In Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years.

From fissures in the Palin marriage ("We don't talk") to giggles over
a doctored nude photo and a seatbelt-less Piper, Shushannah Walshe
unearths more gems from the ex-Sarah Palin aide's leaked manuscript.

The scathing manuscript draft of former Sarah Palin aide Frank
Bailey's In Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of Our
Tumultuous Years, leaked to The Daily Beast, spares not a single
embarrassing email or angry campaign trail moment. Among more juicy
allegations in the book, which is filled with catty asides, including
a description of Palin's skin as being "tanning-bed bronze":

1) Todd and Sarah Palin Had Marital Problems, Neglected the Kids

Sarah Palin appeared to trust Bailey and confided in him on all
topics, including family matters. In an email, Palin told him that
Todd was working behind her back on the Troopergate affair, writing to
Bailey: "We're not like normal couples, Frank. We don't talk."

Bailey writes that the Palins had marital problems and that Todd would
even steal his wife's BlackBerry "in order to read her emails for
emotional clues" before emailing campaign headquarters during the 2006
Alaska gubernatorial campaign to "relay his wife's demeanor," good or
bad, to the team. Bailey also alleges that Todd even accessed Palin's
email without her knowledge, and if he saw something that worried him,
he would call Bailey with his concerns.

Earlier during Palin's campaign to be the youngest and first female
governor of Alaska, Bailey accused her of being "callous" about
daughter Bristol after Sarah told him in an email: "Bristol's mad at
me. Says this isn't fun. Too bad."

Bailey alleges that Palin's children's grades suffered and they were
left "on their own for large stretches of time."

While she was governor, a political enemy accused Palin of not
securing infant Trig in a car seat, but Bailey writes that Palin was
driving around with daughter Piper, then 5, not properly strapped in:

"…I'd seen Sarah drive off with little Piper—by law required to sit in
a car seat—not even buckled, sprawled out on the back seat or climbing
from the back to the front to sit on Todd's lap when he drove. We even
had a photo of Piper in the back seat of their car after a drive of
several hours, asleep on top of her unbuckled seatbelt and definitely
not in the required child seat."

2) Palin Sent Letters to the Editor Using Other Names, Praising
Herself

Bailey writes that Palin drafted her own letters to the editor during
her run for governor and sent them in under supporters' names. Palin
relayed the first one in an email to Bailey:

"Dear Editor,
It's been a pleasure watching our life-long Alaskan gal, Sarah Palin,
campaign for governor these past six months. I am impressed with her
leadership skills, experience, ethics, and energy. And I'm most
impressed with how she communicates her message that is connecting
with so many Alaskans. Sarah tells it like it is and is obviously not
your typical politician. She doesn't just go with the flow or test the
waters with political polls before taking action. It's clear Sarah is
committed to just doing the right thing, even if her Republican Party
bosses try to punish her for it," the letter reads in part.
Bailey alleges the letter was the first of many they wrote in
supporters' names, to be sent to Alaska newspapers. Bailey writes
"nothing struck me as wrong" with the faux letters, even though the
campaign had become what he calls a "letter-manufacturing plant."

And in one particularly un-self-aware moment, Palin begins an email
string with Bailey saying, "I feel like we are the last of the
innocents," before encouraging the fake editorial letters:

"Good idea about the letters to the editor. Guys—let's remember to
tell people that when they offer to help but don't know what to do.
They can loan us their names for a letter, and they have to be ready
to confirm that they authored the letter when all those various
newspapers call them for confirmation."

3) Palin Calls Her Political Career a 'Divine Calling'

Bailey writes Palin often compared herself to the biblical heroine
Queen Esther and that she believed her campaign and life in politics
was a "divine calling." In June 2006, Palin wrote an email to Bailey
describing the calling, and in the exchange she used a line close to
her 2008 campaign mantra, "I know what I know what I know."

"i was at Wasilla Bible Church…and the service was awesome b.c. he
talked about just knowing that you know that you know…you know when
you're called for something…there's no guarantee of the outcome but
you just know, with a confidence that can only comes (sic) from God,
that you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, even though
there's no crystal ball to tell you how it will all end. Our pastor…
talked about Solomon having to build the temple when he was young &
inexperienced & there were political tensions and struggles all over
the place…my mom looked at me and said: do you think he's talking to
you?!"

Bailey writes that Palin reached out to her "prayer warriors" to pray
for everything from victory to an end to the "unfair treatment" from
her campaign rivals. This is something she would return to in the 2008
presidential campaign.

4) Todd Palin Laughed at a Doctored Nude Photo of His Wife

Bailey writes about a doctored pornographic photograph being emailed
to Palin's gubernatorial campaign account, with the candidate's head
atop a nude body. Bailey quickly called Todd to relay his concern and
writes that Todd's response was "Is it real?"

"He laughed in his quiet Todd-way and said, 'Well she walks around the
house with her robe open and with all those windows we have, well, you
know…"

Bailey writes: "If it were my wife, faked X-rated photo or not, I'd be
horrified. Todd? His was a Ha, ha, what-the-hell response. He seemed
not to care much either way. When I assured him that it was probably a
PhotoShopped job, that someone had taken her head and pasted it onto
some Playmate of the Year's body, I felt as if I'd wasted words. Naked
photos: not such a big deal."

5) Palin Couldn't Remember Her Public Stance on Abstinence

Although Bailey acknowledges helping encourage the Palin veepstakes
chatter by emailing with the Draft Palin bloggers, he was surprised
when his boss is tapped to be John McCain's No. 2. "No question this
would be an exciting choice, but did McCain and his people know just
how exciting?" he writes, adding that very little to no vetting of
Palin was conducted before she was chosen.

Bailey writes that in the early days of the campaign, the Alaska
governor "went into a panic" because she didn't remember what her
public stance on sex education was. Palin "ordered" him to examine the
Alaska Family Council campaign survey from 2006 to find out whether
she was in favor of abstinence-only education, he writes.

"When I found out Sarah had indicated she supported abstinence-until-
marriage education and explicit sex-ed programs will not find my
support, we realized an unwed pregnant daughter made that position
potentially embarrassing. We focused on the word explicit to downplay
Sarah's opposition."

