25 Republicans Who Supported O'BamaCares Before O'Bama

Here.

Tuesday's Stuff

Well, not treason, but in prison still.

Utah Welfare Drug Testing Results Find Only 12 Drug Users at Cost of Over $30,000

Fiscal conservatives have done it again, proving how their values of saving money do exactly the opposite – at least for the taxpayers.

Read more: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/08/26/utah-welfare-drug-testing-results-find-only-12-drug-users-at-cost-of-over-30000/#ixzz2dC0VVXSq

This 1 Chart Shows Why Social Security Is So Important

With Washington leaders continuously debating the future of Social Security, it can be easy to forget just how important the program has become to retired Americans.

The truth is that the bottom 80 percent of Americans have stashed little away in retirement savings programs, like 401(k)s and Roth IRAs. As a result, most Americans rely largely on Social Security for their relatively small retirement nest egg, according to Ross Eisenbrey, a vice president at the Economic Policy Institute.

By contrast, the top 20 percent of earners have more than $308,000 on average stashed away for retirement -- in part because wealthy Americans get somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of the tax subsidies intended to boost Americans’ retirement holdings, Eisenbrey said. In other words, wealthy Americans are likely the only group not relying heavily on Social Security during their twilight years.

Moar here.

Another Reason To Raise The Minimum Wage

Corporations That Cater To Poor And Middle-Class Struggle

Aug 16 (Reuters) - From Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Gap Inc to Macy's Inc and McDonald's Corp, chains that cater to middle- and lower-income Americans say they are feeling the pinch of an uneven economic recovery.

A host of retailers have reported tepid sales lately, highlighting the stress that consumers are feeling because of higher payroll taxes, expensive gasoline and a slow job market four years after the U.S. economy started to rebound.

"Everyone wants to talk about recovery - it's like the unrecovery," Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Bob Summers said following the Wal-Mart results. "The demographic that they cater to, not only has it not seen improvement, I would argue that things have gotten worse."

Moar here.

White guy tells black woman to ignore racism. Yeah, that aughtta work. Not.

Do As I Say You Should Do, Not As I Do

Congressman Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) who blasted a “physically fit” couple for using food stamps at a suburban Virginia grocery store, collected 370,000 dollars in federal stimulus money for his Oklahoma plumbing company. Mullin who brags about turning the plumbing company into a successful business never mentions the government help he received to make it thrive.

Read it here.

The High Cost Of American Healthcare

While wealthy foreigners come to the USA to pay cash for our high-quality healthcare, many Americans are forced to travel overseas to receive high-quality healthcare at a price they can afford. A series of articles in the Noo York Times explains why this odd situation is occurring. Here are the first of three articles in the series. Hopefully they will remain online and available for reading for a while.

American Way of Birth, Costliest in the World

In Need of a New Hip, but Priced Out of the U.S.

The $2.7 Trillion Medical Bill

We're All Being Poisoned by Deregulated Capitalism

There’s an undeclared war going on between the rich and the poor right here in the United States and the rich think they’ve found a way to win it.

They’ve locked themselves into gated communities, lily-white suburbs, and wealthy urban neighborhoods and they’ve priced the poor out.

Happy and blissful in their one percent paradise, the richest Americans think they can ignore how their policies have decimated the poor and the working-class.

They think they can live in a “me” society, and ignore the larger “we society.”

But they’re wrong and here’s why.

It’s pretty much common knowledge in the United States that poverty and health are inseparable. All the major indicators of physical health - diabetes, heart-disease, and even access to nutritious foods – are connected to socioeconomic status.

Read about how the rich AND poor suffer from the USA's income inequality and 1% based policies here.

Rick Perry Vetoed Texas Equal Pay Bill Under Pressure From Macy's, Kroger

Typical.

Read it here.

Wisconsin Insane: Wisconsin lawmaker Sondy Pope threatened with arrest at Capitol for observing Solidarity Sing Along

State Rep. Sondy Pope (D-Middleton) was threatened with arrest Tuesday for watching the Solidarity Sing Along from the floor above the noontime protest.

Tia Nelson, executive secretary of the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, who was standing with Pope, was also threatened with arrest.

Nelson said she had stopped to observe the sing-along after leaving a meeting at the Capitol.

"I was told [by a Capitol Police officer] that if I didn't move I was subject to arrest," said Nelson. "They were also telling tourists that."

Nelson said she had no idea she would be subject to arrest just for observing the protest, which has targeted Gov. Scott Walker’s policies each weekday at the Capitol since March 11, 2011.

"I've never joined the protest. I'm here doing my work."

Moar here.

Mitt Romney Warns Against Government Shutdown Threats By Republicans

WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney jumped into the debate over the GOP's future Tuesday night, warning congressional Republicans against forcing a government shutdown in their quest to stop President Barack Obama's signature health care law.

Romney addressed more than 200 donors on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee at a fundraiser for the New Hampshire Republican Party, staged just four miles from the vacation home where he has spent much of the summer with his family. The event was closed to the media, but his office released his prepared remarks.

Romney, 66, warned congressional Republicans against letting emotions drive their decisions.

"I badly want Obamacare to go away, and stripping it of funds has appeal. But we need to exercise great care about any talk of shutting down government," Romney said in the first speech of its kind since his November election loss to Obama. "What would come next when soldiers aren't paid, when seniors fear for their Medicare and Social Security, and when the FBI is off duty?"

He continued: "I'm afraid that in the final analysis, Obamacare would get its funding, our party would suffer in the next elections, and the people of the nation would not be happy. I think there are better ways to remove Obamacare."

Read it here.

Something creepy about the guy who invented O'BamaCares talking trash about O'BamaCares.

Fed Up In North Carolina

North Carolina has become a right wing hell hole, but many peeps are getting fed up.

Republican Congressman Declares That Most People On Food Stamps Deserve To Starve (AUDIO)

Yoho is saying that while his family NEEDED food stamps, everyone else isn’t really struggling to put food on the table and are just making it their lifestyle in order to get free food from the government. Plus, he thinks no one is starving in America who doesn’t deserve it. In short, Yoho thinks most Americans on food stamps actually deserve to starve.

Yoho’s remarks echo Tea Party Rep. Michele Bachmann, who stated in 2011 that the unemployed should starve as punishment for not having a job. The comments also echo other Republicans who have compared giving people food stamps to feeding wild animals.

Yoho, like the rest of his Republican colleagues, are making a huge mistake by attacking food stamps. Pew Research recently put together a chart showing which states rely on food stamps the most. The findings revealed that people in red states stand to lose the most if food stamps were to be eliminated. Even Florida, which Yoho represents, needs the program.

For some sick and twisted reason, Republicans have lost all compassion for people and refuse to believe the simple facts about hunger in America. ABC News reports that 50 million Americans are food insecure, meaning that they aren’t sure where their next meal will come from on a day-to-day basis. And despite GOP claims that food stamp recipients don’t actually deserve the aid, applicants already have to demonstrate a real need for the food stamps in order to qualify for the program. In fact, research has shown that the qualifications need to be raised so that food insecure Americans who make just enough money to be considered above the poverty line can have access to the program as well.

Read more: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/08/06/republican-congressman-declares-that-most-people-on-food-stamps-deserve-to-starve/#ixzz2bFBUXKtr

Rep. Ted Yoho Rails Against Gay Marriage, Food Stamps and Terrorist Immigrants

Read it here:

Fox Uses Terror Threat To Falsely Claim Obama Declared War On Terror Over

"During a segment on The Five about the threat, Fox producer Jesse Watters stated that in 'the big speech he gave three months ago,' Obama 'said, technically the war on terror is over.'

"On Your World, Fox News contributor Lisa Daftari told host Neil Cavuto, 'We've been told by this administration that the war on terror is over.'

In reality (which is usually missing on Fox "News", O'Bama has stated that the war on al Qaeda has shifted and we are still threatened by terrorism.

It's all here.

I won't hold my breath for Fox "News" to comment on the fact that our Horrific War On Terrah™ is an obvious failure in that al Qaeda is still busily terrorizing the world, 12 after we went after 'em with the absolute wrong tactics.

36 Senators Introduce Bill Prohibiting Virtually Any New Law Helping Workers

GUESS WHICH PARTY DONE THIS:

More than three-quarters of the Senate Republican caucus signed onto legislation introduced Wednesday by Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Rand Paul (R-KY) that could render it virtually impossible for Congress to enact any legislation intended to improve working conditions or otherwise regulate the workplace. Had their bill been in effect during the Twentieth Century, for example, there would likely be no nationwide minimum wage, no national ban on workplace discrimination, no national labor law and no overtime in most industries.

Like many Tea Party proposals to neuter the federal government, Coburn and Paul’s bill is marketed as an effort to bring America back in line with a long-ago discarded vision of the Constitution. It’s named the “Enumerated Powers Act of 2013,” a reference to the provisions of the Constitution outlining Congress’ specific powers, and it claims to require all federal legislation to “’contain a concise explanation of the specific authority in the Constitution’ that is the basis for its enactment.”

The key provision in this bill, however, would revive a discredited interpretation of the Constitution that America abandoned nearly eight decades ago. Although the text of the bill is not yet available online, a press release from Coburn’s office explains that it “[p]rohibits the use of the Commerce Clause, except for ‘the regulation of the buying and selling of goods or services, or the transporting for those purposes, across boundaries with foreign nations, across State lines, or with Indian tribes.’”

To translate this language a bit, in the late 19th Century, the Supreme Court embraced an unusually narrow interpretation of the Constitution’s provision enabling Congress to “regulate commerce . . . among the several states.” Under this narrow reading, which lasted less than half a century, the justices said that they would only permit federal laws that regulated the transport of goods for sale or a sale itself. Manufacturing, mining, production and agriculture were allheld to be beyond federal regulation. This theory was the basis for several decisions striking down basic labor protections, including a 1918 decision declaring a child labor law unconstitutional.

Coburn and Paul’s bill appears to be an attempt to restore the constitutional regime that prohibited child labor regulation and other such nationwide regulation of the American workplace. While the bill does not apply retroactively — so existing labor laws would continue to function — the bill does allow a procedural objection to be raised against any new legislation that does not comply with the limits imposed by the bill. Such an objection could be used to block any most attempts to enact new workplace laws — such as a bill increasing the national minimum wage or a bill prohibiting all employers from firing workers because they are gay. Similarly, Coburn and Paul’s bill could permanently entrench decisions by the conservative Roberts Court rolling back existing protections for workers — such as a recent decision shielding many employers whose senior employees engage in sexual harassment.

Read it here.