Time for a visit to "Some Assembly Required"

Very busy day today  --  so, here are some selections from "Some Assembly Required" to keep you amused (if by "amused" I mean frothing at the mouth in anger over what the USA has become).  Please follow link to original.
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http://ckm3.blogspot.com/

The Nightwatch: Reports are again claiming that Obama is telling Democrats that “they must be open to entitlement changes”. For which read, caving in to Paul Ryan and gutting Medicaid, Medicare and the Social Security System. Good thing he won by a goodly margin in November or he'd have to give away the farm.

Waiting For... The system has failed us. Thirty years ago they told us that 401(k)s were going to provide us with a comfy retirement. The evidence is in, and they have not, do not and will not. They have provided a rich flow of fees to the financial industry. And the failure to live up to the propaganda is, they say, our fault because we do not save enough. Out of what, our falling wages? Our unemployment checks? Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid were created for a reason. We cannot afford to retire. Given health care costs, we cannot even afford to live. We have a societal problem, not a financial one. None of us can go it alone. We must rely on each other. We do not need to destroy the safety nets, we need to strengthen them. 

The Market Speaks: “What the markets are clearly saying, however, is that the fears and prejudices that have dominated Washington discussion for years are entirely misguided. And they’re also telling us that the people who have been feeding those fears and peddling those prejudices don’t have a clue about how the economy actually works." Paul K, of course.

The Others: Most Americans (56%) support using drones to kill people in those places they can't find on a map, like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Detroit and Yemen. It will take some terrifically boneheaded mistakes to sour the average American on the program – just killing Pakistani kids won't do the trick.

Hung Jury: Chris Matthews suggests that if we are ever going to learn the truth about how and who got the US to invade Iraq, someone would have to waterboard Dick Cheney. As appealing as it sounds, let’s not become one of the Bad Guys;  waterboarding is not the way to “learn the truth” about anything - I’d settle for a public trial for treason.

The Map Is Not The Territory: The 2013 version of Paul Ryan's assault on the social fabric of the United States: Repeal Obamacare but keep the Obamacare cuts to Medicare and the new taxes in the plan. Convert Medicare to a voucher system, giving profits to private insurance companies while depriving seniors of needed health care. Cut Medicaid to the bone and then prevent the poor from getting medical care by putting them in the loving hands of state-level grifters. Cut as many other domestic social programs as deeply as possible. Increase Defense spending in order to strengthen defense contributions to the Republicans. Simplify taxes by doing away with taxes on the rich and cutting corporate taxes (which nobody pays anyway) to 25%. Also include a rather stupid mandatory cap on total spending so in the next recession the government won't be able to help anyone. Continue to fund any and all wars under the table, like Iraq and Afghanistan have been. Same old same old. This is not “deficit reduction” it is an assault on the social compact. And it is Paul Ryan's attempt to save himself from the obscurity of being a losing vice-presidential candidate. Why is this treated as anything other than self-promotion? That Paul Ryan is the intellectual leader of the Republican Party says far more about the low state of Republican intelligence than it does about his presumed brilliance.

Flash! Eisenstadt v. Baird, the 1972 SC case that established the right of unmarried people to use contraception is “the single most destructive decision in the history of the Court,” according to the Family Research Council, which also says that “functioning societies” have never given single people “the right to engage in sexual intercourse.” No, that would have been Mother Nature's doing, some time earlier.
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There's a lot more  --  go there

The Following From "The Rude Pundit"

Here's the last word on the Ryan "Budget".  Please follow link to original.
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http://www.rudepundit.blogspot.com/

3/13/2013

Why You Don't Need to Give a Shit About Paul Ryan's Budget:
Representative Paul Ryan released the latest version of his grand and mighty budget yesterday, and Left Blogsylvania was in a tizzy about it, about how "cruel," "unrealistic," and "other words in quotation marks" it was. The Rude Pundit can boil the whole endless, shittily-written document down to a simple analogy: Imagine you're a married guy, and you and your stay-at-home husband are looking over your massive credit card debt. You tell your husband that there ain't no way, no how he's getting a job and you're sure as hell not gonna get a second job and that the best way to solve your problems is "We'll just eat out less and maybe go on one less vacation this year. Oh, and we'll have to stop paying for your mother's really nice nursing home. She can make do with the shabby one down the road. Problem solved." Now imagine that it's the third or fourth time you've said this is your solution, even though your husband has rejected it each time. Is there any reason to take you seriously at all?

When you read responses to Ryan's new budget, they say, like Jonathan Cohn at New Republic does, "Just go back and read what I wrote before; it's pretty much the same fuckin' thing." Gutting social welfare programs while boosting the military and cutting taxes for the rich? That's the best you've got? Really? And then you're gonna be all weaselly by using the Medicare savings you fucking ran against in 2012? Oh, blow us, Paul Ryan, each and every one of us.

The Rude Pundit is sick of Paul Ryan. He's sick of Ryan's goofy fuckin' face, he's sick of Ryan's slickly sincere voice, he's sick of Ryan rolling into town with donkey piss in a bottle and sellin' it to us like it's the key to eternal life. That cart's been here before, we heard everything he's had to say, and we chased his yowling ass away, tarred and feathered, back to Wisconsin.

Sure, sure, it'll pass the House of Representatives because they have to do something with their time than try to actually negotiate with Senate Democrats and the White House. But it won't even get voted on in the Senate. It's a dead document. It's boring to even give it this much consideration, and it's a waste of time to repeat the same arguments as last year. It pretty much proves that Republicans don't give a happy monkey fuck about getting anything done.

Lately, President Obama has been very publicly inviting GOP leaders to dine with him. Outreach, they call it. Even Obama is ready to admit it's just a waste of time (and probably some pretty good wine). Republicans won't even negotiate on any budget deals unless revenue increases are completely off the table. Can you imagine what would happen if Obama said he wouldn't talk unless Republicans gave up on any spending cuts? The heaving uproar in the media? John McCain's little head would pop like a squeezed pimple all over David Gregory one Sunday.

The proper way to think about Paul Ryan's latest iteration of his budget, a budget that helped the GOP to lose in 2012, a budget that was rejected by the majority of voters through the election, is that it's a proposal of punishment for a nation that rejected the Republican way of doing things. It's Ryan's and the GOP's way of saying to 99% of America, "Fuck you." Ryan may as well have put a picture of himself flipping us off on the cover.

Ralph Nader: Raise the Minimum Wage!

Alan Grayson "Paul Ryan Wants Americans To Work Until They Die

Five Guys Burgers and Lies

This from AmericaBlog.  Please follow link to original.
I REALLY like Five Guys Burgers And Fries  --  I think their burgers are a cut well above others  --  and their fries are made from REAL, FRESH, potato's.  BUT, if they stand behind this moron, I WILL boycott them, and will speak up against them. 

As an example, I will NEVER again set foot in Whole Foods, nor will I go to any of the other places that have such little respect for their workers.  As I wrote to Five Guys  --  if you have such little respect for your workers, how much respect can you have for your customers?
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 http://americablog.com/2013/03/five-guys-burgers-and-lies.html

A franchise owner of the well-loved (until now) “Five Guys Burgers and Fries” burger joints says he may raise prices, fire some employees, or cut back their hours in order to allegedly pay for Obamacare next year.
The franchise owner, Mike Ruffer of North Carolina (go figure), was the “star witness” at a political event at the far-right Heritage Foundation on Monday of this week.  Ruffer is only the latest businessman to aide the GOP war on health care.  He joins proud franchises like Olive Garden/Red Lobster, Whole Foods (where it was the CEO, not a franchise), Wendy’s, Taco Bell and even Papa John’s CEO in expressing public concern, or even scorn, about Obamacare these past few months.
But there really is a special place in hell for someone who’s willing to be used as fodder at a Heritage Foundation political event.  That’s about as political and partisan as you can get.
And while it’s all well and good that Five Guys’ corporate office is distancing itself from its GOP satellite in North Carolina, at some point these companies have to be held responsible for their nutty franchises.
It’s offensive how bad health insurance is in far too many companies in this country. I know of people personally who gave up on their own company’s health insurance plan, because it cost so much and provided so little, and went instead to the private market themselves, knowing that they were going to be fleeced by private insurers – but they didn’t have a choice.  Better to pay a lot for something than pay a lot for next to nothing, especially when the health of your family, and especially children, is concerned.
Health care costs in America continue to spiral out of control, while health coverage in American companies continues to drop.  All at the same time that politicians in Washington discuss cutting the safety net beneath those programs, Medicare and Medicaid.
The joke is that the biggest problem American companies face isn’t a requirement to provide health insurance for their employees, it’s the actual current cost of such insurance in this country because costs are simply out of control – and it’s hurting competitiveness:

The United States spends an estimated $2 trillion annually on healthcare expenses, more than any other industrialized country. According to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States spends two-and-a-half times more than the OECD average, and yet ranks with Turkey and Mexico as the only OECD countries without universal health coverage. Some analysts say an increasing number of U.S. businesses are less competitive globally because of ballooning healthcare costs. U.S. economic woes have heightened the burden of healthcare costs both on individuals and businesses. The U.S. healthcare reform law signed by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010 includes measures aimed at making health care less expensive and more accessible, including upgrades to government-run Medicare and Medicaid.

But far too many companies, and their henchmen in Congress, keep standing in the way of real reform to address the absurd cost of medical care in this country.  So, when we pass laws requiring them to actually provide a decent amount of insurance for their employees, they whine about the cost, but at the same time refuse to help do anything to reduce those costs.
So we continue to fiddle around the margins of a supremely broken health care system that, in my view, is a ticking time bomb.  We are not our parents’ generation.  A lot of them had decent coverage at work.  At lot of us don’t.  And as we age, the need for medical care increases, and a lot of us are just beginning to experience how insanely expensive normal, routine health care is in America today ($21,000 for heartburn, seriously?).  At the same time, our personal wealth decreases or stagnates, and our retirement looks more and more bleak as Republicans and Democrats insist on saving money not by cutting costs, but by cutting benefits to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
If American politicians think today’s seniors are a scary bunch to take on politically, just wait until my generation hits retirement age with our lousy retirement plans, lousy savings, lousy insurance, and even fewer benefits in programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security – as all the while health care costs continue to go through the roof.  God help Washington when that finally happens.  Sadly, however, it will probably be too late to do anything about it.

Can't you hear me knocking- rolling stones

Shocking New Evidence Reveals Depths of 'Treason' and 'Treachery' of Watergate and Iran-Contra

Here is an excerpt from an article on "Alternet"  --  please follow link to read the entire thing.

No comments need be made by me  --  it explains itself.  Treason is treason.
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http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/shocking-new-evidence-reveals-depths-treason-and-treachery-watergate-and-iran?paging=off

A favorite saying of Official Washington is that “the cover-up is worse than the crime.” But that presupposes you accurately understand what the crime was. And, in the case of the two major U.S. government scandals of the last third of the Twentieth Century – Watergate and Iran-Contra – that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Indeed, newly disclosed documents have put old evidence into a sharply different light and suggest that history has substantially miswritten the two scandals by failing to understand that they actually were sequels to earlier scandals that were far worse. Watergate and Iran-Contra were, in part at least, extensions of the original crimes, which involved dirty dealings to secure the immense power of the presidency.
Shortly after Nixon took office in 1969, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover informed him of the existence of the file containing national security wiretaps documenting how Nixon’s emissaries had gone behind President Lyndon Johnson’s back to convince the South Vietnamese government to boycott the Paris Peace Talks, which were close to ending the Vietnam War in fall 1968.In the case of Watergate – the foiled Republican break-in at the Democratic National Committee in June 1972 and Richard Nixon’s botched cover-up leading to his resignation in August 1974 – the evidence is now clear that Nixon created the Watergate burglars out of his panic that the Democrats might possess a file on his sabotage of Vietnam peace talks in 1968.
The disruption of Johnson’s peace talks then enabled Nixon to hang on for a narrow victory over Democrat Hubert Humphrey. However, as the new President was taking steps in 1969 to extend the war another four-plus years, he sensed the threat from the wiretap file and ordered two of his top aides, chief of staff H.R. “Bob” Haldeman and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, to locate it. But they couldn’t find the file.
We now know that was because President Johnson, who privately had called Nixon’s Vietnam actions “treason,” had ordered the file removed from the White House by his national security aide Walt Rostow.  ............................................
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Follow link and read the rest

Why There’s a Bull Market for Stocks And Bear Market for Workers

From Robert Reich  --  follow link to original
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 http://robertreich.org/

Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose above 14,270 – completely erasing its 54 percent loss between 2007 and 2009.

The stock market is basically back to where it was in 2000, while corporate earnings have doubled since then.

Yet the real median wage is now 8 percent below what it was in 2000, and unemployment remains sky-high.

Why is the stock market doing so well, while most Americans are doing so poorly? Four reasons:

First, productivity gains. Corporations have been investing in technology rather than their workers. They get tax credits and deductions for such investments; they get no such tax benefits for improving the skills of  their employees. As a result, corporations can now do more with fewer people on their payrolls. That means higher profits.

Second, high unemployment itself. Joblessness all but eliminates the bargaining power of most workers – allowing corporations to keep wages low. Public policies that might otherwise reduce unemployment – a new WPA or CCC to hire the long-term unemployed, major investments in the nation’s crumbling infrastructure – have been rejected in favor of austerity economics. This also means higher profits, at least in the short run. 

Third, globalization. Big American-based corporations have been expanding and hiring around the globe where markets are growing fastest – even while the U.S. market is lackluster. Tax policies and trade policies have encouraged them.

Finally, the Fed’s easy-money policies. They’ve pushed investors into the stock market because bond yields are so low. On Tuesday, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note was just 1.9%.

All of this spells widening inequality in America, because the people who invest the most in the stock market have high incomes. Those who rely most on wages have lower incomes.

Corporate profits are claiming a larger share of national income than at any time in 60 years, while the portion of total income going to employees is near its lowest since 1966.

As my colleague Immanuel Saez recently found, all the economic gains between 2009 and 2011 (the last year for which data were available) went to the richest 1 percent of Americans. The bottom 99 percent has continued to lose ground.
And yet the tax code continues to give preference to capital gains over ordinary income — a huge boon to investors.

The sequestration is likely to make all this worse, since it will slow the U.S. economy and keep unemployment higher than otherwise.

It will also hurt the most vulnerable. Some $1.9 billion in low-income rental subsidies are being eliminated, affecting 125,000 people. Cuts to the Department of Agriculture will eliminate rental assistance for another 10,000 low-income rural people. Meanwhile, 100,000 formerly homeless Americans are likely to be removed from their current emergency shelters.
More than 3.8 million Americans receiving long-term unemployment benefits will have their monthly payments reduced by as much as 9.4 percent, and lose an average of $400 in benefits over their period of joblessness.
The Department of Education’s Title I program, which helps schools serving more than a million disadvantaged students, will be cut $715 million, and $400 million will be cut from Head Start, the preschool program for poor children. And major cuts will be made in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, which provides nutrition assistance and education.
The health of an economy is not measured by the profits of corporations headquartered within it or the value of its stock market. It depends, rather, on how many of people have jobs and whether those jobs pay decent wages.
By this measure, we are a long way from economic health. Rarely before in American history have public policies so blatantly helped the most fortunate among us, so cruelly harmed the least fortunate, and exposed so many average working Americans to such widespread insecurity.

Paycheck cuts force teachers in one Michigan city to go on food stamps

This from Daily Kos.  Please follow link to original.  READ THIS!!
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http://www.dailykos.com/

Teachers in Grand Rapids, Michigan, say that new paycheck cuts are leaving them with so little pay they qualify for food stamps. The teachers, working without a contract, have been hit by a 2011 state law that limited the amount public employers can pay for workers' health insurance. That's now being applied retroactively to these teachers, cutting as much as $300 from each paycheck.

"I am a five-year teacher who brings home $555.39 for two weeks and who currently qualifies for a Bridge Card," Ratliff told the school board Monday to loud applause from her colleagues. "How is this possible?" Some two dozen teachers told similar stories during nearly an hour of often emotional testimonials. Some told of renting rooms in order to keep their homes while others said they simply can no longer pay their bills.

The teachers have not had a contract since August, and their union president says the school district has slowed negotiations by first saying it wasn't ready to start bargaining and later by having staff, rather than the school board members who can actually make decisions, run negotiations, constantly saying they don't have the authority to get things done. He also suggests there are ways the district could, if it wanted to, cushion the effects of the retroactive insurance payments by increasing salaries or offering one-time bonuses. But the district isn't talking about that, even though the extra money being taken out of teachers' paychecks goes straight into the district's coffers. So: Teachers without a contract are being hit by a new law that slashes their pay, with an employer dragging its feet over bargaining a new contract as teachers are forced to go on food stamps. All in the context of the anti-union law Michigan legislators passed during the lame duck session which will, at the end of the month, start weakening unions in contract negotiations. This is basically the Republican plan for teachers in action.

#4 - it's #1 in Georgia - at least they are still in the game

HeritageBank of the South, Albany, Georgia, Assumes All of the Deposits of Frontier Bank, LaGrange, Georgia

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 8, 2013

Media Contact: Greg Hernandez (202) 898-6984 Cell: (202) 340-4922 Email: ghernandez@fdic.gov

Frontier Bank, LaGrange, Georgia, was closed today by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with HeritageBank of the South, Albany, Georgia, to assume all of the deposits of Frontier Bank.
The nine branches of Frontier Bank will reopen during their normal business hours beginning Saturday as branches of HeritageBank of the South. Depositors of Frontier Bank will automatically become depositors of HeritageBank of the South. Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship in order to retain their deposit insurance coverage up to applicable limits. Customers of Frontier Bank should continue to use their existing branch until they receive notice from HeritageBank of the South that it has completed systems changes to allow other HeritageBank of the South branches to process their accounts as well.
This evening and over the weekend, depositors of Frontier Bank can access their money by writing checks or using ATM or debit cards. Checks drawn on the bank will continue to be processed. Loan customers should continue to make their payments as usual.
As of December 31, 2012, Frontier Bank had approximately $258.8 million in total assets and $224.1 million in total deposits. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, HeritageBank of the South agreed to purchase essentially all of the assets.
Customers with questions about today's transaction should call the FDIC toll-free at 1-866-674-8944. The phone number will be operational this evening until 9:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time (EST); on Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., EST; on Sunday from noon to 6:00 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time (EDT); on Monday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., EDT; and thereafter from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., EDT. Interested parties also can visit the FDIC's Web site at http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/frontier-ga.html.
The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $51.6 million. Compared to other alternatives, HeritageBank of the South's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. Frontier Bank is the fourth FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the first in Georgia. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Hometown Community Bank, Braselton, on November 16, 2012.

The Jazz Messengers - Soft Winds

From 1955 album "At the Cafe Bohemia Vol. 1"
Horace Silver (p), Art Blakey (d), Hank Mobley (ts), Kenny Dorham (tp), Doug Watkins (b)

The Jazz Messengers - Prince Albert

Horace Silver (p), Art Blakey (d), Hank Mobley (ts), Kenny Dorham (tp), Doug Watkins (b)

I was in the audience at The Cafe Bohemia when this was recorded.  Damn, that was a long time ago  --  and I was so young.

THE WORKINGMAN'S SONG

Voucher school history book: Hippies didn’t bathe, worshipped Satan

This from AmericaBlog  --  please follow link to original.

Seems to me that after this "edumacation" in the great state of La. - AKA "Jindaliania", these fine young folks will have even MORE to be angry about  --  they'll be working as "houseboys" for all those "smartypants", reading, liberal folks in the Northeast.  What are they thinking?
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http://americablog.com/2013/03/voucher-school-us-history-book-hippies-didnt-bathe-worshipped-satan.html

Voucher schools in Louisiana and Indiana are using a “US History” textbook in their eighth grade classes that teaches that the “hippies” of the 1960s were draft dodgers who were rude, didn’t bathe, and worshipped Satan.
A friend has the book. He took a photo of the hippie section, below.
As Mother Jones noted last year, Louisiana’s voucher program has been fraught with problems:

Under Gov. Bobby Jindal’s voucher program, considered the most sweeping in the country, Louisiana is poised to spend tens of millions of dollars to help poor and middle-class students from the state’s notoriously terrible public schools receive a private education. While the governor’s plan sounds great in the glittery parlance of the state’s PR machine, the program is rife with accountability problems that actually haven’t been solved by the new standards the Louisiana Department of Education adopted two weeks ago.

Another big concern is that a lot of the schools are religious, and voucher programs are a way for Republicans to brainwash kids by teaching them historically incorrect, anti-gay, and anti-science religion as “fact,” all funded by taxpayers.
The Louisiana voucher schools under GOP Governor Bobby Jindal had already gotten into trouble last year for using a variety of religious right schoolbooks that teach a number of crazy, and racist, theories, including:

The Ku Klux Klan was a force for good

“[The Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians.”—United States History for Christian Schools, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2001

Majority of slaves in the old south were treated well

“A few slave holders were undeniably cruel. Examples of slaves beaten to death were not common, neither were they unknown. The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well.”—United States History for Christian Schools, 2nd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 1991

Dinosaurs and humans lived side by side

“Bible-believing Christians cannot accept any evolutionary interpretation. Dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years.”—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007

Fire-breathing dragons may actually have existed

“[Is] it possible that a fire-breathing animal really existed? Today some scientists are saying yes. They have found large chambers in certain dinosaur skulls…The large skull chambers could have contained special chemical-producing glands. When the animal forced the chemicals out of its mouth or nose, these substances may have combined and produced fire and smoke.”—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007

Now for the hippies

This comes from a book called “America: Land I Love.”  It’s an eighth-grade history book that’s used in Louisiana voucher schools (the Mother Jones link above confirms that this book is being used).  And it has a section on “The Hippies.”  Here’s what Louisiana is teaching its school kids about the hippies:

Good luck with those dinosaur books when your kids try to get into a real college.
Of course there’s a more serious side to this.  This is part of the larger GOP strategy to not just brainwash kids into being Republicans, but to rewrite American history in a way that’s more favorable to Republicans with an intent towards influencing the present.

Alfred Kinsey must be destroyed

Fringe and Star Trek were not lost on the GOP – they love a good effort to go back in time and change history.  Look at what the religious right attempted with Alfred Kinsey.  They were convinced that Kinsey was one of the fundamental building blocks of the modern “sexual revolution,” so they attempted for nearly two decades to undermine Kinsey by labeling him a pedophile.  They felt that if they could discredit Kinsey, they would somehow discredit the sexual revolution of the 60s and beyond, and that would somehow help their political battles on gay rights, abortion, women’s issues, and more.
Here’s how the men at the Concerned Women for America, a lead religious right activist group, described Kinsey:

For more than 55 years, pioneer sex researcher Alfred C. Kinsey’s work has had a profound effect on American culture. Once a household name, Kinsey is not known to most people under 40. Yet his studies in the late 1940s and early 1950s, heralded as the first “scientific” look at sex, became the foundation of the sexual revolution that has rocked not only America but the world.

The concerned men at the Concerned Women go on to claim that Kinsey’s ultimate goal was to “normalize pedophilia.”
And here’s Alan Keyes’ organization going after Kinsey as a pedophile, WorldNetDaily weighed in (which is pretty much prima facie proof that it’s a lie) and top religious right “doctor” Judith Reisman went so far as to suggest that Kinsey had a “top German Nazi pedophile aide.”  You get the picture.

GOP has been trying to rewrite history of McCarthyism too

Republicans have been trying the same rewriting of history with anti-communist nut Senator Joe McCarthy of the 1950s.  Ann Coulter has been trying to rehabilitate McCarthy, as has WorldNetDaily, among others.  Here’s a bit of Coulter:

John Hawkins: Now I heard that you wrote an impassioned defense of tailgunner Joe in the book. Is that the case? If so, why do you think Joe McCarthy has gotten a bad rap?
Ann Coulter: I know he got a bad rap because there are no monuments to Joe McCarthy. Liberals had to destroy McCarthy because he exposed the entire liberal establishment as having sheltered Soviet spies.

Yes, that’s the tragedy of the McCarthy years, that poor Senator Joe was destroyed.
While the Republicans’ attack on the hippies is downright laughable, their strategy of rewriting history in order to rewrite our present is anything but funny.

we all know the political situation here in the good old USA is messed up.  These days, only the rich count.  It seems we no longer even have value as consumers - just sell the crap to those "emerging markets".  So, profits go up, stocks go up, wages for us peons go DOWN  --  meanwhile, we have all sorts of "weapons of mass distraction" to keep us from actually realizing our plight. 

I think our "leaders", our "masters of the universe", our "BRAVE CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS", our "HERO'S OF THE EXECUTIVE", all talk around, above, below, us about these phony "debt ceilings", "sequesters", and of course, the DREADED "ENTITLEMENTS"  --  those very programs that actually help keep people ALIVE and somewhat HEALTHY.

Our Civil Rights have been GUTTED, our Bill Of Rights has been GUTTED - but all we hear about is "gay marriage", "gun control", "abortion", the "war against women", "immigration", religion, religion, religion.

ALL DISTRACTIONS!!

If you are religious   --  go pray.  If you are not  --  don't pray.  I'll leave you alone, if you leave me alone.

It's a mockery of "public discourse".  "They" know it's all a crock of shit  --  ad are ALL trying hard to keep us from actually looking at what is going on.
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That's it for the supposed "serious stuff".  Now, for something important  --  WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE N.Y. YANKEES??
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They stayed out of the free agent market, and let some of their good players go.  Swisher suddenly became "too expensive" - so now with Granderson and Teixeira hurt they have a major hole in the outfield, first base, and the middle of their lineup. 

A-Rod is out until August - or until.  When he finally does come back  --  you have npo idea what he will have left.  Jeter is coming back from a serious injury, as is Mo.  As I mentined
Swisher is gone, Ibanez is gone,   --  oh yeah, the Yankees have NO first string catcher --  they let Russell Martin walk.  They had to sign a Red Sox retread to play third base, and if Jeter gets hurt again, it's either Nunez (who either can't field or can't throw) or Nix at shortstop .

Phil Hughes is hurt - and we hope the rest of the pitching staff will perform as well as last year (doubtful).

All in all, they no longer look like a playoff team.  If they do throw away this season in an attempt to cut payroll  --  their high roller season ticket holders might just give The Yankees a pass.  Tickets are so expensive that only the "well heeled" can afford to go.  No longer is The Stadium alive with diehard fans.  Can no longer afford to go.

The Yankees are victims of their success  --  if they do not keep winning the corporate $$$$ that pay for season tickets will choose to spend their money elsewhere.  The diehard fans aren't there, the Stadium shows it  --  when The Yankees finally become a tourist attraction, their days will be numbered.

Lester Young - Count Basie 1936 ~ Lady Be Good

Joe Pass - Summertime [1992]

Count Basie - The Elder (Freddie Green Chord Solo)

Lester Young - JUST YOU, JUST ME

Lester Young ( tenor sax), Johnny Guarnieri (piano), Slam Stewart (bass), Sid Catlett (drums).

SOMEBODY LOVES ME by Lester Young, Nat King Cole and Buddy Rich

What Obama Should Do Now

Some common sense suggestions from Robert Reich  --  please follow link to original
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http://robertreich.org/

What should the President do now?
Push to repeal the sequester (a reconciliation bill in the Senate would allow repeal with 51 votes, thereby putting pressure on House Republicans), and replace it with a “Build America’s Future” Act that would close tax loopholes used by the wealthy, end corporate welfare, impose a small (1/10 of 1%) tax on financial transactions, and reduce the size of the military.
Half the revenues would be used for deficit reduction, the other half for investments in our future through education (from early-childhood through affordable higher ed), infrastructure, and basic R&D.
Also included in that bill — in order to make sure our future isn’t jeopardized by another meltdown of Wall Street — would be a resurrection of Glass-Steagall and a limit on the size of the biggest banks.

I’d make clear to the American people that they made a choice in 2012 but that right-wing House Republicans have been blocking that choice, and the only way to implement that choice is for Congress to pass the Build America’s Future Act.
If House Republicans still block it, I’d make 2014 a referendum on it and them, and do whatever I could to take back the House.

In short, the President must reframe the public debate around the future of the country and the investments we must make together in that future, rather than austerity economics. And focus on good jobs and broad-based prosperity rather than prosperity for a few and declining wages and insecurity for the many.

Mooching Off Medicaid By PAUL KRUGMAN

The latest column from Prof. Krugman - please follow link to original
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 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/opinion/krugman-mooching-off-medicare.html?ref=paulkrugman&_r=0

Conservatives like to say that their position is all about economic freedom, and hence making government’s role in general, and government spending in particular, as small as possible. And no doubt there are individual conservatives who really have such idealistic motives.