6) Bailey: Palin Blamed Me for Troopergate

The unpublished manuscript chronicles how Bailey transformed from
adoring aide to vengeful score-settler, and it's clear he feels that
he was blamed unfairly for the Troopergate affair, although he
remained in the administration until she resigned as governor in July
2009. He accuses Palin of telling him not to come to a press
conference at which he was blamed for trying to pressure the state
troopers to investigate and dismiss Palin's former brother-in-law,
Mike Wooten—at the Palins' request. But then Palin told the press she
had no idea where Bailey was, he writes, making it appear as if he was
hiding from wrongdoing.

"Eventually I would learn this reaction was indicative of a beast
inside Sarah Palin," he writes. "Her image is micro-managed on a
minute-by-minute basis, and she has no interest in reflecting the
truth when it might tarnish, even a smidgeon, her gloss. If she had
any empathy for anyone, it lasted only as long as was convenient."

Shushannah Walshe covers politics for The Daily Beast. She is the co-
author of Sarah From Alaska: The Sudden Rise and Brutal Education of a
New Conservative Superstar. She was a reporter and producer at the Fox
News Channel from August 2001 until the end of the 2008 presidential
campaign.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-02-23/sarah-palin-tell-all-more-details-marital-problems-nude-photo-more/

Nasdaq nears 10 year high!

Nasdaq nears 10-year high; should you be nervous?
By DAVID K. RANDALL , 02.20.11, 03:01 PM EST

NEW YORK --

The Nasdaq finished within 25 points of its highest level in a decade
Friday, reminding investors of a time many would rather forget: The
bursting of the dot-com bubble.

Today, tech is hot again. Facebook - which hasn't even gone public yet
- is worth some $50 billion. Online content company Demand Media rose
33 percent on the day of its initial public offering last month. The
Nasdaq composite index closed Friday at 2,834, still only a little
more than half its all-time closing high of 5,049 in March 2000. But
the index of mostly tech stocks is up 26 percent over the past 12
months.

Should investors be worried about another bubble? Not really, because
there's a twist this time around: Technology companies are making
money and may valued correctly.

"It is night and day compared to 10 years ago," says Barry Mills, the
manager of the $400 million Dreyfus Technology Growth fund. "These
business models are real. The revenues are real, and the cash flows
are real."

Consider this: Judging by diluted earnings per share, a conservative
method of valuing what a company's stocks are worth, the companies in
the Nasdaq index were collectively earning $39.28 per share in
December 1999 and priced at 103.6 times their annual earnings. Now,
the index has diluted earnings per share of $127.64 and a price-
earnings ratio of 22.11.

The economic recovery in the U.S. is one reason that technology
companies are earning such high profits. Companies put off upgrading
their computer systems and other large purchases during the worst days
of the recession, and are making up for that now. Others are investing
in new technology before they add employees.

International growth is another reason to be optimistic. Half of the
profits of the technology companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index
come from outside North America, says Bill Stone, chief investment
strategist at PNC Asset Management. China is now the world's second-
largest market for PCs, and consumers in emerging market countries are
showing strong demand for smart phones.

Technology companies in the S&P 500, a close proxy for the Nasdaq
composite, are up 8.4 percent so far this year, about 2 percentage
points more than the index as a whole. Last year, tech companies
returned 10 percent after dividends, compared with the 15 percent
return of the full index.

And tech stocks as a whole may be doing better than index returns
show. That's because large companies - with the exception of Apple -
that were hot stocks 10 years ago have matured and their stocks have
stalled. "The Microsofts, Yahoos, and Googles of the world aren't
growing like they used to," says Michael Sansoterra, manager of the
$510 million RidgeWorth Large Cap Growth fund.

Bigger companies have a larger weighting in the Nasdaq index than
smaller ones. Microsoft, for instance, makes up 5.6 percent of the
index. The company has fallen 6.6 percent over the past 12 months.

And now to the question on the mind of any investor who was once
burned by a bubble: Is it too late to get in?

Stock valuations certainly don't suggest so. Tech stocks in the S&P
500 are priced at 13.3 times earnings, which is just 0.3 more than the
broad index. Not only that, but they are cheaper than they were a year
ago, when they cost 15.4 times earnings. With stocks trading at
reasonable levels, it's harder to make an epic mistake. Such as, say,
buying technology stocks in June 2001, when they cost 128.3 times
earnings.

"I'm still finding a lot of good values out there," says Samuel Dedio,
manager of the $108 million Artio U.S. Smallcap fund. "There looks to
be a lot more upside ahead of this.

Sociocide: Iraq Is No More

Sociocide: Iraq Is No More
Submitted by davidswanson on Wed, 2011-02-16 18:47 Iraq

As we approach the 8th anniversary of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, and having just passed the 20th anniversary of another, it's worth reflecting on what's been accomplished through two wars and the intervening sanctions that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright so famously approved of even at the cost of a half million children's lives.

While a growing mob of at least six Americans has noticed this week's videotaped confession by key WMD-liar "Curveball," our achievements in Iraq do not rest on whether anyone in Washington actually managed to convince themselves that Iraq had weapons, or even on whether anyone in Washington believed there was a reason to attack Iraq that actually made any moral or legal sense (as, of course, the possession of weapons did not). Our unprecedented accomplishments in the land where our civilization began stand or fall on their own merits, regardless of whether international law survives the blow we have dealt it by sending the architects of a sociocide off to book tours rather than prisons.

While our efforts in Iraq have taken a bit longer and cost a little more than the efforts of Egypt's young people to begin remaking their country, the results are far more grand. Let's compare. Setting aside years of training and organizing, in three weeks and at the cost of 300 deaths, Egypt has established that all of its people will have some say in its future. In Iraq, the United States has spent or wasted trillions of dollars over two decades, destroyed trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure, killed millions of people, injured and traumatized many millions more, driven several million people from their homes creating the greatest refugee crisis in the Middle East since the Nakba, encouraged ethnic and religious strife, segregated towns and neighborhoods, empowered religious fanatics, set back women's rights horribly, effectively eliminated gay and lesbian rights, nearly killed off some minority groups, decimated the nation's cultural heritage, and created a generation of people without the experience of peace, without education, without proper nutrition, without tolerance, without proper healthcare, without a functioning government, and without affection for or even indifference to the United States.

