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Flashback, audio and otherwise.  (play loud).

Our American Priorities

Christians?

A Christian nation, you say?


Link:  Bernie Sanders: Billions for 'Another War,' but No Money for Needs at Home

The Difference Between the Royals and the Chiefs

One owner knows his game AND wants to win.



The other wants a profit center.

Entertainment overnight

Don't look at the visuals, at the video, just listen:

You wouldn't think this would even be possible

Not only is it possible, however, it is law.

The corporations and wealthy paid our representatives to create these laws so it's possible for these things to take place and, conversely, we now need them to make laws making the following illegal:

1) End tax credits for US companies that send American jobs overseas.

This one is difficult for any but the truly cynical to believe. You wouldn't think our representatives could be paid enough to create a law making tax deductions and credits for taking American jobs offshore, would you? Yet that is, in fact, the law of the land.

To make matters worse, the Democrats have brought up bills in Congress, in the past, to overturn this BUT THE REPUBLICANS VOTED IT DOWN.

And we're tolerating this nonsense?

 2) End tax deferral of the foreign earnings of US corporations. They must be paid as earned.

Same thing here. You wouldn't even think this is a law, let alone that we can't get it overturned.

 3) End tax deductions for foreign investment by American companies. Our tax dollars can not be used to create jobs overseas.

Again, ditto.

(Shaking head in frustration).

 4) Require all government agencies and the US military to purchase products and supplies made in the US

This requires action by Congress. Unfortunately, they're still getting "campaign contributions" from the very people who wanted these laws in the first place.

 Contact your representatives in Congress today - http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CG4QFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.contactingthecongress.org%2F&ei=S7rnUMe5DIng0gHdxIC4Cg&usg=AFQjCNHuS5Wy8rxYk7J0vybVmspHJP85vA&bvm=bv.1355534169%2Cd.dmQ&cad=rja

Yet more reasons we need to end campaign contributions

As though there aren't already enough reasons to end the obscenity that is the campaign contributions of our election and government system--a lot I've written of here--yet more:

Leftover Loot: More Leave Congress With Lots of Campaign Cash

Members of Congress spend much of their careers chasing campaign cash and struggling to boost their war chests to fight off the next rival. When their careers are over, and there are no more rivals, many quickly dispose of what little cash is left by donating it to charity, returning it to donors or transferring it to party committees.
 

But not all. An increasing number find themselves sitting on flush bank accounts. 

 

A Center for Responsive Politics analysis shows that the number of former members of Congress who have campaign committees holding more than $100,000 has dramatically increased. In the 1998 election cycle, there were just 18 former members with war chests of that size. The number rose and fell slightly over the years until 2010, when there were 21. By 2012 there were 37. Now, the campaign accounts of 52 ex-lawmakers hold more than $100,000 in cash -- and eight have more than $1,000,000.

 

For some, this creates an opportunity to continue to play a role in politics or to support politicians they like. But several told OpenSecrets.org that with so many charities and politicians asking for a cut of the action, having a lot of leftover campaign cash becomes something of a burden.

__________________________

 

We need to stop this nonsense.

 

We need to demand an end to campaign contributions in our elections so we can get our government back.

 

For the people.

 

 

 

A "Christian nation"?

"While attention is focused on Syria, food stamps for the nation’s poor are about to be cut. So are funds for low-income housing.

And although jobs are slowly returning, the median wage continues to drop, adjusted for inflation. At the same time, both income and wealth continue to become more concentrated at the very top.

A single income of one of the ten richest Americans could buy housing for every homeless person in the United States for an entire year. (Based on a typical day last winter, when over 633,000 people were homeless, and the typical monthly rental cost of a unit with single room occupancy of $558 per month.)

The 400 richest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million put together. But we are not talking about any of this.

We are not debating about what’s happening to our nation. We are not raising the minimum wage or reforming our tax code or fixing our schools or getting big money out of politics. We are paralyzed at home, and now turning our attention to a potential quagmire abroad.

This is the great tragedy of our time."

--Robert Reich, American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator.
______________________________________

What part of that sounds vaguely Christian?


Links:  Robert Reich | Facebook

Robert Reich - Wikipedia

The local connection to the "The Wizard of Oz"?

