Thanks to Anna at:

Actions Speak for Themselves

In response to a comment from "anonymous" asking why Jason Altmire is giving us nothing, I suggest that "anonymous" take an evening class in basic economics (while they are still offered!)
Voting to reduce your federal taxes by LESS than $200 (forget the $400 unless you're making a lot of money) sounds great until you realize that Altmire had no problem mortgaging your children's future with his blind, lockstep, kiss-ass funding of two illegal wars. Who do you think will pay for that? Your paltry $400 federal tax cut? Get real! That $400 is going to be taken away by other business procurements.
We're paying Halliburton (Still!) huge sums of money to screw our troops. Where does that money come from? US!
If your intellect is so limited that you think you're getting a free and clear "gift" of $400 in tax cuts and don't realize that you'll pay for it in another way, you deserve the heap of bull you're going to get.
Altmire voted against the health care bill because he worked for UPMC and they didn't like it. The Tea bigots are trying to get it reversed because they have less intelligence than the Republicans pushing the repeal. Please tell me how the health care bill is hurting you? Anyone?
Did it take away any insurance you now have? Nope!
Are you paying higher premiums now? Sure! But not because of the health bill. The insurance industry says that they have to raise prices 20 to 39% because the cost of coverage has increased. And the CBO reported that 2 to 3% increases should have been acceptable. The rest is for their pockets. They have posted profits that make Wall Street envious!
Altmire voted against the stimulus even though economist after economist says it worked but needed to be larger.
The lackeys in Altmire's ads say he's independent yet he's voted more with Republicans than any Democrat should. That's not independent. That's screwing the voters of this area into thinking he's a Democrat and for the common people when his ideals show he's only committed to the 3% of the wealthiest in this area.
Altmire's FOR extending the tax cuts for the richest Americans. He believes the Ronnie Raygun bullshit that tax cuts for business create jobs. Sure! But only overseas! Businesses took the extra cash form the tax cuts and invested in 20 cents per hour workers in india, Korea, China. But they still charge Americans as if they were paying $15.00 an hour! Nice gig if you can get it. And with BlueDogs like Altmire, business will continue to screw Americans. There's no proof that any of the Bush Tax Cuts created even a thousand jobs for Americans in America.
Don't believe me? Ask Altmire to show you factual proof they created any jobs. Then ask him why he wants to keep giving then huge tax breaks while voting against better health care, more jobs and better education for Americans.

From FDL

Here are the douchebags who call themselves Democrats and yet, somehow, don’t believe the richest families in American society should pull their own weight, even in an economic culture that favors them heavily.

We have all the proof we need that the Bush tax cuts were bad for America. Keeping them in place for the wealthiest Americans can only prolong the damage they’ve begun to our economic progress in the 21st century.

As you get ‘fired up‘ and ‘in gear‘ for the final lap of Midterm Election Season the next five weeks, give thought to these officeholders on Capitol Hill who seem to think that a core tenet of the Democratic Party — that the most privileged and wealthy among us should contribute their fair share to the war machine and upward wealth redistribution engine that is our current tax system — no longer applies.

Do they deserve your support?

They don’t subscribe to the belief that the wealthiest families in America need to pull their own weight.

Do they fire you up?

These people aren’t real Democrats, in my way of thinking. They have swallowed the worst of trickle-up voodoo economics. They subscribe to the AynRandian view that “‘producers’ shouldn’t be penalized to reward parasites.”

Do they get you in gear?

House:
Bobby Bright (Ala.)
Artur Davis (Ala.)
Mike Ross (Ark.)
Ann Kirkpatrick (Ariz.)
Harry Mitchell (Ariz.)
Jim Costa (Calif.)
John Salazar (Colo.)
Jim Himes (Conn.)
Allen Boyd (Fla.)
Ron Klein (Fla.)
John Barrow (Ga.)
Sanford Bishop Jr. (Ga.)
Jim Marshall (Ga.)
Walt Minnick (Idaho)
Melissa Bean (Ill.)
Joe Donnelly (Ind.)
Brad Ellsworth (Ind.)
Frank Kratovil (Md.)
Gary Peters (Mich.)
Travis Childers (Miss.)
Larry Kissell (N.C.)
Mike McIntyre (N.C.)
Earl Pomeroy (N.D.)
Harry Teague (N.M.)
Michael Arcuri (N.Y.)
Mike McMahon (N.Y.)
Zack Space (Ohio)
Dan Boren (Okla.)
Jason Altmire (Pa.)
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (S.D.)
Jim Cooper (Tenn.)
Lincoln Davis (Tenn.)
Jim Matheson (Utah)
Rick Boucher (Va.)
Gerry Connolly (Va.)
Glenn Nye (Va.)

Senate:
Joe Lieberman (Conn.), an independent who caucuses with Democrats
Evan Bayh (Ind.)
Ben Nelson (Neb.)
Kent Conrad (N.D.)
Jim Webb (Va.)
Michael Bennet (Colo.) — “will consider a short-term compromise”
Mary Landrieu (La.) — “open-minded” to it, a one-year extension “probably would be good”
Barbara Boxer (Calif.) — supports extending tax cuts “at least 98 percent [of] Americans,” would review proposals for families above that threshold

• Total income was $2.74 trillion less during the eight Bush years than if incomes had stayed at 2000 levels.
• Average incomes fell. Average taxpayer income was down $3,512, or 5.7 percent, in 2008 compared with 2000, President Bush’s own benchmark year for his promises of prosperity through tax cuts.
• Since 2000, population grew more than wages.
• In 2008 nearly 1 in every 200 high-income taxpayers paid no federal income tax, up from about 1 in 1,500 in 1998.
• The tax cuts did not spur investment. Job growth in the George W. Bush years was one-seventh that of the Clinton years. Nixon and Ford did better than Bush on jobs.
• One of every eight dollars of the tax cuts went to the 1 in 1,000 taxpayers in the top tenth of 1 percent, the annual threshold for which was in the $2 million range throughout the last administration.
• The number of Americans in poverty, as officially measured, hit a 16-year high last year of 43.6 million, though a National Academy of Sciences study says that the real poverty figure is closer to 51 million.

So to recap, declining wages, increased poverty, anemic job growth and a boon for the people in the top 1%. Heckuva job!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From Bill Maher: (Especially the last paragraph!)

New Rule: If You Know Less About Barack Obama Than Any Other President in History, You Might be a Redneck

MAHER: And finally if you know less about Barack Obama than any other president on history, you just might be a redneck. Now, I mentioned this because last week Haley Barbour who is the former head of the Republican Party, the current Governor of Mississippi and of course Boss Hoggs of the Dukes of Hazard, said about Obama
“this is a president we know less about than any other president in history.”

Really? We know less about Obama than say Millard Fillmore? Oh yeah, Fillmore, we had too much information about that guy. I don’t need that picture in my head of Fillmore having telegraphed with sex with Harriet Tubman.

You know this effort by the right to insist that Obama is un-knowable has culminated now in the bizarre belief that the President is secretly a Muslim.

An astounding one in five Americans believe this. And two in five believe he’s a hologram projected by a Chinese satellite. One in seven thinks he’s under their bed right now..

You know it was bad enough when the birthers said he was born in Africa. Now we have the churchers who doubt his religion even though during the campaign they were screaming about Obama being too beholden to his whacko Christian minister.

But now they say he was just faking being Christian for two decades so he could secretly get elected as a Muslim.

Wow, that is one undercover brother. Let me show you some pictures of Barack Obama. He smokes, he drinks beer, he eats hotdogs... and he checks out ass. Let me tell you, if he's a Muslim he stinks at it.

Obama loves war and rich people and he never goes to church. If that doesn't prove he's a Christian I don't know what does. Wait, it gets worse. Ten percent of Americans don't think Obama is a Muslim or a Christian. They think he's "something else".

Right. He's tall. He's not white. Maybe he's an avatar. How could it happen that one of the most thoroughly researched and vetted men in our history is suddenly transformed into a giant question mark?

I'll tell you how. Because teabaggers love the truth. They just hate facts. And giving them facts not only fails to change their mind, it actually makes them embrace the bullshit more.

This is why after you spend ninety minutes patiently explaining to your brother in law that taxes had actually gone down under Obama, he calls you a fag and goes into the garage to listen to his police scanner.

In conclusion let me point out that in 2008 these same people who believed that we don't know enough about Barack Obama were completely okay pulling the lever for someone who no one had even ever heard of, the real housewife of Wasilla.

There are mixed reviews as to whether our students are learning anything or just occupying seats in a building while paying a person an atrocious salary to baby sit. But one thing is certain; the current crop of adults in charge of school districts are brainless heaps of cattle dung left in steaming piles on local roads…either that or they’re just ignorant, uncaring assholes.

Case in point: Allegheny Valley School District and their upcoming teacher contract. You’d think with all the problems this country is having with finances; with all the screwing of the American People by Big Business, Health Companies, Big Oil, and especially Wall Street and their Republican lackeys (not to mention the utter stupidity of the Tea Bigots) that some common sense might be prevalent at school board meetings. But that’s not the case. As a famous quote goes: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it!” Same goes for school boards. Did you ever wonder about the educational or mental qualifications of those who serve on those boards? You should!

Highlands, South Butler, Freeport, Armstrong (and soon to be assholes, the Allegheny Valley School Board) all caved in to the greed of the teacher’s union’s demands that the residents of those municipalities pay for the health care of people who care more for themselves than the profession they pretend to hold dear.

In Highland’s case, over 2 million dollars and increasing yearly, of taxpayer money is being given to the teachers for nothing. By 2015, the residents of Highlands will have given nearly 15 million of their tax dollars as gifts to the greedy teachers in this district. Why? Because the residents are too stupid to attend school board meetings and remove the asses who don’t care how resident tax money is spent.

Oh, the boards pretend to make big financial savings of some things. Fools like Wantland wanted and got a stakeholder commission to determine whether renovations were necessary (unnecessary expense and time wasted). Mental midgets like No No Wisner bitched and moaned about spending money renovating Grandview while championing a new, 30-plus million dollar building to benefit her friends (but she couldn’t see spending YOUR money for heating for elementary students! Let them wear mittens!). There are other examples you all are familiar with; cutting classes because they don’t have the funds (but, Heaven forbid, don’t even think of touching any sports funds!!!!); laying off teachers because there’s no money; closing libraries because the tax base is shrinking (but give away $10,000 to a public library that students can’t use during school hours!).
But all of these austere programs pale in comparison to the Same kind of Wall Street stupidity of giving people who make $50,000 a year basically free health care insurance.

Imagine what that 15 million could do for this area? A mill is around $650,000. Making those greedy teachers pay their fair share could result in a tax reduction of nearly 10 mills over the course of the teacher’s contract! Think about it! Your school tax could be less than 13 mills instead of the 24 you now pay. Nice savings, but you ain’t getting it because the school board insanely gave your money to someone who can afford to pay what you may not be able to. Instead, you have to scrounge to pay for your family’s health and you get to pay for people who work 9 months out of the year and who the majority take jobs away from kids over the summer. And the imbecilic Tea Bigots have the nerve to bitch about allowing those who make a million a year to keep their $300,000 tax breaks! What hypocrites!

Now Allegheny Valley School Board has the opportunity to help their tax payers. Make the teachers pay their fair share…just like the rest of us. If they threaten to quit, let them. If necessary, fire those who refuse to stop screwing the tax payers. Let them find out what its like to work in the private sector and have to work 12 months a year and pay for their own benefits. There are scads of young teachers out there willing to take a job for $35,000 a year and pay for their own health insurance just to have a job.

Will the Allegheny Valley School Board do the right thing and take care of the tax payers? I won’t hold my breath. You probably shouldn’t, either.

You gotta hand it to them...

This is just one example of many the freakin' lies the Tea Bigots get you gullibles to fall for. Rather than accept just their word for anything, or mine for that fact, take a little time and do your own fact checking on sites of both sides of the political spectrum. Make sure that whatever you read has references, otherwise you don't know if Fox and Friends is lying, exaggerating or simply distorting a story...or not even reporting it. Need an example?
Did any of you Tea Bigots know that there was a Mosque in both World Trade Centers Before 9/11? Here's one link!
Mosque in World Trade Center before 9/11



From Crooksandliars.com
September 13, 2010 07:00 PM

Hypocrisy, Monday Edition

By karoli

Yes, it's time for another edition of Republican hypocrisy, and there's plenty of it to go around today. As an added plus, I've got some Tea Party hypocrisy thrown in for flavor.

The Senate GOP signals that they will block all tax initiatives that don't include an extension of Bush tax cuts for the rich before they don't.

An Associated Press story made waves this morning, by claiming that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had received a pledge from every member of his caucus to block tax legislation unless it extends all of the Bush tax cuts, even for the richest Americans.

This morning spokesman Don Stewart told TPM that article is incorrect. "They're correcting this story," Stewart says. "I only said what I've been saying for months: there are no Republicans who support tax hikes (and a growing chorus of Democrats oppose them too)."

Meanwhile, teabagger Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has sent a written request to Arne Duncan for $249 million in stimulus funds and will be requesting $289 million in Medicaid funds by the end of the month in order to balance the budget, while all the time hammering Democrats for passing the stimulus bill at all. Republicans' claim that government is expanding under the Obama administration is patently false, but they flog it anyway.

For all the hoo-ha over taxes from the Tea Party, it's worth remembering that head teabagger Jenny Beth Martin got a $510,000 bailout from the IRS (not to mention creditors' debt forgiveness) so she could be paid big bucks to spread tea and bile across the nation. Her excuse?

Martin claims that the recession -- and problems with a business partner -- led to the failure of her husband's business. That failure, she claims, led to her bankruptcy and her tax situation. She says those woes make her an "everyday American." But here's the thing: "everyday Americans" don't rack up $510,000 federal tax bills.

Indeed, they don't. It seems that teabagger tax protests involve tax dodges, while the rest of us muddle through without ducking our duty to pay taxes when they're due.

With the daily hypocrisy running rampant in our political news, can someone explain why Democrats don't use it to win the damned election?

Highlands ST E A L S Victory

In a perfect example of the all too frequent misleading, irresponsible reporting by the local tp I’ve been ranting about for a number of years, yet another gem surfaces. Enter: the headline by Bill Beckner, Jr.:
“Highlands STEALS Victory”
Even those with a passing interest in football understand that a headline like that connotes good fortune on the part of a team. In this case the implication was that the Rams were lucky to win …because of their defense; forget about the offense that capitalized on the turnovers; forget about the effort by the offense after those turnovers. Yeah, Highlands was lucky…lucky they only scored 35 points.
Where does the tp get these pseudo news gatherers? Was this guy a gardening cubby who was shipped out by Jeffy at the last minute? Or maybe he’s from Derry Area and was a little embarrassed?
Regardless, the writing for this pseudo newspaper and its pretend editor is, as I’ve said before, not even on a par with some local high school journalism classes.
Instead of praising the effort by the team in the headline (even though the body supported the effort) he chose to undermine their accomplishment with a tacky, Fox-Like misleading headline!
I do have to say though, it’s possible the author is simply “interviewing” for a job with one of the Fox Fictional Departments; like maybe Faux and Friends?

I think the parents of the offense should be outraged by this kind of Fox writing! You know, the same kind of people who were soooo upset that the Prime Ribber was finally, and deservedly, removed from access to all the local eateries!
Let's hear it all you pseudo Tea Footballers! Show up at the next board meeting and let the people know you're upset the way the area learns about Highlands "stealing" a victory. Write letters to the editor of the local tp and express your disappointment over the way they treat your kids!
Yeah! Right! Like that'll happen!

(But don't hold your breath waiting for them to be published!)

Oh and maybe it's time to get a proof reader at the tp? Maybe Jeffy's waiting for a 7th grade intern to replace whoever gets paid to do that job now?

(snip)
"Highlands senior running back and linebacker Terrell Leonard was energetic on both sides of the ball and aruably had his best game for the Rams."

But maybe I'm being too hard on an employed adult since I don't know what grade school he or she went to! More wasted money by Jeffy and Scaiffey on Spell Checkers...unless they don't know how to use them!


g

Over the course of the last few weeks I’ve gotten some emails asking why I pick on Jeffy Domenick, editor of the local paper. Many have come from new readers, readers that may not be familiar with the paper or maybe they’re just too into Fox News or CNN or even most of the Main Stream Media.
A couple of friends and bloggers on this blog were former School Board members and they’ve told me a lot of what happened at meetings that I didn’t attend. One of the more interesting instances was a meeting to look for a consultant for the school.
No one was offered a job; nothing was discussed that wasn’t brought up at the next public meeting, as prescribed by the Sunshine Law. Yet Judy Wisner in her inimitable fashion ran to the VND to inform them of something she fabricated on the way to the building.
Let me clarify. Judy can’t keep a story straight from one room to the next without embellishment or downright lies, or so says some informed people. Having been to a number of board meetings, hearing her comment, then reading a hack’s report in the paper the next day gives every indication that the person in charge at the VND is so biased as to believe every word she and her queen utter.
That no longer surprises me as is evidenced by the organization that owns the VND, the Trib.
The Trib is an extension of Fox news whether in actual legal fact or by virtue of releasing the warped views of its radical Right Wing Owner. Fox, and through its association with the Trib and VND, was granted a decision by Bush’s Radical Right Wing Supreme Court that “allows a news organization, newspaper or any publicly presented dissemination of information” to lie, yes, that’s right, the SCOTUS said Fox can lie and make up and slant news stories you see, hear and read. It’s no wonder that the local editor can not only pick what he wants you to read but decide how to write it whether it’s factual or not.
Recently, the VND through its parent company the Trib, decided to sue the Highlands School Board for conducting an executive meeting the Trib felt violated the Sunshine Law. They lost. The decision was based on fact. The VND appealed and two Republican appointed judges legislated from the bench against the School Board. Rather than reading the actual fact of the Sunshine law, those two judges went so far as to offer THEIR interpretation of it further adding opinion unbecoming such a position.
In the Initial, 2007, tear-jerking incident by the VND, the Sunshine Law was quite clear about executive meetings in that they can be held for informational gathering for personal, disciplinary, employment or preliminary discussions on upcoming agendas. It specifically does not allow any vote on any issue in executive session and matters relating to anything other than the above must be presented at the next public meeting…which they were (in the case of nick Staresenic). There was NO VOTE!
The VND’s cubby reporter and Dodge City Lawyer opened their mouths about the incident. The former left out and ignored facts. The latter, offered ethically questionable advice through the paper. Timmy McCue decided to sue the board and eventually dropped the suit. I can only surmise from speaking with a number of other lawyers that he had no grounds…which he didn’t.
The second suit was appealed by the VND because their pride was hurt again. It’s my understanding that it will be appealed again to a higher, probably more competent, court.
The VND has claimed to be concerned with the public interest and has on numerous occasions, blasted the Chris Salego Board for its decisions concerning funds. Of course, Jeffy Domenick and the VND NEVER had a bad word to say about Karen Wantland's Board and her decision to waste tax payer money on a Taj Mahal Football Stadium that was going to bring in sooo much revenue for the district. (How’s that working out, Karen?)
But we have a situation in Blawnox where a racist Napoleonic (don’t just think of racism as black and white) chairs a council. He made absolutely improper and degrading comments about a person and their ethnicity and thinks himself above foreigners. Do we need this kind of hate filled profiling in this area? I’ll have more on this a little later but the point is that the VND which should be suing the Blawnox Council over violations of the Sunshine Act seems to be ignoring the matter.
It looks for all the world as though the only concern Jeffy has about concerns or legality is against a few members of the Highlands School Board, who aren’t even members any longer.
Hey Jeffy, why aren’t you doing anything about it? You had no problem spending Highlands’ residents tax money on a frivolous suit claiming the public’s right to know what goes on in meetings. Yet with an obvious violation of the Sunshine Act in Blawnox, you choose to sit on your ass and do nothing. Maybe you have some friends on the Blawnox Council and don’t want to embarrass them? OR are you just that incompetent.
That my dear readers is just one of the reasons I pick on poor ol’ Jeffy. He’s a hypocrite.