I can't recommend highly enough a new book called "Erasing Iraq: The Human Costs of Carnage," by Michael Otterman and Richard Hill with Paul Wilson, with a foreword by Dahr Jamail. This comprehensive survey of the damage puts the past eight years into the context of other aggressive acts of imperialism and finds Operation Iraqi Liberation (to stick to its original name) a stand-out, in large part because of the Bush-Cheney regime's attempt to create a neocon corporate economy from scratch in Baghdad, a project that required erasing everything that had been there before. The book's greatest contribution lies in humanizing the suffering and providing us with the viewpoints -- a wide spectrum of viewpoints -- of Iraqis, including Iraqi refugees living outside Iraq, the vast majority of whom have not yet returned and many of whom have decided they never will. These are people, 100% of whom -- judging by a 2007 UNHCR survey of 754 Iraqis in Syria -- had experienced bombings, shootings, interrogations, harassment by militias, and/or torture.

The authors of "Erasing Iraq" interviewed Iraqis as far afield as Sweden and Australia: "Every Iraqi we spoke with reported similar events: houses bombed, possessions lost, children kidnapped, lives destroyed. 'Americans -- when they hear one shot -- even if it's like 10 kilometers away -- they'll just open fire on everything,' said Laith as he lit a cigarette with the small red heating coils warming his cramped two-room house in East Amman, Jordan." The authors did not mention it, but this experience has been reported by American soldiers who took part in it as well, including Ethan McCord:

"We had a pretty gung-ho commander, who decided that because we were getting hit by IEDs a lot, there would be a new battalion SOP [standard operating procedure]. He goes, 'If someone in your line gets hit with an IED, 360 rotational fire. You kill every motherfucker on the street.'"

Another way to kill "every motherfucker on the street" is to destroy water supplies, sewage plants, hospitals, and bridges. This we have done most extensively in 1991 and 2003. On the first occasion, a U.S. Air force planning officer justified these criminal acts as no worse and having no other purpose than economic sanctions:

"People say, 'You didn't recognize that it was going to have an effect on water or sewage.' Well, what were we trying to do with sanctions -- help out the Iraqi people? No. What we were doing with the attacks on infrastructure was to accelerate the effect of the sanctions." A UNICEF survey concluded that these actions killed 47,000 children. Awesome and shocking, but shock and awe hadn't even been invented yet. And by the time it was, Iraq would be a shadow of its former self.

Here's Edward Said in 2000, three years before the Mission was begun and Accomplished, and nine before the siege of Gaza: "For almost a full decade, an inhuman campaign of sanctions -- the most complete ever recorded in history -- has destroyed Iraq as a modern state, decimated its people, and ruined its agriculture, its educational and healthcare systems, as well as its entire infrastructure. All this has been done by the United States and the United Kingdom, misusing United Nations resolutions against innocent civilians."

During the 2002-2003 marketing campaign for a new assault on what remained of Iraq, a handful of Iraqi bloggers pushed back. Now hundreds of Iraqis share their experiences online, but the handful that did so then suggests the potential of antiwar online journalism in whatever nation is next. As Obama demands from Congress the power to switch off the internet Mubarak style, Americans gaze at their navels and imagine it is their own reporting that constitutes the threat to US plutocracy. It may in fact primarily be the blogging of the grateful victims of our next "liberation" that Washington does not want us to access. In October 2002, Iraqi blogger Salam Pax wrote:

"Excuse me. But don't expect me to buy little American flags to welcome the new Colonists. This is really just a bad remake of an even worse movie. And how does it differ from Iraq and Britain circa 1920. The civilized world comes to give us, the barbaric nomadic arabs, a lesson in better living and rid us of all evil (better still get rid of us arabs since we are evil)."

By late 2003 there were at least 23 Iraqi bloggers, by late 2004 at least 66, by late 2005 at least 112, and by late 2006 over 200. It just wouldn't do to have a thousand Iranians or Venezuelans reporting to Americans on their compatriots' actual sentiments as we prepared the drones to strike and the soldiers to collect the chocolates and flowers.

"Erasing Iraq" quotes Iraqi bloggers and interviewed Iraqis, giving personalities to people who have indeed been effectively erased. How many Americans even know that millions of Iraqis have had to flee the hell of their "liberation"? The U.S. media has self-censored almost all reporting on Iraqi suffering that has not been censored by the military, and polls of Americans have found approval for such censorship. Americans, along with Donald Rumsfeld, want to not know, and to not know what they do not know.

"Erasing Iraq" reviews the evidence quantifying the damage and the deaths, as well as the immeasurable hypocrisy of the US corporate media, which treated as the height of scientific achievement (as in fact it was) surveys on deaths in the Congo, while dismissing as meaningless studies conducted in the same manner by the very same people in Iraq. In an effort at "balance," the authors find fault with the Lancet's study in Iraq for not distinguishing civilian from combat deaths. I beg to differ. A more accurate count was available by avoiding a distinction that is of very little moral or legal meaning. If the United States were occupied, would we deem the killing of those who fought back acceptable?

As the U.S. corporate media warns, against all evidence, of the dangers of religious rule in Egypt where a dictator has been overthrown while still in the good graces of the Pentagon, it's worth noting everything the Pentagon has done to establish religious lunacy and terror in Iraq. Women are less safe. Girls are less safe. And this has been the case since shortly after the shock and awe. "'A month ago I was walking from my college to my house when I was abducted in the street by three men,' said 23-year-old university student Hania Abdul-Jabbar in a July 2005 interview with IRIN. The men, she continued,

"'dropped acid in my face and on my legs. They cut all my hair off while hitting me in the face many times telling me it's the price for not obeying God's wish in using the veil. Today I cannot see out of one eye because the acid made me lose my vision. I am afraid to leave my house. Now I am permanently disfigured with a monster face.'"