From Facebook today, Typo Magazine  and my younger brother, Thad  , with thanks:

 This intersection sits at the entrance of, Cosby, MO. This may seem like a trifling coincidence until you consider that E.Y. Harburg, the writer of the song, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, had a great aunt who lived in Cosby during his childhood. He visited her every summer, and had many adventures in the fields surrounding his aunt’s farmhouse. Still, you might not be blamed for thinking that it is just happenstance that Cosby sits at the intersection of OZ. However, in the original version of the song, E.Y. Harburg mentions the town by name several times. Producers in Hollywood and later historians were often baffled by the original lyrics, but once it is pointed out where the changes to the song were made, keen listeners can easily detect where the author mentioned his beloved home away from home.

  The original section of verse read, “If ever, oh ever, a wiz there was, the Wizard of Oz is one, be Cosby Cosby Cosby Cosby ‘cause... because of the wonderful things he does.”

And now you know the truth.

Links:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Typo-Magazine/152474034771130?ref=hl

Typo Magazine

 

Quote of the day--on a higher minimum age

And to Wal-mart and every other fast food restaurant and retail store out there that's paying this sub-standard wage:

Quote of the day

Missouri?

Have you no shame?



If you have any doubt, it's from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's annual report on food insecurity:

Of all the ways Missouri has grabbed national headlines in recent months, this might be the worst:

Missouri is No. 1 in the nation in hunger.

This distinction can be found in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual report on food insecurity, released on Wednesday.

Never worry about where your next meal is coming from? You’re food secure, like 85 percent of the people in the nation.

Unfortunately, nearly 1 in 6 Missourians, or 16.7 percent of them, are food insecure.

That means that at least once in the past year, in most cases several times, they skipped meals because they didn’t have enough food. Money ran out. Or they got by on less nutrition than they needed just to spread out the food they could afford.

Last year, Missouri ranked 7th worst in the nation in food insecurity. For those more extreme hunger cases, classified as “very low food security,” Missouri had the second highest rate in the country. Arkansas was first. Those with “very low food security” sometimes go an entire day without eating.
That’s bad enough.

But when compared to the numbers from a decade ago, Missouri’s negative change, that is the number of people falling into hunger, is worse than any other state in the nation.
____________________________________________

Not Mississippi. Not Alabama. Not Georgia. Not another poor, Southern state.

Missouri.

Number one in food insecurity.

So, all you representatives in Jefferson City. You want to do something about this?

I mean, instead of regulating women's reproductive rights.

Or trying to ban Federal regulations of guns.

 

Want our government back for the people?

Fight to end campaign contributions. 

When we get that, we'll get government back for the people.

Message, song and dance for Kansas Governor Sam Brownback

Based on this news from a Kansas City Star article:

Kansas tax collections in August continue downward slide

Most of us have only one thing to say to you, Governor, one response:



Now, would you put it back the way it was?  Put the tax structure in Kansas back the way it was before you and your Right Wing, oh-so-wrong Republican pals screwed up Kansas' finances so thoroughly.

Please?

Entertainment overnight

Have a great weekend, y'all.

Terrific points/questions and food for thought about Syria and a possible attack (guest post)

From Robert Reich:

Cliff notes on a potentially disastrous decision:

 

(1) Were Syrian civilians killed by chemical weapons?

Yes.

 

(2) How many?

Estimates vary.

 

(3) Was Assad responsible?

Probably but not definitely.

 

(4) Should the world respond?

Yes.

 

 (5) What’s the best response?

Economic sanctions and a freeze on Syrian assets.

 

(6) What are the advantages of bombing Syria with missiles? (a) Highly visible response, (...b) no American troops on the ground.

 

(7) What are the disadvantages?

(a) Syrian civilians will inevitably be killed,

(b) it will fuel more anti-American, anti-Western sentiment, thereby increasing the ranks of terrorists in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East,

(c) our involvement will escalate if Assad or others use additional chemical weapons or engage in retribution against the us or Israel,

(d) we have no exit strategy,

(e) most of our allies aren’t with us, and we can’t be the world’s policeman everywhere,

(f) it will distract us from critical problems at home,

(g) the Syrian rebels are not our friends.

 

Question from me: 

 

Don't economic sanctions first, make sense?

