Republican Dana Rohrabacher trashes house et al

Too few 'get it'! Sad!

Thu Dec 19, 2013 at 09:07 AM PST

Bill Moyers: The End of Democracy

by New MinasFollow

This will be short, about 3:16 short. Bill Moyers has called it. Please watch this video.




Bill Moyers Essay: The End Game for Democracy

So what got left out of the budget this year?
1. Unemployment Extension
2. Real infrastructure development/work relief actions
3. economy-stimulating alternative energy tax credits and subsidies
4. removal of fossil fuel subsidies
5. removal of tax loopholes for the ultra wealthy
6. removal of protections for offshore tax havens
7. Carbon tax and carbon reduction targets
8. increases in school lunch programs, child-care programs, elderly care programs
9. the increase of the social security ceiling to $500,000 annual income.
10. Comprehensive work toward a Constitutional amendment prohibiting private campaign financing
11. Comprehensive work toward a Constitutional amendment denying corporate personhood.
anything else?
9:43 AM PT: h/t to Jim P
The transcript for those who would rather read/copy/paste

BILL MOYERS: We are so close to losing our democracy to the mercenary class, it’s as if we are leaning way over the rim of the Grand Canyon and all that’s needed is a swift kick in the pants. Look out below.

The predators in Washington are only this far from monopoly control of our government. They have bought the political system, lock, stock and pork barrel, making change from within impossible. That’s the real joke.
Sometimes I long for the wit of a Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. They treat this town as burlesque, and with satire and parody show it the disrespect it deserves. We laugh, and punch each other on the arm, and tweet that the rascals got their just dessert. Still, the last laugh always seems to go to the boldface names that populate this town. To them belong the spoils of a looted city. They get the tax breaks, the loopholes, the contracts, the payoffs.
They fix the system so multimillionaire hedge fund managers and private equity tycoons pay less of a tax rate on their income than school teachers, police and fire fighters, secretaries and janitors. They give subsidies to rich corporate farms and cut food stamps for working people facing hunger. They remove oversight of the wall street casinos, bail out the bankers who torpedo the economy, fight the modest reforms of Dodd-Frank, prolong tax havens for multinationals, and stick it to consumers while rewarding corporations.
We pay. We pay at the grocery store. We pay at the gas pump. We pay the taxes they write off. Our low-wage workers pay with sweat and deprivation because this town – aloof, self-obsessed, bought off and doing very well, thank you – feels no pain.
The journalists who could tell us these things rarely do – and some, never. They aren’t blind, simply bedazzled. Watch the evening news – any evening news – or the Sunday talk shows. Listen to the chit-chat of the early risers on morning TV -- and ask yourself if you are learning anything about how this town actually works.
William Greider, one of our craft’s finest reporters, fierce and unbought, despite a long life in Washington once said that no one can hope to understand what is driving political behavior without asking the kind of gut-level questions politicians ask themselves in private: “Who are the winners in this matter and who are the losers? Who gets the money and who has to pay? Who must be heard on this question and who can be safely ignored?”
Perhaps they don’t ask these questions because they fear banishment from the parties and perks, from the access that passes as seduction in this town.
Or perhaps they do not tell us these things because they fear that if the system were exposed for what it is, outraged citizens would descend on this town, and tear it apart with their bare hands.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/19/1263894/-Bill-Moyers-The-End-of-Democracy

Daily Kos

Food for thought.

Thanks to Labor 411 for the meme and I Acknowledge Class Warfare Exists for sharing.

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Stone

"Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun."

Kurt Vonnegut, "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater"

 

 

 

 

Bernie Sanders

Today's news from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.):

Long-term Jobless Benefits: to End Hundreds of Vermonters and more than 1.3 million Americans will lose long-term jobless benefits on Dec. 28 as Congress recessed for the year without taking action to extend them, the Burlington Free Press reported. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy both expressed disappointment that the budget deal they both supported did not include language to extend long-term unemployment benefits for a...n additional three months.

NSA Reforms: President Barack Obama’s independent review group this week suggested a plethora of reforms to the nation’s far-reaching intelligence gathering programs. Sen. Sanders said of the “out-of-control” National Security Agency Friday on The Thom Hartmann Program, “We need some very strong legislation to rein them in.”

Voting Rights: Republicans worried about losing elections are erecting legal roadblocks that prevent people from voting in many states. “Our Republican friends are too cowardly, in many respects, to have fair elections and the only way they’re going to win is if they deny lower income people, people of color, older people from the right to vote by making it harder and harder,” Sen. Sanders said Friday on MSNBC.

Defense Bill: The Senate passed a comprehensive defense bill in an 84-15 vote on Thursday, CBS News reported online. “The time is long overdue for us to take a hard look at the waste, at the cost overruns, at the financial mismanagement that have plagued the Department of Defense for decades,” Sen. Bernie said on WCAX-TV.

Continue reading here: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/newswatch/122113

 

 

Sat Dec 21, 2013 at 04:00 PM PST

House Republican wrecks rental house, then sues landlord

by HunterFollow for Daily Kos

 

 

Hey kids, wanna see a dead body?

 

The heck? This sounds like the premise of a bad reality show.

When Congressman Dana Tyrone Rohrabacher moved into a four-bedroom, four-bathroom, million-dollar Costa Mesa rental home on April Fool's Day 2010, the immaculate, 6,300-square-foot property could have been featured in a glossy real-estate magazine. [...]But it's now understandable why Orange County's senior, career politician secretly changed the locks and refused to allow homeowner Robert Polyniak inside for annual inspections. When he moved out in August 2012, Rohrabacher left behind a shockingly horrific pigsty, a dump worse than a college fraternity house of unhygienic slobs unfamiliar with the most basic tools of cleaning.

The pictures seem to back that up.

Massive black stains and muck covered the carpet throughout the home. Sticky grime encased damaged, rusted appliances. Denied water, once-thriving outside plants and grass dried up and died. Blinds were cracked. Black dirt ruined the appearance of once-sparkling tile floors. Walls inexplicably contained odd holes, nail polish, wax and some smelly substance that may have been feces.Every toilet seat in the house was broken. The ceilings showed smoke damage. Light switches had been cracked. Clumps of hair and remnants of what may have been balloons or some other rubbery material clogged sinks. Cracks scarred doors. Thick, solidified grease rendered the air-suction vent above the kitchen stove useless. Bathroom towel bars were missing, and vanities suffered water damage.

Again, the heck? Rohrabacher has long been known as an odd duck, but was he using the place as a crack house?

 

To cap things off, the California Republican is apparently now suing his ex-landlord for not returning his security deposit. Because of course he is. It's written into House Republican bylaws that only crackpots and assholes are allowed.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/21/1264247/-House-Republican-wrecks-rental-house-then-sues-landlord?detail=facebook#