I suppose both God and the March of Freedom work in mysterious ways. Prior to the past 20 years of U.S. assault on Iraq, there were gay bars and open homosexuality in Baghdad. Now the shiny new Iraqi Constitution sanctions the murder of unfaithful women and of homosexual men whether faithful or not. "Abu Qussay, an Iraqi father who killed his son after the son's homosexuality was revealed, is proud of the murder. 'I hanged him in my house in front of his brother to give an example to all of them and prevent them from doing the same.'" Between 2003 and 2009 at least 455 gay men were brutally murdered , many through a technique that glues the anus shut and then forces the victim to consume a drink that causes diarrhea. Videos of this have been proudly circulated.

Your tax dollars at work, my fellow Americans. You cannot destroy a nation and hire religious fanatics to attack other types of religious fanatics without creating hell on earth. And that is what we have done in Iraq. Meanwhile our own gay activist groups take some interest in advancing the rights to marry or work or obtain healthcare without discrimination, but primarily they have been obsessed with the goal of participating openly in the next sociocide.

Iraqi Christians have been slaughtered and driven out. Mandaeans have been reduced from 40,000 to 5,000. Yazidis too, and Shabaks, as well as Iraqi-Palestinians, all cleansed. Our own cultural heritage in the form of Iraq's treasures in museums and libraries, has been destroyed with the support of the U.S. military after having been misidentified as the valueless creations of enemy creatures. When one civilian "reconstruction" official burst in on a group of U.S. and British military commanders to beg them urgently to protect the Iraqi Museum in 2003, "the British generals by and large understood the importance of protecting the museum, and started to respond almost immediately. And the American generals, by and large, just looked at us with, 'What do you expect us to do about that?'" Next time try telling them the museum is sort of like a Wal-Mart, only with even bigger and cheaper crap. They'll hop to it. Maybe.

As we busy ourselves denouncing the Republican budget for all of the traits it shares with Obama's proposal, and as Obama fights off the teeny cuts to the Pentagon that the Republicans are seeking, bear in mind what that money is used for. If we really bear it in mind, if we really consider what the majority of every US tax dollar goes to fund, the day will come when Freedom Plaza in Washington DC resembles Tahrir Square in Cairo. May that day come before it is too late.

http://warisacrime.org/content/sociocide-iraq-no-more

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If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.

Nixon 1973:  "I am not a crook!"
Clinton 1998 wagging finger: "I did not have sex with that woman!"
Bush 2005 wagging finger:  "I did nothing illegal!"
+ $1,899,522,392,147 Social Security Trust Fund.
– $8,367,894,586,992 The Gross National Debt $3,231,274,298,946.38 in foreign oil

Time will tell all the Truth.
VT

Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT
Founder AOL Group OpenDebateForum
Founder Google Group Open Debate Political Forum IMHO
Founder of Blog Sean Lewis's Virtual Truth
Creator of Web Site The Center of Virtual Truth
Owner of GMLH http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Global_Media_Lightning_Headlines/clock Department of Justice web site

The Tea Bagger House Republicans Don't know what they don't know, but what they screw up not knowing it will effect ALL Americans, For instance cutting the FBI Budget as a possible example

Just Plain Nuts
House Republican Budget Proposals Put Forth in the Most Haphazard
Manner Imaginable

The $44 billion that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is insisting we take out of
the domestic spending is "peanuts." With a $1.5 trillion deficit it
could be lost as a rounding error. But applied to only a selected
sliver of the entire budget it could do immense damage to critically
needed government infrastructure and services.

By Scott Lilly | February 9, 2011

Less than a week after the House Appropriations Committee sorted out
its final staff assignments, their new chairman, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-
KY), gave his subcommittees one week to find the $44 billion in cuts
in current year spending from the newly concocted category of
"nonsecurity discretionary spending." That category contains 12 of the
15 departments of the federal government but only one-eighth of total
federal spending. The cuts mandated by newly installed House Budget
Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) will lower the annual
appropriations for programs in that category by 9.5 percent, but
because the fiscal year is nearly half gone the reduction in operating
levels will be closer to 19 percent for many programs. The
subcommittees have been directed to complete this reshaping of the
federal government by the end of this week, and the House is scheduled
to vote on the proposal next week.

Is there something wrong with this picture?

With many of the 93 freshmen members of the House still asking
rudimentary budget questions such as: "what is the difference between
an authorization and an appropriation?" or "how do outlays differ from
budget authority?" the time frame that Rep. Rogers and his leadership
are committed to means that not only will those voting on the proposal
have little opportunity to understand it but the authors themselves
will not have fully vetted or completely understood what they are
proposing. There have been no hearings, no requests for testimony, and
no opportunity even for staff charged with proposing the cuts to do
agency-by-agency analysis of the possible negative consequences.
Members will vote next week on the package without fundamental
knowledge of how major budget changes in literally thousands of
federal programs will impact the country in general or their own
constituents in particular.

In a previous column I offered an example of how such cuts might
affect one particular federal agency, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. The FBI, like most of federal law enforcement, is
curiously left out of the Republicans' other new category of
discretionary spending, "the security budget," which includes only the
Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security. As a
result most of federal law enforcement is subject to these cuts in the
same manner as Head Start or foreign aid.

The FBI is currently operating under the continuing resolution at its
fiscal year 2010 spending rate of $7.8 billion. When the legislation
is signed into law it is reasonable to assume that $3.9 billion, or
about half of the annual budget, will have been spent. If the 9.5
percent cut is applied equally to all "nonsecurity programs" it will
mean that the FBI will have about $3.2 billion to operate in the
second half of the year, or 81 percent of current levels.

But the problem gets even tougher. Many agencies in the federal
government are like the FBI in that nearly their entire annual budget
is made up of personnel costs. At the FBI 96 percent of the budget
goes to salaries and benefits for the agency's 33,000 employees. The
only way spending cuts more than a few percent can be absorbed is
through reductions in force—firing people.

The problem isn't that we can't fire FBI agents or other federal
employees but that we save very little money in the short run by doing
so. Over a six-month period, termination costs can easily be greater
than payroll savings. This problem exists not only in federal law
enforcement programs but also in regulatory bodies such as the
Securities and Exchange Commission, revenue collecting agencies such
as the Internal Revenue Service, benefit-monitoring organizations such
as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Administration, and other
relatively essential operations such as the Bureau of Prisons, the
Federal Aviation Administration, the Food Safety Inspection Service,
and so forth.

