatives successfully used blogger Matt Drudge to push debunked or thinly-researched smears against Democrats in 2004, describing it as a "great model" that needs to be updated.

In a March 24 post at Rubin's "Right Turn" blog, Miller described his organization, America Rising, as being dedicated to the "collection, dissemination and deployment of opposition research against Democrats," and uses Drudge's DrudgeReport.com circa 2004 as a model to return to (emphasis added):

    Last week former Mitt Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades and two young Republican sharpshooters, Tim Miller and Joe Pounder, announced they would set up a new organization, America Rising, devoted to the collection, dissemination and deployment of opposition research against Democrats and a counterpart to the hugely successful American Bridge on the left. On Friday I sat down with Miller and Pounder at a Capitol Hill Starbucks to talk about their new venture.

    They plan on instigating nothing less than a revolution in the way the right does and uses oppo research. They are keen on connecting research to communication and every other aspect of campaigns. Pounder tells me, "It must be responsive to the news cycle and polling." Miller jokes that "research has been people sitting in a dungeon or going through trash cans" and then funneling the information up to a press person to send out in a mass e-mail. Miller says, "Now you have to drive the news cycle."

    The Romney campaign was certainly hobbled by the Democrats' opposition machine, which cranked out information on everything from Bain to Cayman bank accounts, funneled it to friendly press outlets and the Obama super PAC, and kept the Romney team on perpetual defense. But the problem is not specific to the Romney campaign. Miller recalls, "We had a great model in 2004 -- research guys who fed to Drudge. Drudge drove the mainstream media." But, he says, "in a lot of ways we haven't done a good job of updating [that model]. Over time we rested on our laurels."

In 2006, ABC News highlighted Drudge's influence on media, particularly in the 2004 election cycle, saying, "Republican operatives keep an open line to Drudge, often using him to attack their opponents...And then the mainstream media often picks it up."

Drudge did help drive stories to Fox News, right-wing radio and other outlets during the 2004 presidential election, but much of the blogger's content -- which included discredited attacks on John Kerry's military service -- was thinly-researched, deceptively edited, or flat-out wrong.

What does it say about your radical political movement that it's single biggest weapon is not truth, not American values, not legal or economic justice, not liberty, not the Constitution, not progress and jobs, but smears from mentally unstable ideologues.

Rand Paul(R-TN) Exploits Drones Grandstanding With Fake Fundraising Letter

Rand Paul(R-TN) Exploits Drones Grandstanding With Fake Fundraising Letter

Though foes of drones on the right and left cheered Sen. Rand Paul's filibuster this week, with the tea partier delaying confirmation of CIA director John Brennan for a day, Paul's rant targeted a nonexistent dispute: whether or not Obama administration officials believed they could use drones (or other weapons) to kill American citizens within the borders of the United States without due process. Take away all Paul's hyped-up hysteria—watch out, Jane Fonda!—and he didn't truly disagree with the administration's position that in an extraordinary circumstance, such as an ongoing terrorist attack, the US government can deploy lethal force against evildoers who happen to be American citizens. So why did Paul go ballistic? Here's a clue: The day after he ended one of the longest filibusters in US history, he tried to cash in on his stunt by zapping out a fundamentally inaccurate fundraising email for his 2016 reelection campaign.

The note begins:

    Dear Patriot,

    My 13-hour filibuster yesterday is being called one of the longest in U.S. history.

    I had been trying for more than a week to get a straight answer on whether or not the Obama administration believed it had the authority to use drones to target and kill American citizens on American soil – without due process.

    And after receiving a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder claiming they DO have that authority, I could no longer sit silently at my desk in the U.S. Senate.

    So I stood for thirteen-straight hours to send a message to the Obama administration, I will do everything in my power to fight their attempts to ignore the Constitution!

    Millions of Americans chose to stand with me and put President Obama, Attorney General Holder, and Congress in the spotlight...

    And the good news is, it worked!

    Just hours ago, I received a letter from Attorney General Holder declaring the President DOES NOT have the authority to use drones to kill Americans on U.S. soil.

    Patriot, this shows what we can do when stand together and fight.

    So won't you help me continue the fight to protect our Constitutional liberties today?

This is a false account. In his first letter to Paul, Holder noted the obvious: If the United States were under attack from within, the president might have to order the use of lethal military force within the territory of the United States. This is how Holder put it:

    [T]he US government has not carried out drone strikes in the United States and has no intention of doing so. As a policy matter moreover, we reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat…The question you have posed is therefore entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no president will ever have to confront. It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States. For example, the president could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances like a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001.

Consider a Mumbai-style attack on Washington, DC; as the assault is under way perhaps military force—with or without drones—might be used against the perpetrators, which could include terrorists holding American citizenship. In fact, during his filibuster, Paul conceded the point: "Nobody questions if planes are flying towards the Twin Towers whether they can be repulsed by the military. Nobody questions whether a terrorist with a rocket launcher or a grenade launcher is attacking us, whether they can be repelled."

So just as he did on the Senate floor, in this email, Paul is ginning up a quarrel that did not exist. Then the give-me-money note goes on to claim that due to Paul's heroic filibuster, Holder wrote a second note to the senator stating the president cannot use drones to kill Americans on US soil. That's wrong.

On Thursday, Holder sent Paul a curt two-sentence letter:

    It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: "Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?" The answer to that question is no.

Funny how Paul was an anti-Iraq invasion conservative-libertarian, yet uses the same mentality to juice up his wacko supporters and their endless paranoia. Tomorrow it will be Chinese military hiding  int eh sewers of new York waiting directions to invade America from below. Is there such a thing as a conservative who is not one part wacky and one part evil.

Lessons For Real Patriots From the Sufferin’ Suffragettes

Lessons For Real Patriots From the Sufferin’ Suffragettes

One hundred years ago today was the watershed 1913 women’s suffrage march in Washington, D.C. Plus, Friday is International Women’s Day. It’s therefore the perfect moment to reflect on the strategies and tactics of several generations of amazing women.

We all know that the suffragettes won in the end by securing the vote for U.S. women in 1920. But to stop with that fact is to miss the phenomenal, inspirational, often nail-biting and groundbreaking campaign that preceded their win, as well as the lessons they have for activists today.

Before telephones, before TV, before the web, these women mobilized masses of people in a widespread and colorful campaign. Their successful tactics continue to shape campaigns today, even if many organizers have no idea where those tactics originated. But no, this couldn’t possibly be because of the suffragettes’ gender and the utter lack of historical study on women’s issues until just a few decades ago… hmmm.

First of all, it was huge

Modern history often gives the impression that suffrage was given to women by men under pressure from some small group of marginalized female activists. Of course, there was a committed core organizing crew, but that account is far from what really went down.

In the late 1800s, moderate activists, such as those in the National American Woman Suffrage Association, chose to frame voting rights as a natural extension of what was then considered appropriate for women so as not to alienate potential supporters. Rather than diminishing men’s role, they argued that women needed the vote to fulfill their role as nurturers, holders of morality, keepers of culture, the heart of the household. As mothers and guardians who were considered to be more in touch with morality than men, women were positioned to call out corruption and hold the all-male politicians accountable. “Politics is housekeeping on a grand scale,” Jane Addams said at the time.

The mainstream nature of the wider movement is displayed in lines from a banner carried in the parade before the 1916 Republican National Convention: “For the safety of the Nation / To the Women Give the Vote / For the hand that Rocks the Cradle / Will Never Rock the Boat!” Do you think they really meant that, or was it just brilliant PR outreach? Either way, before SignOn.org, Twitter or Facebook, these women collected more than a million signatures in pen and ink, all through hand-to-hand contact, and displayed them as they marched down Fifth Avenue in New York with 20,000 supporters and an estimated half-million people in the crowd in 1917. That’s quite a petition-delivery!

....To push the vote in New York state in 1912, there was a 12-day, 170 mile “Hike to Albany”; the next year, the suffragist “Army of the Hudson” completed a 225-mile walk from New Jersey to Washington, D.C. These physical stunts were part of the ”new womanhood” that showcased active, fit women in the public sphere to undermine any thoughts of women’s inferiority, physically or politically. At the time, astute writers commented that this kind of public work generated millions of dollars in free publicity for the movement, as well as immense outreach opportunities.

The militant National Women’s Party took this another step further with the first-ever picket of the White House. The “Silent Sentinels” and their banners were present every day from Jan. 10, 1917, to June of 1919 — except on Sundays. More than a thousand women participated over this period. Many were arrested, were refused bail and served time in horrendous conditions of solitary confinement, where they experienced beatings and force-feeding when they went on hunger strikes. Outrage at the treatment of women activists in prison built sympathy for the suffragette cause. Also, the first arrests at the White House were eventually found illegal, which helped ensure the right to protest there to this day.

In the 19th century, political parades and pageants were common in U.S. communities — for local celebrations, temperance marches or presidential campaigns passing through town. Suffragists held parades as early as 1906, beginning in California. This practice reached its peak exactly a century ago with what The New York Times called “one of the most impressively beautiful spectacles ever staged in this country.” This 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession was reported to include nine bands, four mounted brigades, three heralds, about 24 floats and more than 5,000 marchers.

The march concluded at the Department of the Treasury steps with 100 women and children staging a vision of a shining future along with Justice, Liberty, Charity, Peace and Hope personified by women in flowing classical dresses and trumpets blaring. The now-famous image from this march is of a young beautiful woman in white robes on horseback, in a not-so-closeted, militant nod to Joan of Arc. Wow.

Lawyer Inez Boissevain, wearing white cape, seated on white horse at the National American Woman Suffrage Association parade on March 3, 1913, in Washington, D.C. (Wikipedia/George Grantham Bain Collection)Their spectrum of tactics included hotter actions, too. At one point in 1919, President Wilson was burnt in effigy in front of the White House, pitting the petticoats against the bluecoats. Wildly spewing fire extinguishers were unable to prevent the burning of the four-foot-tall cardboard Wilson. (There were about 50 arrests that day.) The suffragettes used flames again when they set “watchfires” outside the New York City opera house while Wilson was speaking there. Activists transcribed his words as he spoke them and then publicly burned the paper in public fires outside — thus condemning the hypocrisy of his words about international freedom while women were denied suffrage at home. These protests kindled more support for the women, who were steadfast, innovative and organized. They left the police looking disorganized and foolish, along with anti-suffrage minions.

Many of the media stunts were timed just right — famously, President-elect Wilson arrived in Washington the day before he was to be inaugurated to empty streets, as the masses in town all were drawn to the Woman Suffrage Procession. Of course, that meant that there were many hostile observers who had come just for the next day’s inauguration — about 100 marchers landed in the hospital — but the riotous swarm and the resulting publicity led to more momentum for the campaign.

It worked on many levels

Generations of American suffragettes were brave, tenacious, dedicated and incredibly talented nonviolent warriors and leaders — from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Alice Paul. Their tactics and strategies have become such an integral part of our nation’s repertoire of civil resistance that we often take them for granted.

Not only were the events innovative, courageous and spectacular, but they were intentionally executed to get attention in the media of the day — newspaper and radio, as well as early motion pictures. Some participants in the 1917 New York march recorded one-minute speeches on early Kinetophone cylinder recordings that were then played to audiences in Vaudeville houses — an ancestor of YouTube, perhaps? Ubiquitous media coverage, whether positive or negative, succeeded in helping educate and convert the public into supporters of women’s suffrage.

This list of suffragette activities and accomplishments could go on and on. For instance, they were not afraid to lobby (which they did for decades, alongside more militant actions), and they didn’t shy from political campaigns, either. They were not only the first to picket the White House, but they were also the first to hold a funeral as both a political event and a memorial in the Capitol building — to Inez Millholland (famous for her role in leading the 1913 parade on the white horse). And, finally, they were well aware that effective activism meant making the personal political; the straw that finally broke the camel’s back and enabled the passage of the 19th Amendment, granting suffrage to America’s women, was the vote cast by a young lawmaker swayed by his mother’s note: “Hurray and vote for suffrage… don’t forget to be a good boy!”

Progress doesn't just happen because you write a blog or even have your own radio program or a propaganda channel dedicated to conservatism like Fox News and CNN. Progress can be frustratingly slow. Never give up, even if you only make a tiny step forward in a year. That is a fight won for the next American and a step further down the road to America living up to it's ideals and not down to the base malevolence of conservatism.

Anti-American Oklahoma Conservatives Turn The State Into The New Soviet Union

Welcome to Oklahoma, Otherwise Known as The New Soviet Union of The Midwest, May Deny Women Affordable Birth Control Because It ‘Poisons Their Bodies’

Oklahoma already prevents women from using their insurance plans to help cover abortion services, but Republicans aren’t stopping there. One state lawmaker wants to continue stripping insurance coverage for reproductive health services, advancing a measure that would allow employers to refuse to cover birth control for any reason — based solely on the fact that one of his constituents believes it “poisons women’s bodies.”

Under State Sen. Clark Jolley (R)’s measure, “no employer shall be required to provide or pay for any benefit or service related to abortion or contraception through the provision of health insurance to his or her employees.” According to the Tulsa World, Jolley’s inspiration for his bill came from one of his male constituents who is morally opposed to birth control, and wanted to find a small group insurance plan for himself and his family that didn’t include coverage for those services:

    Jolley said the measure is the result of a request from a constituent, Dr. Dominic Pedulla, an Oklahoma City cardiologist who describes himself as a natural family planning medical consultant and women’s health researcher. [...]

    Women are worse off with contraception because it suppresses and disables who they are, Pedulla said.

    “Part of their identity is the potential to be a mother,” Pedulla said. “They are being asked to suppress and radically contradict part of their own identity, and if that wasn’t bad enough, they are being asked to poison their bodies.”

The bill has already cleared a Senate Health committee and now makes it way to Oklahoma’s full Senate. It is unlikely that either Jolley and Pedulla themselves rely on insurance coverage for hormonal contraceptive services — but if the measure becomes law, the two men could limit the health insurance options for the nearly two million women who live in Oklahoma.

Of course, contraception does not actually poison women. The FDA approved the first oral birth control pill in 1960, and that type of contraception is so safe that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends making it available without a prescription, as it is in most other countries around the world. Furthermore, considering that over 99 percent of women of reproductive age have used some form of birth control, the Oklahoma women who rely on insurance coverage for their contraception would likely disagree with Pedulla’s assertion that it “suppresses and radically contradicts part of their own identity.”

In reality, access to affordable birth control is a critical economic issue for women. When women have control over their reproductive choices, it allows them to achieve economic goals like completing their education, becoming financially independent, or keeping a job. But birth control can carry high out-of-pocket costs, and over half of young women say they haven’t used their contraceptive method as directed because of cost prohibitions. Nonetheless, Republican lawmakers have repeatedly pushed measures to allow employers to drop coverage for birth control.

Conservatives consulting doctors who believe in voodoo medicine to create laws to tyrannize women - much like every dictatorship of the last hundred years, including the old Soviet Union and Iran. Conservatims is a tyrannical phisophy that hides about sloganeering about freedom, values and small gov'mint. Most Americans are catching on to the fact that Conservatives are against freedom, genuine values and small government.