 

 

Links:  Robert Reich | Facebook

 

Robert Reich - Wikipedia

 

 

Further proof on the good of "Obamacare"--and a great question for Kansans and Missourians

The Right Wingers are going to hate this little gem:

Kaiser study finds 'lower than expected' ObamaCare premiums

And from Forbes, the Right Wing, Conservative, business mag/rag:

Obamacare Premiums Will Be Cheaper Than Expected

And Bloomberg, also very business-friendly:

Obamacare Insurance Costs Affordable, Kaiser Survey Finds

Just some of the findings:

 

A 25-year-old New Yorker earning $25,000 a year will pay as little as $62 a month for health insurance next year, and a peer living in Vermont may pay nothing, according to a 17-state survey of premiums under the U.S. health-care overhaul.

The Kaiser Family Foundation report is the broadest look yet at what consumers will pay for health insurance when the Affordable Care Act takes full effect next year. The cost issue has been a top concern for President Barack Obama’s administration, which is trying to persuade at least 7 million Americans who now lack insurance to sign up for coverage starting Oct. 1.

California and New York are among the states that have announced rates for the plans to be sold through marketplaces called exchanges. Republican officials in states including Ohio, Indiana and Georgia have released partial information on premiums, emphasizing big increases for some customers.

“There’s obviously intense interest in what the choices are going to look like for consumers and what they’re going to have to pay in 2014,” Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at Menlo Park, California-based Kaiser, said in a phone interview. “For the most part insurers seem to find this market attractive and they’re pricing accordingly.”

The health law sets up a system of state-based online and telephone exchanges that will sell insurance from companies including UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH) to people who don’t have coverage at their jobs. The law makes government subsidies in the form of a tax credit available to discount monthly premiums for people with low- to moderate-incomes.

So the question is, to all the Kansans and Missourians and all the other Right Wing, Republican, "red" states, do you really want to be left behind in all this?

Do you REALLY want to keep paying unnecessarily high--and higher--rates for health insurance, for the same coverage?

Do you?

 

A locally poignant note

Poignant since they're only a stone's throw away, in Northern Arkansas



I imagine they think of themselves as very Christian, too, don't you?

Syria, War and What Our Government Should Be Doing (guest quote)

"While all eyes are on Syria and America’s response, the real economy in which most Americans live is sputtering. More than four years after the recession officially ended, 11.5 million Americans are unemployed, many of them for years. Nearly 7 million have given up looking for work. The share of the population working or seeking a job is nearly the lowest in thirty years. The unemployment rate among high-school dropouts is 11 percent; for blacks, 12.6 percent. And the median wage keeps dropping, adjusted for inflation.

A decent society would put people to work -- even if this required more government spending on roads, bridges, ports, pipes, parks and education. And we can afford it. Deficit hawks in both parties don’t want you to know this but the deficit as a proportion of the total economy is shrinking fast: It’s on track to be only 4 percent by the end of this month, when the fiscal year ends. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office predicts it will be only 3.4 percent in the fiscal year starting October 1. What does this mean? Consider that the average ratio of the deficit to the GDP over the past 30 years has been 3.3 percent. So the deficit is barely a problem at all. (We’re still projected to have large deficits starting 10 years from now because of all the aging boomers needing health care.) 

 A decent society would also lift the minimum wage and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (a wage subsidy) so no family with a full-time worker has to live in poverty." -- Robert Reich, American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator.

 

A "decent society" would have leaders in government who would do the right thing for their country, their own political party be damned, so if/when the nation had the worst economy in 80 years, since the Great Depression, and also had collapsing infrastructure, literally, they'd pass a jobs/infrastructure/projects bill.

That's what a "decent society" would do.

 

Links:  Robert Reich

 

Robert Reich - Wikipedia

 

Robert Reich | Facebook

 

 

Our elections and government aren't already too flush with money

Now there's a chance the Supreme Court will make our campaign contribution extravaganzas even worse.

I just got this email this week:

In less than a month, the Supreme Court will take up a case called McCutcheon v. FEC  that would strike down some of the last remaining anti-bribery limits and usher in an era of unlimited corruption. It's Citizens United Round 2, it's a disaster, and if it stands, you can say buh-bye to whatever's left of our representative government.

Can you imagine yet MORE money flowing into our elections, buying our representatives and elections?

I didn't think I could.

Link.  Go here:  RepresentUs.org

And here's a petition you can sign:

With your help, we can stop this case. Court precedent is with us, but we need to show them that the public is too. More than 10,000 Represent.Us members have already added their names and comments. Please add yours.

Add your name to our demand, then add your own comments.

Demand that the Supreme Court — the People’s Court — represent the people. All of us. Not just the greedy moneybags trying to bleed America dry. Politicians from both sides of the aisle are on the record in agreement that The Court's Citizens United decision created nothing short of a disaster. 

This will be worse.

The Represent.Us campaign is more than just a petition, it’s a plan to take America back, and make no mistake — we are going to win. When we do, the American Anti-Corruption Act will make cases like McCutcheon irrelevant. But right now, we need you to add your name to help win the day:

www.Represent.Us/citizens-united-2/

Another link:

Shaun McCutcheon, et al. v. FEC - Federal Election Commission

Quote of the day--on more (or another) possible war

In war, whichever side may call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all are losers. 

--Neville Chamberlain

Two thoughts on a possible Syrian war

Number one:



Number two:



Wish us luck.

We're going to need it.

Entertainment overnight

Quote of the day--on the internet, computers and us

In theory the Internet, along with its kindred advances, should expand our horizons, speeding us to aesthetic and intellectual territories we haven’t charted before. Often it does.

But at our instigation and with our assent, it also herds us into tribes of common thought and shared temperament, amplifying the timeless human tropism toward cliques. Cyberspace, like suburbia, has gated communities.

Our Web bookmarks and our chosen social-media feeds help us retreat deeper into our partisan camps. (Cable-television news lends its own mighty hand.) “It’s the great irony of the Internet era: people have more access than ever to an array of viewpoints, but also the technological ability to screen out anything that doesn’t reinforce their views,” Jonathan Martin wrote in Politico last year...

--Frank Bruni, New York Times columnist from his article in 

Sunday's paper, Traveling Without Seeing

On the start of a new school year

And taking it one step further, it doesn't end when formal schooling does.

Or it shouldn't, anyway.

Happy Labor Day

Labor Day, 2013

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."  --Abraham Lincoln

Link:  http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin395631.html#KSEj1VTzE7T20o0P.99

Labor Day, 2013

click on picture for easier reading

The real question today, as we consider attacking yet another nation

"...have we learned nothing?

Time and again over the last half century American presidents have justified so-called surgical strikes because the nation's credibility is at stake, and because we have to take some action to show our strength and resolve -- only to learn years later that our credibility has suffered more from our foolish and brazen bellicosity, that the surgical strikes have only intensified hostilities and made us captive to forces beyond our control, and that our resolve eventually disappears in the face of mounting casualties of Americans and innocent civilians. We and others have paid an incalculable price.

On Labor Day weekend we should rather be testing the nation's resolve to provide good jobs at good wages to all Americans who need them, and measuring our credibility by the ideal of equal opportunity. And we should strike (and join striking workers) against big employers who won't provide their employees with minimally-decent wages. We need to commit ourselves to a living wage, and to providing more economic security to the millions of Americans now working harder but getting nowhere. Yes, Mr. President, a lot of people think something should be done -- about these mounting problems at our doorstep, within America. We can have more influence on the rest of the world by showing the rest of the world that we live by our ideals, than by using brute force to make points."

--Robert Reich,  American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator.

And the answer, I believe, a lot of us believe, is no, no we Americans have learned nothing. We haven't learned from Korea, we haven't learned from Vietnam, we haven't learned from even the still painful, actually not-ended 2nd Iraq War.

It was writer Gloria Emerson's take from the Vietnam War that a) we learned nothing from it, after the fact, and we nearly refuse to learn anything. If you haven't already, you might pick up her book:  Winners & Losers: Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses, and Ruins from ...

It was poignant then and still resonates today.

Links:

Robert Reich

Robert Reich

Robert Reich | Facebook

Gloria Emerson

Gloria Emerson, Chronicler of War's Damage

The Costs of War

 

6723 - Number of Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn casualties as confirmed by U.S. Central Command.

 

Six thousand seven hundred twenty-three American soldiers, lost to yet more pointless war.

 3 more dead this week:

 - Army Pvt. Jonathon Michael Dean Hostetter, August 23, 2013 - 20, of Humphreys, Missouri

 - Army Spc. Kenneth Clifford Alvarez, August 23, 2013 - 23, of Santa Maria, California

 - Army Sgt. 1st Class Ricardo Young, August 28, 2013 - 34, of Rosston, Arkansas

 

Another week and another $2 Billion spent in Afghanistan.

 

Total bill to U.S. Taxpayers = $1,468,604,110,382.

 

 

At what point do we raise hell, ladies and gentlemen?

 

At what point do we say "Enough!"

 

 

"Wait. Guys. That's NOT what I had in mind."