Many of these organizations might not be able to achieve a 19 percent
cut in spending within a six-month period even if they shut themselves
down entirely.

These may be extreme examples. And I am sure no one, including most
House Republicans, want to shut down the FBI or most of the other
agencies I have mentioned. But exempting agencies makes the proposed
cuts even more extreme for other programs. They include virtually all
that we invest in education, health care, science, and infrastructure.
Maybe a case can be made for cutting those investments, but this is
not the way to do it. This is a process that is guaranteed to produce
unintended consequences, and certainly more than a few will be highly
unpleasant.

Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY), the co-chair of President Barack
Obama's deficit commission, calls the proposal from Rep. Ryan
"peanuts." In an interview on CNN, Simpson argued that Congress's
failure to look at a broader portion of the budget would crush "all
the discretionary spending. It just wipes it out."

Simpson is right on both counts. The $44 billion that Rep. Ryan is
insisting we take out of domestic spending is "peanuts." With a $1.5
trillion deficit it could be lost as a rounding error. But applied to
only a selected sliver of the entire budget it could do immense damage
to critically needed government infrastructure and services.

Worst of all, House Republican are going down this dangerous road in
the most haphazard manner imaginable. They are using none of the
standard tools of the legislative process, such as extended staff
investigations, publication of proposed legislative changes in advance
of hearings, and request for public comment. The hearings that are
scheduled on the budgetary needs of these agencies will take place
after the House has voted.

This is a disgrace to the legislative process and a serious hazard to
the American people. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) and his
House colleagues need to reject this approach and put forward an
alternative that insures we all understand what we are cutting and
what benefits and costs of those cuts will be.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/02/plain_nuts.html

Who Here Thinks preventative Care is Ineffective? Well Republicans do, That is why they are cutting the program

Ineffective and Unfair
Conservatives Target Preventive Health Care for the Ax

By Donna Cooper | February 10, 2011

It seems we've entered the season of shortsighted thinking. With 50.7
million uninsured Americans, Republicans are on a rampage to repeal
the Affordable Care Act. Adding insult to injury, the most recent
House Republican plan to cut the federal budget deficit this fiscal
year took a scalpel to $10 billion in federal grants that provide
health care to indigent women and children, slashing $2 billion in
federal funding that is bound to have very expensive consequences.

Funding for community health centers will be cut in half by the
Republican cuts. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who was a co-sponsor of the
legislation responding to President George W. Bush's call to expand
funding for these centers in 2008, says that "since 2001, additional
funding has allowed health centers in more than 750 communities
nationwide to provide care to about four million new patients. These
centers provide affordable and quality care to at-risk Americans who
otherwise might have to do without."

He's right on the mark. No health care costs will be avoided by
cutting this $1 billion out of the budget because the absence of care
doesn't stop you from getting sick. It simply means you get sicker and
you turn up at the emergency room or a hospital when your illness has
progressed to the point that your care needs are exorbitantly
expensive.

On top of this cut to care, which more often than not is the safety-
net care for women and children, the proposals would also cut the
maternal and child health block grant by 30 percent. This block grant
pays for child immunizations and prenatal care for tens of thousands
of women and children. It's obvious that without access to
immunizations more will have to be spent to care for kids sick with
easily preventable illnesses.

And reducing access to prenatal care is both life-threatening and
costly. A preemie baby's health care costs are 10 times higher than a
full-term, healthy-weight child, according to the March of Dimes. The
organization estimates that the full lifetime health care costs for
these fragile children hit the $17 billion mark. It's simply penny
wise and pound foolish to cut $199 million out of a program that has a
proven track record of delivering health to babies and driving down
America's health care costs.

Among the programs slashed is one of the most efficient programs to
improve child nutrition: the Women, Infants and Children program run
by the Department of Agriculture. This program gives expectant mothers
with very small children important tips on how to feed their children
healthy meals. And it provides them with coupons to incentivize them
to purchase the best foods for their children. Research shows that
without this intervention the nutritional intake of these children
would be higher in fats, salts, and sugars, according to a recent U.S.
Food and Nutrition Services study.

Instead of spending $1,400 a month in extra medical care for an obese
child, for just $41 per month this program shifts these young mothers
and children into healthy eating patterns, says the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. Clearly, the WIC approach is a useful
and relatively cheap way to stem the rising tide of childhood obesity.

An unsurprising but equally shortsighted cut is the complete
elimination of family-planning services. If you just listened to their
sound bites, you would think these funds could be used for abortions.
But we all know that's not permitted. These federal funds make it
possible for uninsured women and men to get access to critical
contraceptive services, pregnancy counseling, and tests for sexually
transmitted infections, cervical cancer screening, and other critical
health screens. Without access to these health care services, the
health care needs of these adults will not disappear.

Instead, these adults will end up with unintended pregnancies and
preventable health conditions that could have been avoided had they
had ready access to commonplace family-planning services and
screenings. Indeed, every dollar spent on family-planning services
saves taxpayers $4 in Medicaid-funded prenatal, delivery, and
postpartum services alone, according to a recent study by the
Guttmacher Institute.

The absurdity of these cuts to the block grant, community health care
centers, and family-planning services is that none of this funding
would be necessary if we had a fully functioning national health care
system where every American had access to high-quality care.

Benjamin Franklin famously said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure." Millions more Americans will lose access to health
care as a result of these cuts and as a result more will have to be
spent to address the real health care consequences of these cuts.
Franklin also invented bifocals so his aging colleagues could see the
important documents they gathered to draft. Perhaps the Republican
leadership needs to adjust their glasses so they more clearly see that
$2 billion in cuts they propose to the health care services for poor
women and children will cost the taxpayers billions more in
unnecessary health care expenses.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/02/health_care_cuts.html

Republicans want to sell out America's Educational Future for more bullets guns and war! Got to Keep those priorities straight!

Our Future Competitiveness Hangs in the Balance
Federal Education Programs Brace for Coming Congressional Budget
Fights

By Diana Epstein | February 9, 2011

This year's federal budget process in Washington promises to be even
more divisive than usual as a split Congress struggles to tackle both
the need to keep the government funded and the looming federal
deficit. Furthermore, lawmakers are actually dealing with two budgets
simultaneously—one for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, which ends
in September of this year, and one for the FY2012 budget beginning in
October. President Barack Obama plans to release his FY2012 budget
during the week of February 14 and Republicans have indicated they
will roll out their plan for a new FY2011 "continuing resolution" to
fund the government for the rest of this fiscal year that week as
well.

Federal investment in education hangs in the balance.

House Republicans, led by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI),
propose to cut $32 billion from the federal budget for the remainder
of this fiscal year. Since the government is currently operating under
a continuing resolution that expires March 4, these proposed cuts
would take place over only a seven-month period. Rep. Ryan wants to
increase security- and defense-related spending by almost $8 billion
above current levels, which means that cuts to nonsecurity agencies
such as education would total more than $42 billion. Moreover, his
proposed budget for FY2011 would be $32 billion less than current
spending levels but $74 billion less than what the president had
originally requested.

The upshot: Spending for education, labor, and health and human
services would be 4 percent less than 2010 levels and 8 percent less
than the president's original request, according to the information
announced by the chair of the House Appropriations committee last
week.

This approach runs directly counter to the Obama administration's
plans to invest in education to ensure our workforce remains
competitive in the 21st century. In his State of the Union address,
the president made clear that he favors strong continued funding for
education. And investing in education is without a doubt the key to
economic growth and American competitiveness. Nonetheless, the
Republicans' plans have budget cuts falling disproportionately on
education and health programs because entitlements and defense
spending are largely protected. So let's examine what they propose to
cut.

Republican plans to cut critical education funding

As the proposals below illustrate, conservative Republicans are
arguing for even bigger cuts—up to $100 billion—for FY2011 and then
further cuts in the FY2012 budget. This would likely entail
significant cuts to federal education programs. If enacted, these
proposals would make it far more difficult to effectively educate this
generation of American children.

The Republican Study Committee proposal—the Spending Reduction Act of
2011—would reduce federal spending by $2.5 trillion over 10 years. The
plan cuts FY 2011 nonsecurity, nondefense, and nonveterans
discretionary spending to FY 2008 levels; cuts nondefense
discretionary spending to FY 2006 levels for FY2012–FY2021; eliminates
all remaining stimulus funding; and eliminates or dramatically scales
back more than 100 other programs. This includes eliminating 68
federal education programs run by the Departments of Education, Labor,
and Health and Human Services; the Environmental Protection Agency;
and other federal agencies.

Provisions governing federal education programs would be repealed in
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Early Learning
Opportunities Act, parts of the Higher Education Act, and others.
While some of these programs should be eliminated because they are
outdated or ineffective, other programs serve valuable purposes and
should be consolidated or reformed. Rather than simply cutting
education funding as the RSC recommends, these funds should be
redirected and targeted at efforts that reflect current priorities and
have demonstrated results.

Rep. Ryan put forth an alternate budget in 2008 (further revised last
year) entitled "A Roadmap for America's Future." The Roadmap's most
detailed recommendations are for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social
Security, but the plan also assumes that nondefense discretionary
spending would be frozen at nominal 2009 levels from 2010 through
2019. Beginning in 2020, spending in all areas except Social Security,
Medicare, Medicaid, and net interest would grow at the rate of
inflation plus 0.7 percentage points. Ryan's plan also rescinds all
unobligated stimulus funding. Freezing spending at these levels would
not provide the investment in education that is needed in order to
improve student achievement and produce the American workforce of the
future.

Then there is the plan from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). He released a
budget proposal last month that would cut $500 billion from the
federal budget in one year. In spite of holding a seat on the Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, Sen. Paul put forth a plan
that would cut funding to the Department of Education by 83 percent,
to only $16.245 billion. Paul's plan preserves only Pell Grants, which
means that critical funding for elementary and secondary education
would be eliminated. Among other cuts, districts and schools serving a
high percentage of low-income children would no longer receive Title I
supplemental funding, and states would no longer receive Title II
money to improve teacher and principal quality.

Why these cuts are so destructive

Any of these proposed cuts to education would be quite harmful. First
of all, continued investment in education is critical in order to put
our economy on the path to sustained growth. Second, a reduction in
federal support for education would take resources away from
critically important programs at a time when states are also making
significant cuts. Third, federal education programs provide more
equitable resources for students who need it most—without federal
support, many hard-fought gains would erode for children living in
poverty.

Fortunately, the American people simply will not support cuts of this
magnitude in education. A recent USA Today/Gallup poll asked Americans
whether they favor or oppose cuts in government spending in a number
of areas. Two-thirds opposed cuts in education, opposition greater
than any other area including Social Security, Medicare, and national
defense. This public sentiment holds up even when Americans are given
a choice between reducing the federal budget deficit or preventing
cuts to government programs. When asked whether it was more important
to reduce the deficit or prevent cuts in education, respondents to a
recent CNN poll chose to preserve education by a margin of 75 percent
to 25 percent.

With power split between the two political parties, this year's budget
process will inevitably result in a series of compromises. The
proposed plans for cuts to education represent one end of the spectrum
from which bargaining will begin. It is true that our country faces
tough decisions ahead but our children's future is not a matter fit
for negotiation.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/02/education_cuts.html

GOP: Show Me the Budget cuts... you Promised 100's of billions and only delivered 20 Billion! But demanded the 800 Billion Additional Tax cuts FIRST

Show Me the Money
Conservatives Demonstrate That Cuts Alone Won't Balance the Budget

Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), the chairman of the House Appropriations
Committee, released a partial list of the cuts that he says will be
included in an upcoming spending bill. Now in control of the House of
Representatives, conservatives finally have their chance to show the
world how they can balance the budget through spending cuts alone.

By Michael Linden, Michael Ettlinger | February 10, 2011

Conservatives for almost two years now have claimed that the federal
budget deficit is solely a spending problem—and that the solution,
therefore, is to just cut spending as deeply as possible. Before the
2010 congressional elections, then-House of Representatives Minority
Leader Boehner (R-OH) promised to find $100 billion in cuts in the
first year of the new Congress. Since then, the newly elected House
majority has been long on boastful claims but short on specifics.

Until yesterday. Finally, the chairman of the House Appropriations
Committee, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), released a partial list of the cuts
that he says will be included in an upcoming spending bill. Now in
control of the House of Representatives, conservatives finally have
their chance to show the world how they can balance the budget through
spending cuts alone.

And as it turns out, they're finding it awfully hard to find even the
$100 billion they promised—let alone the hundreds of billions of
dollars more it would take to actually bring the federal budget into
balance. The cuts outlined today are extremely deep and extremely
damaging, cutting into the meat of important public programs—but they
still add up to only about $20 billion.

Indeed, the most definitive Republican plan to date to reduce federal
spending perfectly illustrates the dilemma facing those who would try
to cut their way to balance. Even a small down payment toward spending
cuts starts to bite quickly into things our country wants and needs.
Imagine what the full $100 billion would look like, but first let's
look at what $20 billion would do. Some of the deepest cuts announced
today include:

Slashing job training programs fully in half—despite the fact that a
skilled workforce is the key to our future economic prosperity, and
not to mention the fact that the unemployment rate is currently at 9
percent.

Steep reductions for scientific research and development investments
that are key to the nation's economic competitiveness, growth, jobs,
and health—among them funding for the National Institutes of Health,
Centers for Disease Control, the National Laboratories, the National
Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, the National Institute of Standards
and Technology, and the Agricultural Research Service. All would have
to cut back, compared to the president's levels, some by as much as
one-fifth.

A 90 percent cut to community policing grants that go to cities and
towns to help improve the effectiveness of their police forces, on top
of a 20 percent cut to all other state and local law-enforcement
assistance. Additionally, the House budget will include a 22 percent
cut to the Office of National Drug Control Policy and a 23 percent cut
to the National Drug Intelligence Center.

A massive slashing of federal support for state and local water and
sewage projects alongside the complete elimination of high-speed rail
funding and a $230 million cut for the Federal Aviation
Administration, as compared to the president's previously proposed
levels.

Substantial reductions to services targeted at low-income children,
including cuts to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for
Women, Infants and Children; grants to states to support maternal and
child health; and a near-halving of community health centers, which
treated more than 7 million low-income children in 2009. Amazingly,
the House budget would all but eliminate Poison Control Centers.

Cutbacks in food safety. Both the Food and Drug Administration and the
Food Safety and Inspection Service will see rollbacks if the House
budget is adopted.

These are not cosmetic adjustments. As Rep. Rogers himself said,
"These cuts are real and will impact every district across the
country." But, he argues, despite all the damage these cuts will do,
they are necessary to "right our fiscal ship and begin to reduce our
massive deficits and debt."

And how much fiscal ship-righting do we reap from these painful cuts?
Not a whole lot. All together, if the entire package of cuts were
implemented, the federal government would save about $20 billion
compared to last year's spending levels. Now $20 billion is not
nothing, of course, but it is only 1.3 percent of this year's fiscal
deficit and less than 3 percent of the average deficit over the next
10 years even under the rosiest of assumptions.

In short, for conservatives to fully balance the budget sometime this
decade purely by cutting spending, they are going to have to come out
with another 34 packages worth $20 billion a piece in spending cuts.

Are there another 34 packages of secret spending cuts waiting in the
wings? Rep. Rogers doesn't seem to think so. "We have taken a wire
brush to the discretionary budget and scoured every program to find
real savings," he admits. All that scouring results in significant
damage to vital services and programs but not a lot of deficit
reduction.

And that paradox is exactly why those who argue we can "right our
fiscal ship" without raising additional revenue are, and always have
been, blowing smoke. The new leadership in the House of
Representatives promised $100 billion in spending cuts—itself not
enough to come near to balancing the budget. And yet, after the budget
was "scoured" for savings, they can find just a fraction of that $100
billion.

Given the limitations they set for themselves—no defense cuts, no tax
increases—they were bound to fail at cutting their way to a balanced
budget. As Rep. Rogers explains, "Make no mistake, these cuts are not
low-hanging fruit." Certainly he's right about that. But if they've
already had to climb way up into the tree to find $20 billion in
spending cuts, where do they think they'll find the next several
hundred billion?

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/02/show_me_money.html

Even in 2003 it was a know issue that Iraq could become a theocracy allied with Iran, and Bush believed God was calling him to war.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-april-22-2003/the-new-iraq

Unemployment Down To 9%

Unemployment Down To 9%

This still won't make conservatives happy, nor is it an indication
we're out of the woods, but at least it's going in the right
direction, with some caveats.

…the nation's unemployment rate fell dramatically for the second month
in a row. It dropped to 9% in January, from 9.4% in December and 9.8%
in November.

But as in December, the official unemployment rate dropped in part
because many more workers left the labor market — an indication that
many people aren't finding opportunities or don't believe there's a
job for them in the current economy.

There are some hopeful signs.

Manufacturing payrolls were up 49,000 over the month, and retail
employers added 27,500 jobs. Construction, government, financial
services, transportation and the temporary-help sector shed jobs in
January.

Government officials also revised higher the job growth at the end of
last year. And that shows an improving trend in hiring, although still
not at a very rapid pace. In the fourth quarter, the private sector
added an average of 153,000 jobs a month, up from 124,000 in the third
quarter.

The Truth about the Health care Exemptions, because I am tired of the GOP Lies......

Employers who hire lower wage, part time or seasonal workers are more
likely to offer limited benefit plans. Retail or chain restaurant
employers frequently offer limited benefit plans that contain less
comprehensive coverage and annual dollar limits on how much workers
can receive in health coverage. The premiums for these limited benefit
policies (known as mini-meds) are significantly lower than for
policies with comprehensive coverage and are more affordable for lower
wage workers and their families. In exchange for the low premiums,
these policies generally come with high deductibles and annual dollar
caps as low as $2,000. In addition, in many cases, employees are
paying the full cost of the insurance policy, with no help from their
employer.

The good news is that mini-meds will be eliminated in 2014, thanks to
provisions that phase out insurance companies' use of annual limits
between now and 2014. The "phase out" has already begun to kick in,
and in 2014 when annual limits are completely eliminated, consumers be
able to purchase health insurance in state-based Exchanges -- new
competitive marketplaces – where consumers and small businesses can
shop for private coverage and will have the market power similar to
large employers.

The bad news is that today mini-meds are often the only affordable
option for many low-wage workers because retail and chain restaurants
rarely offer their workers options beyond these plans. And because
mini-meds are built around annual limits, estimates from employers and
insurers indicate that beginning the phase out of annual limits this
year would cause mini-med premiums to rise by more than 200 percent,
forcing employers to drop coverage and sending many low-wage workers
to purchase insurance on the more expensive individual insurance
market, where they would get an even worse deal than what they have
today. The result would be a whole new population of uninsured
Americans.

To ensure that we protect the coverage that these workers have today
until better options are available for them in 2014, the law allows
HHS, in extreme cases, to issue temporary waivers from the phase out
of annual limits. There are some important facts to remember about
these temporary waivers:

The waivers only apply to one provision of the law – the provisions
phasing out annual limits. Insurance companies and employers that
receive waivers must comply with all other parts of the Affordable
Care Act.

The waivers last one year. Insurance companies must reapply for the
waivers each year between now and 2014 when annual limits on coverage
will be completely prohibited and individuals will have more
affordable and better private insurance choices in the competitive
Exchange markets.
All employers and insurers that offer mini-med plans may apply for a
waiver if they demonstrate that there will be large increases in
premiums or a significant decrease in access to coverage without a
waiver. You can read a list of employers and insurers that have
received waivers here.
HHS also took an additional step to ensure these workers know more
about mini-med policies and the limited coverage they may be buying.
The Administration is requiring the issuers of limited benefit plans
to notify consumers in plain language that their plan offers extremely
limited benefits and direct them to www.HealthCare.gov, where they may
be able to find better coverage options. The Administration has also
restricted the sale of new mini-med policies, except under some
limited circumstances. You can read more about this new announcement
here.

112th Congress: 28 Bills to Repeal Patient Protection Act in 11 Days, But Nothing to Create Jobs

Monday January 31, 2011 08:00 am
112th Congress: 28 Bills to Repeal Patient Protection Act in 11 Days,
But
Nothing to Create Jobs

I see our elected representatives are hard at work, representing
their
constituencies. Not that those constituencies even vaguely represent
voters,
you understand. No, they would like to repeal the Patient Protection
and
Affordable Care Act 28 times. In 11 days, no less. What busy little
beavers
they are!

Here's _a list_
(http://lifeinshermanoaks.com/featured-articles/gop-obsession-with-
rep...) as of today, divided by
House and Senate.

House
H.R. 105 Dan Burton, GOP – Indiana : To repeal the Patient Protection
Act
& enact in its place incentives for people to buy health insurance.
H.R. 118 John Fleming, GOP – Louisiana : To permit a state to elect
not to
have an American Health Care Exchange.
H.R. 119 John Fleming, GOP – Louisiana : To prohibit hiring of irs
agent
to implement or enforce health insurance reform.
H.R. 127 John Graves, GOP – Georgia : To de-authorize funding of
Patient
Protection Act.
H.R. 141 Steve King, GOP – Iowa : To repeal the Patient Protection
Act.
H.R. 145 Connie Mack, GOP – Florida : To repeal the Patient
Protection Act.
H.R. 154 Ted Poe, GOP Texas : To prohibit any federal funds to be
used to
enforce Patient Protection Act.
H.R. 171 Cliff Stearns, GOP – Florida :
H.R. 2 Eric Cantor, GOP – Virginia : Repeal of Patient Protection
Act.
H.R. 38 John Fleming, GOP – Louisiana : Rescind funds authorized for
Patient Protection Act.
H.R. 9 David Drier, GOP – California : Requires Committees to look
into
Patient Protection Act.
H.R. 26 David Drier, GOP – California : Repeal Patient Protection
Act.
H.R. 215 Don Young, GOP – Alaksa : Repeal Patient Protection Act.
H.R. 19 John Carter, GOP – Texas : Disapprove rules on MLR in
Patient
Protection Act.
H.R. 299 John Carter, GOP – Texas : Repeal Patient Protection Act.
H.R. 358 Joe Pitts, GOP – Penn : Remove abortion funding from
Patient
Protection Act (there is none)
H.R. 360 Michael Burgess – Texas : Amend Patient Protection Act to
include
President in Health Care Exchanges.
H.R. 364 Tom Latham, GOP – Iowa : To Repeal Patient Protection Act
H.R. 371 Marsha Blackburn, GOP – Tennessee : Repeal Title I of
Patient
Protection Act.
H.R. 5 Phil Gingrey, GOP – Georgia : Repeal Patient Protection Act.
H.R. 397 Wally Herger, GOP – California :Repeal Patient Protection
Act.
H.R. 429 Darrell Issa, GOP, California – Repeal Patient Protection
Act.
H.R. 452 Phil Roe, GOP, Tennessee – A bill to repeal Patient
Protection
Act.
H.R. 450 Dave Reichert, GOP, Washington – A bill to repeal Patient
Protection Act.

Senate

S. 19 Orrin Hatch, GOP – Repeal Health Mandate & therefore repeal
patient
protections.
S. 17 Orrin Hatch, GOP – Repeal Tax on Medical Devices
S. 16 David Vitter, GOP – Repeal Patient Protection Act
S. 196 Chuck Grassley, GOP, Iowa – A bill to to provide
congressional
staff gets to participate in Exchange.
S. 192 Jim DeMint, GOP, South Carolina – A bill to repeal health
care.

I thought it might be interesting to see what Democrats did in their
first
11 days after assuming control of the House in 2006. Well, lookee
there.
All sorts of interesting bills (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/thomas)
in
those first days. Everything from gun show loophole closures (David
Dreier's
baby) to First Amendment protections, to small business assistance
to
alternative energy.