When it comes to conservatives with actual power, however, there’s an alternative, more cynical view of their motivations — namely, that it’s all about comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted, about giving more to those who already have a lot. And if you want a strong piece of evidence in favor of that cynical view, look at the current state of play over Medicaid.

Some background: Medicaid, which provides health insurance to lower-income Americans, is a highly successful program that’s about to get bigger, because an expansion of Medicaid is one key piece of the Affordable Care Act, a k a Obamacare.

There is, however, a catch. Last year’s Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare also opened a loophole that lets states turn down the Medicaid expansion if they choose. And there has been a lot of tough talk from Republican governors about standing firm against the terrible, tyrannical notion of helping the uninsured.

Now, in the end most states will probably go along with the expansion because of the huge financial incentives: the federal government will pay the full cost of the expansion for the first three years, and the additional spending will benefit hospitals and doctors as well as patients. Still, some of the states grudgingly allowing the federal government to help their neediest citizens are placing a condition on this aid, insisting that it must be run through private insurance companies. And that tells you a lot about what conservative politicians really want.

Consider the case of Florida, whose governor, Rick Scott, made his personal fortune in the health industry. At one point, by the way, the company he built pleaded guilty to criminal charges, and paid $1.7 billion in fines related to Medicare fraud. Anyway, Mr. Scott got elected as a fierce opponent of Obamacare, and Florida participated in the suit asking the Supreme Court to declare the whole plan unconstitutional. Nonetheless, Mr. Scott recently shocked Tea Party activists by announcing his support for the Medicaid expansion.

But his support came with a condition: he was willing to cover more of the uninsured only after receiving a waiver that would let him run Medicaid through private insurance companies. Now, why would he want to do that?

Don’t tell me about free markets. This is all about spending taxpayer money, and the question is whether that money should be spent directly to help people or run through a set of private middlemen.

And despite some feeble claims to the contrary, privatizing Medicaid will end up requiring more, not less, government spending, because there’s overwhelming evidence that Medicaid is much cheaper than private insurance. Partly this reflects lower administrative costs, because Medicaid neither advertises nor spends money trying to avoid covering people. But a lot of it reflects the government’s bargaining power, its ability to prevent price gouging by hospitals, drug companies and other parts of the medical-industrial complex.

For there is a lot of price-gouging in health care — a fact long known to health care economists but documented especially graphically in a recent article in Time magazine. As Steven Brill, the article’s author, points out, individuals seeking health care can face incredible costs, and even large private insurance companies have limited ability to control profiteering by providers. Medicare does much better, and although Mr. Brill doesn’t point this out, Medicaid — which has greater ability to say no — seems to do better still.

You might ask why, in that case, much of Obamacare will run through private insurers. The answer is, raw political power. Letting the medical-industrial complex continue to get away with a lot of overcharging was, in effect, a price President Obama had to pay to get health reform passed. And since the reward was that tens of millions more Americans would gain insurance, it was a price worth paying.

But why would you insist on privatizing a health program that is already public, and that does a much better job than the private sector of controlling costs? The answer is pretty obvious: the flip side of higher taxpayer costs is higher medical-industry profits.

So ignore all the talk about too much government spending and too much aid to moochers who don’t deserve it. As long as the spending ends up lining the right pockets, and the undeserving beneficiaries of public largess are politically connected corporations, conservatives with actual power seem to like Big Government just fine.

Wealth Inequality in America

This is one reason I've become disgusted with our politics, and our perception of what's happening in our United States.  It's disgusting, and until we can do something about it, we will continue to be lost.

Esperanza - Body & Soul

Charlie Parker Quintet 1947 ~ Scrapple From The Apple (Take 2)

Charlie Parker - Alto Sax
Miles Davis - Trumpet
Duke Jordan - Piano
Tommy Potter - Bass
Max Roach - Drums

Charlie Parker / Bird Of Paradise 1947

Charlie Parker - Chet Baker Live 1952 ~ Liza

Personnel:
Charlie Parker - Alto Sax
Chet Baker - Trumpet
Sonny Criss - Alto Sax
Al Haig - Piano
Harry Babasin - Bass
Lawrence Marable - Drums

"War" by Edwin Starr (Original Video - 1969)

WHATS GOING ON /MARVIN GAYE

Otis Redding - Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay