Posted by Bob Lord Here's a funny (and true) story about what Chris Hedges refers to as the illiterate majority. My son recently graduated from U of A and took a job in Dallas. Last week, he was getting a haircut and the stylist asked him if he had been to the State Fair (or … Read more
by David Safier
Today's NY Times article, A Federal Budget Crisis Months in the Planning, isn't so much news as confirmation of what we already knew. The federal shutdown has been planned for months. It's a heavily funded, last ditch effort to wipe out Obamacare before people begin using it. They know any efforts after January 1 will be too late.
To many Americans, the shutdown came out of nowhere. But interviews with a wide array of conservatives show that the confrontation that precipitated the crisis was the outgrowth of a long-running effort to undo the law, the Affordable Care Act, since its passage in 2010 — waged by a galaxy of conservative groups with more money, organized tactics and interconnections than is commonly known.
[snip]
The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort. A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million last year to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight. Included was $5 million to Generation Opportunity, which created a buzz last month with an Internet advertisement showing a menacing Uncle Sam figure popping up between a woman’s legs during a gynecological exam.
The article is filled with details, including the dual efforts to get young people to refuse to sign up, which would harm the revenue needed to keep the program viable, and to get the elderly — meaning people on Medicare who don't participate in Obamacare — angry enough to turn out for Republican candidates in large numbers.
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
So let me get this right. The Tea-Publican anti-government insurgency that wants to destroy the federal government is suddenly concerned about federal government employees? The very same federal employees they despise and villify as blood-sucking parasites every chance they get? One has to have been living in a cave for the past 30 years to fall for this bullshit.
The Tea-Publican economic terrorists may have just thrown President Obama the card he needs to play to end this government shutdown. On Saturday, in a unanimous vote, the House
passes bill to give federal workers back pay:
[M]embers of the House came together in a moment of rare bipartisanship
to pass a bill, by a vote of 407 to 0, approving back pay for furloughed
government workers.
One has to assume that the Tea-Publican anti-government insurgents clearly did not intend to give blood-sucking parasite federal employees a vacation for not working, right?
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Last week, this Teabagger from Indiana said: "We're not going to be disrespected, we have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is." — Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN), quoted by the Washington Examiner, on the government shutdown. "We have to get something out of this." Could … Read more
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Announcement from the Democratic Club of the Santa Rita Area: