Stocks Down 4% in Global Sell Off--Shakespeare said it best: In my humble opinion Americans have one place to put the blame: on themselves. This is what happens when you put into office divided government.With all due respect to the president divided government IS dysfunctional government.

Economic experts like Paul Krugman and others have been saying from day one of the Great Recession that the only way out is stimulus and BIG stimulus at that. When the president had the majorities in both houses his stimulus bill while good was NOT enough. His health care bill fell short of a strong public option both of which facts kept us in this mess that Republicans mostly created with their mantra of laissez faire.

A solid stimulus would have worked then jobs would be created, people pay taxes and deficit reduction ensues. Republicans pure and simply are WRONG! One needs spending not cuts to treat recession.

But no. Krugman was NOT a part of Barack Obama's administration but Goldman Sachs surely was. The very ones that killed us ..no murdered us were put in charge.Through ALL the horrific unethical most probable illegalities NO ONE but NO ONE takes a seat next to Madoff in jail where they belong.

Having said that Wall Street sits on BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of bucks maybe 2 TRILLION while Main Street dies. Worse what happens the American public in their infinite wisdom see fit to form a Tea Party so Republicans can play them like the seemingly populist puppets they are EXCEPT that Republicans are using them to stuff the insatiable pockets of Wall Street greed.Joe the Plumber THINKS the Tea Party/Republicans are about him. They are NOT.It's about the Republican party USING them for all that they are worth to unseat Obama.

So this is who Obama must compromise with - the uncompromising at all costs and by any means necessary to unseat our first black president. What a coup. Congrats, America. You just bought yourself double dip recession as Paul Krugman said if not Depression along with a side dish of job loss and misery! Shakespeare said it best Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141) "The fault dear Brutus is not in the stars it is in ourselves."

A BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Mr. President. My wish and gift for you would be, of course, your re-election.

In addition, my heart breaks when you receive such cruel and insensitive nasty comments of those who oppose your policy. My biggest most heart-felt wish is that even if some do not agree with you they respect you and the office of presidency.

I am hoping and, yes, sometimes praying, that you have an easy-as-possible campaign. I know that is a futile prayer because the campaign itself even in relatively good times requires great stamina and fortitude against all the slings and arrows sent your way. At least I can hope.

Beyond that I hope that the hard work I know you do bears fruit. It is not easy dealing with human beings who often do not have a SHRED of empathy or an element of compassion. How can one possess those qualities when one's policy is directed ONLY to the rich getting richer, the poor poorer and dedicated by any means necessary to defeating you? Take solace in the fact that most of your base I think will remain loyal. I know I surely will.

I think too your opposition has been more hateful, even more oppositionally entrenched than even that which FDR experienced. It reminds me more of the discord during the Lincoln presidency the damaging Civil War so bitterly ensured. Its outcome, of course, was not assured but President Lincoln persevered through the most grueling and hateful opposition.

A note of caution which I am sure you know. FDR was taking the nation OUT of the Great Depression through government programs like the WPA. Statistics and history show things improved until he reversed course in 1937 and began to try to reduce the deficit by cutting spending. It did not work as the country slid sadly back into recession until WWII and the government spending required for it extricated the nation from the Great Depression’s strangulating grip. I would surely rather it not require more war to get us out of the mire of the Great Recession. I ask you reiterate the point OFTEN that in a recession reducing spending and NOT cutting it is the most effective way of creating the jobs so many in such difficult times need. Statistics, which do not lie, prove it.

The main purpose of my email this time, though, is not to give political opinion but to which you the HAPPIEST OF BIRTHDAYS AND THAT YOUR BIRTHDAY WISHES COME TRUE. I have read one already has and that it was the successful raise of the debt ceiling. If all of your wishes come true I have no doubt will be good for not only you but the country as well.

The Clarion Call: Suffice it to say I have gone from such happiness, hope and joy in 1968 because I thought MY generation and my politics influenced by the notable progressives of that time were going to change, in humanitarian fashion, everything and remake a more peaceful humane world. I was convinced in my naive youthful mind it was going to finally be better . In some ways it has gotten much better but now one would almost never know it. This is the worst time I have ever experienced in my historical memory. My father and mother always, of course, talked about the Depression era and World War II as if it was just another time that everyone got through because they had faith in our country and their (and my) hero FDR. Even though they were Jews and knew what was happening to their people in Europe they were never afraid as they iterated to me so many times because the protective rock this country was they knew would protect them.

Would those Republican Tea Baggers who have ice water in their veins have done and put through what they have put this president through if he were white? I think not. I think when race is the issue there is a poison so deep and such a fundamentally malignant cancer which still even nearly 150 years AFTER the Civil War eats away at this country's body politic. It has made this so called cradle of liberty a shameful hypocrisy in the eyes of the world.

Ben Afleck's movie The Town which these sick bastards used to inspire their Congressional Republican members said it all. The Town was a viciously violent film as you probably know. When Afleck comes to his friend and says in such a controlled emotionally charged and violent fashion "We're going to hurt someone. I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later” said it all. These wingnuts KNOW they are going to hurt so many people in their country but they do not care. They KNOW what they are doing. They tied the debt ceiling to the eviscerating spending cuts of our nation's economic life blood because they KNOW draconian spending cuts will NOT create jobs, will ruin the nascent economic recovery initiated by this president to cure the illness and near death experience the previous Republican administration made. These Republican actions will hurt the Democratic base, kill labor and create a recession if not a depression and finally even kill the most vulnerable sick and elderly among us because and the Republican Majority Leader McConnell has said the Republicans' main goal is to effectively unseat this president.

I am convinced that so many Republican racist comments shown in the news, by Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Ed Shultz and others have proven it is the black president and the country’s historically racist core that these Republican snakes are using to capture it all -- the House, the Senate, the Presidency, our Social Security, our Medicare/Medicaid and our economy. It WILL hurt EVEN the Tea Baggers who carry their water because most of them occupy the middle and blue collar rung of our economic strata too. When the Republicans are through they will have nothing left of this nation except to stuff VAST amounts of other people's money into a few pockets which their insatiable greed desires. This is with whom our president must govern. Other social issues are lighter fluid which have been an accelerant used to ignite this explosive fire and hold a nation captive.

Yes, I can criticize the president for being naive as to with whom he thought he would compromise and for alienating some of his faithful base BUT the hateful things these Republicans have done now loudly and clearly comes to represent the Republican vehicle of choice to unseat our first black president and secede from ALL the hard-fought civil liberties and economic security human beings have gained over centuries.

We must be the fuel that lights OUR own progressive and Democratic fire. This is OUR clarion call. We must during the next year harness our own anger, capture our own fervor, and promote our own enthusiastic progressive ideals whether through minority encouragement, gay rights enthusiasm, women's choice to control their own bodies and the HUGE impact of the labor movement -- moderates and progressives alike -- so that we bring ALL those who journeyed to the polls with glee in 2008 make that same journey enthusiastically again and show up to vote in great numbers for the president’s 2012 reelection. This is MANDATORY, this is LIFE SAVING, and this is VALUE PRESERVING if we want the good part, the humane part, the empathetic part of our nation we all love to prevail.

The Compliment: I received two wonderful comments -- so far -- on the Dickens's email below. I responded to one which mentioned JFK's famous inaugural "Ask Not" speech:

Thank you, Susan, for your kind words. I do not always get kind words but they surely are appreciated when I do. I believe JFK in his "Ask not" speech was calling the country, most specifically its young, to service. He was asking those who could to help those who could not. I also think FDR before him set a new rationale for government action WHEN its action is required to save the whole. It was the permission slip which the nation had never known, certainly at the time of Dickens’s visit, but extending to the 20th century as well.

FDR through his leadership gave the government the right and, indeed the obligation, to help when the many suffer extensive egregious wrongs by the few catapulting everyone into the death knell of Depression. Those wrongs were, in fact, righted by that great man whom I never knew but loved through the study of the history of that era and through my parents – despite their Republican leanings -- adoration of him. He did not shrink from his enemies he welcomed them, he did not try to compromise with the uncompromising, did not try to work with the unworkable but knew he needed to try something different that did work.

I worry that the our nation’s preoccupation with spending cuts and reducing government to an Ayn Randian postage stamp will be forged on the backs of those who can least afford it and that those who vote for these misguided and duped corporate lackeys will step on their own toes by falling prey to the sinister forces of race and to its camouflaged sound bites of small government and spending cuts.

I DEARLY hope that this debt ceiling manufactured problem which could have brought our country and the world to its knees, has been resolved. I even more prayerfully hope that the hard-fought-for benefits of the New Deal years that placed government front and center to solve the most dire economic threats and in doing so produced Social Security and its offspring Medicare will not ultimately face extinction. I do not want to see it succumb to those small minded egocentrists and over stuffed forces of Wall Street greed and the minions who serve them. This is a serious time of struggle and suffering. It should, I believe, provoke a clarion call to continue to help the least of these our brethren so that they do not perish from this earth.

An Apology: I apologize for the plethora of email regarding the latest most egregious Congressional debt ceiling vote compromising everything we elected our leaders to be in 2008. Please Google Keith Olberman's Special Comment on Current TV if you have not heard it already on the new cable network of Current TV. I provide the link below which Current TV has just posted to make it easier for you to do so. It is so important that I yet again write this email to you and provide you the link to hear it. (Do not be deterred by the one minute ad before the comment.) It is WELL worth waiting to hear this gem of auditory excellence!

I agree with 100% of everything he had to say but Keith says it so much more eloquently and passionately than I ever could. He made reference to the protests of the late 1960's of which I am so closely aligned if not in body then certainly in spirit. I yearn for those days when humanitarian ideals meant something and people took to the streets in non-violent protest to show it. It really did seem that our nation was being born anew -- for the better at least for that brief but inspiring-to-me moment. He talks about so much more than even that.

The link to Keith's Special Comment is posted below. If you cannot click on it then Google Current TV. I urge you to contact your cable provider if yours does not offer Current and ask them to make available the Current Channel. If you have it find the channel. FIOS channel for Current TV is 192. Current TV is new and unfolding in its content and owned in part by the brilliant Al Gore. Be patient but tune in often to see what it has to offer. It is getting better every day and soon I HOPE will upgrade its broadcast to compete with the glitz of other mainstream channels. It still is very good but getting better all the time and Keith alone is worth the price of admission.

I can ASSURE you it is infinitely better than the other go-along-to-get-along commentary one hears everywhere else. Please listen, savor and enjoy!

http://current.com/shows/countdown/videos/special-comment-the-four-great-hypocrisies-of-the-debt-deal

The Repetition of History:

I used to belong to a Dickens's reading group and still get their enjoyable emails. I received the following email from them:

Dickens and America's Defaulting, Nation and State "According to media reports (which has now become the accepted and conventional belief), this will be the first time the USA has ever defaulted on its debt obligations. But as highly respected financial reporter Nicholas Kristof reported in 1998, that is not the case"

´They were the world's richest and shrewdest investors, and they rode a wave of globalization to buy bonds in a promising developing country. When that country defaulted, they were livid. The year was 1842 and the
country was the United States.'

- Nicholas Kristof, in the September 20, 1998 issue of New York
Times International

And, coincidentally, for five days that same year, planted directly
across the street from the symbol of the nation's failed financial strength (The Second Bank of the United States in Philadelphia) was Charles Dickens.”

to which I replied:

It is sad because we in this country keep repeating history over and over and over again as witnessed by the content of the email above. Someday which I surely hope and pray not THIS day our nation, our empire will fall in one nasty lumbering heap because, in my opinion, many if not most people in this country see this nation as an "I" and NOT a "We" nation. They do not understand it is not big government that creates recessions but big government which pulls the nation stuck in the grimy ideological muck back from recession/depression.

The Knownothing Tea Baggers say big government is the enemy. I say it is the solution and when the private sector fails which it unceasingly does -- even in Dicken's day, government needs to be there to provide the life preserver against economic catastrophe. That is what FDR's New Deal was all about -- government coming to the rescue of an economy gone wild by the omnipresent human characteristic of greed gone mad.

One article I read recently said it well describing American political thought (I forget the author): "Joe the Plumber THINKS he is one clogged toilet away from living in the Hamptons like a CEO from Goldman Sachs." He is wrong. The CEO of Goldman Sachs lives in an exclusive club and it is NOT about Joe the Plumber. The corporate stranglehold on this nation committing it to an oligarchy is sowing the seeds of its own demise. It has happened many times in this nation's history but now may be the worst. As the late George Carlin said in one of his Utubes entitled "The American Dream" -- "It's the American Dream alright because you have to be asleep to believe it!" I wonder what Dickens would think.

This Day of Infamy: Remember this day of infamy, liberal, progressives, moderates and other humane peoples of all political stripes as a day in which the hostage holding terrorist Tea Baggers put a gun to America's head. In our civilized land (at least for the moment) we settle things in a civilized way -- non violently and by our vote.

Remember, as I surely will, to settle the score and in 2012 relegate the Tea Bag Knownothings to the ash heap of history. Our nation is dying a slow and painful death and that is exactly what the Tea Baggers truly want -- a white nationalist oligarchy to call their very own. The oligarchs, though, do NOT want the Tea Baggers for their own. They want to use them as water carriers to make the very very rich even richer. The Tea Baggers WILL be voted OUT of office but they cannot be voted out of office soon enough for me! Tomorrow is, indeed, another day and I cannot wait for it!

Holding Your Nose and Taking the Bitter Pill: The debt ceiling deal stinks and we as progressives are holding our collective noses to accept it BUT what else could the president have done: refuse to compromise and the nation would go into default? Default would do ENORMOUS damage to EVERYONE not just the left but everyone on every side of the political spectrum.

This SHOULD pass and even when it is done it is not a done deal. Things can be argued, will be argued in the coming months and in the 2012 election but right NOW this nation cannot default on its debts no matter what the political philosophy. I am a liberal Democrat in extremis BUT even I realize that a default could mean that our elderly, our disabled, our military and others would not receive Social Security checks and other governmental payments. It could mean for many that they WILL not eat, they will not take their medication and the security of their families would be pushed over a cliff. Some would simply shut themselves in whatever is left of their homes and prepare to die. It is that simple. The president KNOWS it and that is why his compromise and bitter pill default eliminating medicine will pass and should.

The time was during the 2010 mid term elections to NOT vote for Tea Party Republicans or ANY facsimile thereof. They step on their own toes and take up the cause of the top 2% wealthy wanting to eliminate programs their own families need to survive. It is IDIOCY and why then I became so depressed about it. I KNEW why I was depressed. Yes, spending cuts need to be made and they have zeroed into a problem BUT it should not be done on the backs of those who can afford it least. As negative as this deal might be it is not over yet even WHEN the bill is passed as I think it should because default is NOT an option. That is what you WILL have if it is not passed.

I think the president knew he must hold his nose and do this so that this worst of all situations -- default -- does not happen. Elections matter. If the clock could be turned back I believe the 60 or so Tea Party Republicans would NOT have been elected. But they were. So deal with that horror and pass the default eliminating bill. Then argue like heck to form it in a more equitable fashion and MOST of all return the Congress to Democratic hands in 2012 while at all costs preserving the Obama presidency.

Evidence Suggests GOP Hacked, Stole 2004 Election Read more see link: If you are prone to high BP perhaps this article (link below) is not for you. It surely does NOT surprise me in the least. The idiot Bush stole 2000 and I KNEW that Ken Blackwell piece of trash played computer hacking dirty in Ohio which I KNEW went for Kerry and not the shrub. Thus 2004 was stolen as well. There was NO question in my mind then or now. Worse they will do it again because they have rigged Republican local districts through gerrymandering and demanded photo ID to vote all over the country which is unconstitutional flouting the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It works against minority voters which make up a HUGE part of the Obama base. Moreover, I have no doubt there will be outright fraud in at least Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin and perhaps in states like Florida in 2012 UNLESS the Democratic National Committee steps up to the plate and makes damn sure this does not happen.

I always thought 2004 was stolen by Rove, et al for the moron Bush. Who could doubt it? The question is WHY did Democrats not speak up especially when the guy who was involved in the fraud was going to testify about all of it was curiously killed in a plane crash. Someone needs to hold these vicious lawbreakers accountable and bend the horizon of history toward justice. Who will step up to the plate to do it and if not now when?

http://www.benzinga.com/news/11/07/1789905/forget-anonymous-evidence-suggests-gop-hacked-stole-2004-election

The Nation’s Destruction – the Power of Magical Thinking: All the logic and rational argument promulgated against the Republican leadership about the manufactured crisis of raising the debt ceiling does not matter because the Republican leadership is shaking in its self-created Tea Bag infected boots. The Knownothing Tea Bag so called movement is made up of a minority of Republicans (many racist) in the country that wants the president to fail and wants to take down the nation with him. Many see this as a once-in-a-life-time chance to foment national and world-wide discord (Oslo is, indeed, ominous) as the means by which they will usher in their Christianist -- mainly white power -- state. Rational argument, no matter how well intentioned and infinitely correct, the opposition of madness will never by persuasion back down. It would not matter if Democrats offered 14 trillion in cuts with no revenue, this small group of Republicans representing the religiously intolerant and ignorant will, using Republican leadership as their mouth piece, consistently say no. They have hijacked the rest of the Republican Party who, I believe, would negotiate a compromise at the very least.

The president in his heart, I think, understands that those who will not vote to raise the the debt ceiling (which Reagan raised 17 times), in truth, want really to subvert the president and Democratic senatorial leadership and thereby watch the country implode. Many Tea Baggers hope the resultant chaos of this deadly never-waged-before game of financial chicken will take this country and the world down with it. They have not seen, until now, this ripe moment of intertwined world discord to confront the secular world they have always loathed. Their magical fantasy world will, they think, usher in the second coming of Jesus who will save the believers only and leave the rest of us to take up residence in hell. I suspect the hell to which they wish to relegate us is the here and now on earth.

Ridding or cutting our hard-won-over-decades social safety nets of Soc. Sec., Medicare and Medicaid will kill – yes kill – many. Moreover, ultimately, if it those programs are put in the hands of Wall Street gamblers and their Ponzi schemes it will put the final seal on our nation’s coffin. One can see how well Wall Street worked for us in 2007 and the many booms and busts it provided before that. The preponderance of wealth now sits oligarchically in the hands of a few and those few co-opt the parties with unlimited cash.

The middle and working classes get the boot and are relegated to the lower tiers of our economic order. Those at the top 2% simply do not care. The middle class minions who support Republican leadership do not understand that they will relegate themselves to this hell as well since they are mostly a part of our middle and working classes. Still many rejoice in the discord as the more divided, psychologically furious and sick the nation becomes the better to usher in their Christianist fantasy Jesus land and truly marry church and state exactly what our founders did NOT want.

Most all families and those we love – including Tea Baggers' families – depend upon our country's social safety nets to live. They will, though, succumb with the rest of us who depend upon these programs. In the final analysis we are ALL human. The only ones who will NOT be affected by anything, of course, are the wealthy of Wall Street who have managed to make oodles of bucks through our crisis while the rest of the country stagnates in a quicksand of lost financial worth and economic failure. The wealthy always manage to escape their self-made hells but the rest of us will not have a map or GPS device to escape this route of social discord, fracture and anarchy.

We must harness our own minions, who make up the rational part of our national discourse, to summon our forces against the ignorant and we must not allow this sad misguided minority the prevalence and power of their magical thinking to take our intelligence, our rationality, our president and our country down with it.

My opinion about the debt ceiling made the "Highlighted" section of the NYT blog: There is no question to me that Minority leader McConnell and Speaker Boehner with the Tea Party at their side are playing a game of chicken with the lives of the American people at risk. The president has given them the world -- nearly all of what they wanted -- and antagonized his base at the same time but Republicans will accept nothing. If the president gave no tax increase, decreased the debt by 14 trillion or more Republicans STILL would say no. They will say no to everything. It is crystal clear to those of us who examine issues, motivations and intent that the intent of the Republican party especially of Sen. McConnell is to bring the president down. He has said it. It is clear. When someone says something I believe them.

I am HOPING beyond hope that the American public can see the methods to this insane Republican madness. I think the president is counting on the fact that they will and that the middle rational part of the American public will not let him down. He is counting on them AND people like me who are members of his base. The base has some disgruntled members in it as he has tried to appease Republicans SO much but he is hoping and as is the case for me, we will support him nonetheless.

When the American people want to punish a president they sometimes step on their own feet. They did it electing Nixon for the Vietnam debacle and they SURELY did it electing Bush II for the Clinton sexual improprieties. In both cases it did not bode well for our country. Unseating Obama would not bode well either.

It is easy to criticize but much harder to form policy. I am hoping the American people see how easy it is for Republicans not to care about their lives. The only life they DO care about is their own and those top 2% wealthy who know which side they are on. Republicans are NOT about you, middle America, THAT you can take to the bank.

The following is a list: Here is a list of ALL the Tea Bag House members below. Those of you who generally share my political opinions write them essentially what I have written about the necessity of raising the debt ceiling for monies ALREADY spent so that the United States of America does NOT default on its bills for the first time in its history. This is literally a life and death issue for MOST Americans except, of course, the top 2% many of whom pay no taxes at all.

Feel free to copy, to paraphrase or write something of your own to the ones I have listed below telling them in no uncertain terms do you do NOT want anything based on giving up YOUR Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- all safety nets which protect ALL of us. AND most especially you want the DEBT CEILING RAISED.

We are in difficult times now but IF the debt ceiling is not raised you will NOT recognize the America you have known and loved your entire life. If you can write or call them now you may save a life. Your life and your descendants' lives depend upon it. My opinion on the debt ceiling is at the following link: http://natalierosen.blogspot.com/2011/07/hitting-ceiling-i-am-so-angry-i-cannot.html

The following are Tea Party House members who will do anything to take down our president which is really what this debate is about. Simply Google their name and you will get their House link. If you have trouble do it through Googling the United States House of Representatives. You can call or email your own thoughts or cut and paste mine into the representatives' sites. It is not only for me it is for you, your children and those you love too!

P.S. You can send the Republican House leadership a note as well: i.e. Speaker John Boehner (R) Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R) VA

Tea Bag House:

Sandy Adams (FL-24)
Robert Aderholt (AL-04)
Todd Akin (MO-02)
Rodney Alexander (LA-05)
Michele Bachmann (MN-06)
Roscoe Bartlett (MD-06)
Joe Barton (TX-06)
Rob Bishop (UT-01)
Gus Bilirakis (FL-09)
Paul Broun (GA-10)
Michael Burgess (TX-26)
Dan Burton (IN-05)
John Carter (TX-31)
Bill Cassidy (LA-06)
Howard Coble (NC-06)
Mike Coffman (CO-06)
Ander Crenshaw (FL-04)
John Culberson (TX-07)
Jeff Duncan (SC-03)
Stephen Lee Fincher (TN-08)
John Fleming (LA-04)
Trent Franks (AZ-02)
Phil Gingrey (GA-11)
Louie Gohmert (TX-01)
Vicky Hartzler (MO-04)
Wally Herger (CA-02)
Tim Huelskamp (KS-01)
Lynn Jenkins (KS-02)
Steve King (IA-05)
Doug Lamborn (CO-05)
Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-09)
Kenny Marchant (TX-24)
Tom McClintock (CA-04)
David McKinley (WV-01)
Gary Miller (CA-42)
Mick Mulvaney (SC-05)
Randy Neugebauer (TX-19)
Rich Nugent (FL-05)
Steve Pearce (NM-02)
Mike Pence (IN-06)
Ted Poe (TX-02)
Tom Price (GA-06)
Denny Rehberg (MT-At large)
David Roe (TN-01)
Dennis Ross (FL-12)
Edward Royce (CA-40)
Steve Scalise (LA-01)
Pete Sessions (TX-32)
Adrian Smith (NE-03)
Lamar Smith (TX-21)
Cliff Stearns (FL-06)
Tim Walberg (MI-07)
Joe Walsh (IL-08)
Allen West (FL-22)
Lynn Westmoreland (GA-03)
Joe Wilson (SC-02)

Hitting the Ceiling: I am SO angry I cannot even tune in to political discussion that I ordinarily love to do because Washington spews the same old broken record and my security is at stake. I am angry because I am scared. The only criticism of the president I had tonight was that he gave a forum to the Republican Party to spew its empty rhetoric yet again. Boehner said NOTHING absolutely NOTHING about revenue which SHOULD be the other half of the equation. Moreover, Boehner lied when he said what the House had proposed was bipartisan. It was NOT. Revenue like one's paycheck is derived because government does something for you. As much as the Tea Party mantra say it does not and wants to kill it they are incorrect. It does. It does a lot.

When a plane lands safely thank the FAA. When your food and air are not poisoned thank the EPA. When your Social Security helps you when you are old and your body cannot work any more thank the SSA. When Medicare pays your expensive hospital bill then thank the government for creating it. When one gets laid off a job and collects unemployment insurance thank the government for mandating it. If a medication is created or an epidemic averted than thank the NIH for helping to do that. Thank the government for doing so many enumerable other things that make our life just a little bit easier.

Middle America must realize Republicans are NOT about them. Republicans are about the top 2% of our population which should, as the president says, contribute more to reduce our deficit. The top 2% represented by their Republican henchmen want to have it all. They want bailouts and bonuses without contributing to the government that gave it to them; a government owned by the people. The president is right the debt ceiling MUST be raised. If we must reduce the deficit to raise the ceiling then we must do it with an evenhanded approach which includes revenue -- money taken in.

Again, I say it: America, the Republican Party with their Tea Party hijackers is NOT about you. The Republican Party represents 2% of the population which Republicans entrust with their own jobs. Republicans will accept nothing the president offers because they are using this serious game of chicken to see if they can defeat him but by defeating him they defeat us. As those in Wisconsin saw after they elected a ruinous Republican Governor Walker, his party was NOT about most of them. Now they have the difficult task to undo the evil he and his ilk have done.

Write your senator and representative and say to them you want a balanced approach to addressing the deficit by cutting spending and taking in extra revenue from those who can most afford it. Raising the debt ceiling is mandatory so this nation does NOT default on its past debts for the first time in its history. Raise the debt ceiling so you do not have to hit the ceiling when your nation defaults on the debts it already has incurred thereby tanking its own economy and even the economies of the world along with it! This is serious stuff. Treat it with the seriousness it deserves.

Making Rational the Irrational – the Norwegian Massacre: The carnage of the innocents lies screaming to me in the night. I ask why. Why does such bestial cruelty lie within man and yet man possess the ability to do the greatest good. It is man’s eternal conundrum. Why can one man commit the slaughter of innocents and other men risk their lives to help people dying of thirst? We have both of those qualities within us. We have the capacity for great thought, for questioning, for knowledge; the ability to acquire truth through science and yet crackpot thoughts of cranks drive the politics of our time and really any time of historical scope. Man must claw his way through eons of fantasy and mythology to see truth.

A scientific truth was found today that sees Neanderthal DNA in one to two percent of our species. Genetics tells us that all of mankind originated in Africa. We can see evolution in the different species at work all around us. Evolution is indisputable and science blows continual holes in social Darwinist thought – the idea that a single race of men is innately superior to others. Right wing fanatical belief is, I believe, one of the most dangerous political ideologies because it has as its fundamental thought the denial of these truths and gives men a permission slip to commit horrific violence to another and deny personhood to that other – whoever that other may be.

The ancient Biblical Genesis tells us Cain slew his brother Able it is true but another Biblical man said “What you do unto the least of these my brethren you do unto me.” The Norwegian took over 90 innocent lives of those who were barely past childhood. Those lives were NOT his to take for a right wing extremist philosophy all science says is false. The man who took those lives calls himself Christian? I doubt that very much and so would, I suspect, Jesus himself.

Spread the Word--Malicious Mendacity: Spread the word through every hamlet and village said best by Longfellow in the last stanza of his famous poem “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.”

The Republican mendacity, deceit and yes treason of our time must be fiercely fought as our Founders fought tyranny so long ago. A world in Republican Land would be a fascist oligarchic tyranny indeed and in their eyes the people be damned as they block time and again a presidential compromise made in good faith. Raising the debt ceiling means this country will rise or fall unless it is raised and Republicans know that, block the president's compromise at every turn and do not care.

I quote Longfellow’s last stanza:

“So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.”

This time let the defiance of Republican treason and tyranny be fought by we the people. Always fight, never surrender, never give in and to quote another patriot Patrick Henry: “If this be treason make the most of it.” Let us not waste this moment which reflects the perfidy of this malicious mendacious Republican American minority. This time let the defiance of Republican tyranny be we the people!

Pray away the gay -- NOT: Please think about signing the petition below. Bachmann and her husband are ruinous of lives, they are hateful, hurtful and UTTERLY unprofessional most especially their views and her husband's "treatment" of homosexuals through his "clinic."

Her husband is dealing with people's psyches some of whom are fragile. To THINK much less convey a treatment as moronic as that which says praying away the gay works is insanity in and of itself. The word expert is not in the Tea Baggie repertoire as intellectuality and rationalism are shunned. Praying away the gay is no more efficacious than is creation non-science or the denial of evolution which is scientific FACT or that climate change is a hoax. These people will be responsible for the destruction not only of individuals and our country but of the planet as well.

Her husband should have his license taken away and be investigated for FRAUD. He is accepting, of all things to Tea Baggies, Medicaid funds-- i.e. government payments for services that are junk to say the least. Your tax dollar at work -- NOT!

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/bachmann_clinic/?rc=fb_share2

The Bottom Line Is You: The headline of the link below is “Wells Fargo Illegally Pushed Borrowers Into Subprime Mortgages, Falsified Loan Documents, Fed Says.” Wells Fargo was fined millions BUT it made BILLIONS. How will a few million in fines hurt them? The truth is NOT MUCH. What I DO hope is that it hurts its reputation and that people BOYCOTT firms that have been guilty of the GREATEST swindle and fraud since the Great Depression­. In truth this economic Ponzi scheme was, I believe, systemically worse. While the Great Depression was a horrifically difficult time in world history no one can dispute, not that many invested in the stock market and there was not a mortgage facet that kicked it off.

If the government will not adequately protect us we must protect ourselves and in libertaria­n fashion BOYCOTT those banks and other companies that do not have safeguards in place and for God's sake WATCH THE LOANS YOU TAKE OUT. MAKE SURE YOU CAN AFFORD THEM. Beat these beasts at their own game and let them know their vicious behavior has consequenc­e!! WATCH what or from whom you buy and READ EVERYTHING including all the fine print and most of all TRUST NO ONE. Assume these too-big-to-fail gargantuan dinosaurs will care NOTHING for you but WILL CARE for themselves­. They will eat you for lunch IF you let them. DON'T!

The Huge Grant story linked below means that in addition to banking and other fraudulent investment schemes send a message to ALL media that stealing your privacy or lying is NOT acceptable either. Boycott those entities which engage in illegal and fraudulent informational activities.

Like a doctor who treats infectious disease -- ACT AS IF the person has it and proceed to rectify the malady. IF people offer you the world that seems too good to be true it often IS. QUESTION EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE WHO TAKES YOUR MONEY WHETHER IT'S A NEWSPAPER, A RETAIL BUSINESS, A MORTGAGE LENDER OR AN INVESTMENT FIRM. Assume they are not telling you the truth and investigate it.

Libertarians hate government regulation so test their philosophy. Be responsible for your own security and information. BOYCOTT those who do not ethically comply! Sign on the bottom line. Remember, the bottom line is, in fact, YOU!


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/20/wells-fargo-subprime-fraud_n_905198.html?show_comment_id=98309593#comment_98309593,sb=18931,b=facebook

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43821759/ns/today-entertainment/t/hugh-grant-wins-court-ruling-uk-phone-hacking-scandal/?fb_ref=story_header&fb_source=profile_oneline

The Gang of Six, Seven or whatever -- debt ceiling compromise coming out of their gangland corners -- I HOPE!: The president was vague but talked about at first the gang of six and then the gang of 7 as he added one in hopes the debt ceiling will be raised. He said he is hoping that a deal is in the works. It would be as he said "strengthening entitlements" and some as he put it revenue.

So to me IF and I say IF the strengthening of Medicare and Social Security are based on income and need. i.e. those who pay into it and make more pay more, and those that get Medicare if they make more they will pay higher co-pays and higher fees to have Medicare I can live with that. If you make more you pay a LITTLE not a lot but a little more. Sounds good to me.

Other "revenue" I don't know -- maybe close a few loopholes. It's all very nebulous now. It's raising taxes by going around the mulberry bush maybe but keeping the entitlements for those who need it for example not paying the same as someone who can afford to pay more.

Ed Schultz who is absolutely death on compromising with Republicans I think is not correct. My feeling is if we the middle class do not take a hit and those who make much more than the middle class have to pay more we MUST make a compromise and raising the debt ceiling depends upon it. I think the rich will feel this very little. Okay great who cares? As long as the middle class and the poor do not feel it I say yes to compromise.

If the president can get a negotiated settlement with the worst of the worst most uncompromising and mean Republicans to ever grace the halls of congress since before the Civil War period than who can fault him? He may have saved the country and the world from implosion yet again but worse. Our actual national security is at risk. I say you can't fault him BUT I reserve the right to change my mind when the plan comes out IF it ever does.

WRITE, EMAIL or SMOKE SIGNAL YOUR REPS AND SENATORS IMMEDIATELY -- see link below.


Hands Off Social Security! http://action.ourfuture.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=127
Social Security is once again under attack. The White House debt commission co-chairs want to cut benefits and raise the retirement age.

DUH no kidding. Listen to George Carlin the late great comic below who nailed it right on the money.

(some of the language in the Utube
is rough, if your sensibilities would be bothered then don't click on it -- BUT it is so prescient and he said it years before this economic
insanity debt ceiling)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v​=acLW1vFO-2Q

Big and Small -- More Murdoch Empire Falling: The Murdoch News of the World, Wall Street Journal et al media times 1000 has to be the most unbelievable scandal eclipsing Watergate by MILES and MILES and MILES. In both cases, though, even though I bath in the joy of seeing right wingnuts brought down, it is still in a human fashion sad. These people like Rebeckah Books the editor of News of the World at 46 years old -- 46 years old -- at the TOP of her professional career being arrested and ruining the life of a probably bright person is astounding and yes unlike she I can evoke a certain appreciation for the sadness of tragedy.

What was/were she/they thinking? The first second -- no millisecond -- she became aware of people in Murdoch's empire HACKING .. HACKING into private phone conversions of the mighty and the small what would ANY moral person do? They would say FORGETABOUTIT I'm outta here. Who could EVER on God's earth think they could get away with this MASSIVE scale of actually STEALING -- stealing lives from people, stealing their personal phone conversations and private lives. It is at the very least SICKENING. Do I see an empire falling? It surely seems that way as it is stretching endlessly from scandal sheets like News of the World, to Parliament, to Scotland Yard, to Hugh Grant to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's newborn son's cystic fibrosis diagnosis and it is crossing the pond to US newspapers like the (formerly respected) Wall Street Journal. Its editor Les Hinton resigned his post. Perhaps it will even stretch to Fox News. I would not be surprised.

From under what rock did these so called "conservative" hacking Neanderthals and their financiers crawl? Maybe Murdoch, Murdoch's son, people like Rebeckah Brooks and Les Hinton will understand what it feels like to be unemployed and the prospect of getting another job after overseeing criminal behavior does not bode well. Watch as the rats desert a sinking ship. I cannot say that I am not glad because I am. I hope the charges stick. Then again the rich get off and maybe they will hack into yet more conversations to make sure they don't end up in jail. How many judges' phones can they hack, find something personal and then blackmail or buy them off?

Keep a close watch on your phone everyone. In an anything goes culture everyone is at risk!