The Democratic Party in Illinois moves to protect Waterways & Wetlands

 Last year, the scummy SCOTUS ruled that the US Constitution and Clean Water Act aren't valid because the Supreme Six Injustices deem it to be so.

The fact the Clean Water Act was 50 years old or the that the first legal cases decided by the old SCOTUS dates back 200 years ago, or that the right of the Federal Government to regulate waterways is written into the very Constitution is irrelevant;   The Scummy Supreme Six Injustices are aligned with the rapacious Rich and those who despoil the Nation.

The Clean Water Act of 1972 survived decades of litigation from opponents seeking to limit the authority of federal agencies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to regulate the Waters of the United States, typically referred to as WOTUS. Before the wetlands decision, the Supreme Court upheld the definition of WOTUS to not only include navigable bodies of waters but also adjacent wetlands with meaningful hydrological connections. 

For over a decade, Michael and Chantell Sackett, an Idaho couple, challenged this definition before the Supreme Court twice. In 2004, they bought a lakeside property with the plans to build a home on the site. The couple began excavation without applying for the appropriate permitting to develop on top of a wetland and the EPA stopped the project. 

Last May, in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Sacketts.

You might have missed this ruling seeing as the Reactionary Court has been pushing through all manner of regressive bills designed to return the United States to its' Roots as a Slave Owning Kleptocracy built upon white supremacy and fundamentalist hyporcisy but, the Injustices financial backers and benefactors also have a eye on undermining any regulation which stymies their ability to despoil the land, strip it of it's natural beauty and reap the financial rewards.

All the meanwhile, leaving behind a shattered wasteland to be inherited by the meek.

Fortunately, here in Illinois we have a Democratic Legislature which will not simply turn the rivers, lakes, streams, and wetlands over to rapacious billionaires to do with as they wish.

In response to another unjust overreach by this Court, Illinois State Senator Laura Ellman introduced a New Act 30 ILCS 105/5.1015, the Wetlands and Small Streams Protection Act:

to restore protections for wetlands and small streams that were formerly protected from pollution and destruction by the Clean Water Act. Provides provisions concerning: exemptions; wetlands delineation, classification, notification, permits and veto; general permits; appeal of final decisions made by the Department of Natural Resources and judicial review; investigation and enforcement; and county authority. Creates the Wetlands and Small Streams Advisory Committee and establishes duties and rules for the Committee. Creates the Wetlands and Small Streams Protection Fund. Provides for permit review fees. Defines terms. Makes conforming changes in the State Finance Act and the Illinois Environmental Protection Act. Effective immediately.

Marshes, bogs, ponds, streams, and other waterways are not things to be drained, damned, or reclaimed but integral pieces of a functioning landscape, a refugee for wildlife, and repository of natural beauty.

But, the 1% won't be satisfied with the massive gains they've made over the rest of America; the Rich want it all, which is why they know if they put Trump back into power they'll be able to finally eliminate the Middle Class, end the American dream, and shackle the American people into perpetual wage slavery and bondage. 

"I know plenty of you, and you're rich as hell...  And we're going to give you tax cuts."

They Don't Care Republicans Cruz forward with medical plan to kill millions of Americans Update: Republican Senate fails

If you were Wealthy, You'd be Healthy

Since you're Poor, there's the Funeral Door

The Banana Republican Party latest plan to kill thousands and bankrupt millions of Americans is moving forward in fits and starts.  As the Party of Treason and Subversion of the United States the Respublikanskaya Partiya hates the American People and wishes to curtail the gains Americans made in the 20th century.

The Repeal and Replacement of Obamacare with They Don't Care is a case in point.  Republicans rallied against the ACA for 7 years!  They gnashed their teeth, they tore their hair, they beat their breasts, if only that Dastardly Obama would get out of the way they, the Republicans, would pass a Healthcare Insurance Law which would stand for all time.

Now, since the 2016 elections, the Republicans hold the entire Federal Government.  Yet, all they've mananged to propose are plans so cobbled together, so inane, and so monstorously evil even their duped and battered right-wing drones don't support it and the Insurance Industry has declared the latest version which includes the Ted Cruz Amendment "unworkable".  Ah, but there is one group which supports it, the Republicans Masters' the 1%.

Trump's campaign gave conservatives everything they wanted. Outright bigotry, violent racist language, implied calls for violence and explicit consent to harm the American People.

But Trump's election gave Republicans a chance to get everything they and the 1% have wanted; an End to American Dream and the elimination of the Social Safety Net.  Republicans serve the Plutocracy and the Plutocracy has no use for the American Dream. Republicans view American's value only in terms of the amount of work each American can do and the amount of excess labor value the Vulture Capitalist class can extract from each them.

The Progressive gains of the 20th century marked an actual rise for Americans which the Founding of the Nation and the Glided Age of the 19th century kept confined to the owners of the Nation.  And those Owners, the 1%, hate those progressive gains.  Because when the working class is no longer held in the shackles of corporate bondage and wage slavery they go on and create a pluralistic society with broad based protections for workers, the elderly, the afllicted with a chance for future generations to rise above the preceeding.

The Republicans HATE that.  The Republicans want a return to the days when a railway worker losing an arm on the job was kicked off at the next stop and left to fend for himself.  The Republicans want a return to the days when elderly coal miners were glad not to have been killed in an unsafe mine explosion or cave-in so they can instead whither away of black lung disease and die in a pauper's hovel.  The Republicans want a return to the days when medical care, education, pensions, and the prosepct of living and enjoying your golden years was reserved for the Rich.

The Republicans Don't Care and that is the Healthcare law they are passing.

Update:
The Republican Don't Care bill has apparently failed.  While it's fortunate the Republicans are as flaccid and incompetent as they are anti-American but, until the Republicans are removed from Congress they won't stop in their efforts to kill the poor and impoverish the working class.

America falls for identity theft scam gives personal information to Putin's Puppet

Identity Theft is the fastest growing crime in the country.  Criminals target thousands of American households every year.  Nowhere is this more evident than the White House.  Donald Trump has stolen what it means to be the President.  He gave it away cheaply to Russian pimps and gangsters.  Now Putin's Puppet wants to steal the vital biographical data on 200 million Americans and hand it over to the FSB and Spetsnaz.  The Republican Party is alligned with Russia against the Unsited States of American and the American People.

Don't expect small government conservatives to decry this action.  The creation of a MASSIVE database by federal bureaucrats causes them no consternation because conservatives sold their shriveled blackened souls to their Republican Masters long ago.  Conservatives will do whatever their  Republican Masters want and the Republican Party obeys the 1%.

The 1% wants to destroy the American Dream and the quickest way to do that is to eliminate the franchise for millions of Americans who don't vote right.  Trump's tiny right-hand man for this endeavor is the odious Kric Kobach, who sent a demand letter from the Executive Branch to all Secretary of State for all 50 states.

The Plutocracy has always hated expanded voting rights in America because when the American People are offered a choice of what type of government they desire, it is a Democratic Socialist type, with a solid social safety net, dignity for the elderly, assistance for the destitute, access to education and employment, union protections, living wages, public parks and public landmarks, and medical coverage for everyone.

The Republican Party opposses all of these things.  The Republicans want this:

A Public Beach used exclusively by Republican Hatchetman Chris Christie

The Republican Party hates America.  Conservatives hate basic deceny, human rights, and the progressive 20th century.  Conservatives want access to the America Dream made available only to them and crushing penury and slavery on everyone else.  The 1% hate that they do not own everything in this country.  Combined together, conservatives, the Republican Party, and the 1% want to destroy the United States and replace it with a neo-feudal wage slave state.

Together these three enemies of America, conspired to get Donald Trump elected President, because they knew he would enact the right-wing agenda of Oppression, Intolerance and Adulation of the Rich with reckless abandon.

Who does Sean Hannity think he's hurting when he threatens to quit working?

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. - Adam Smith, Of Taxes, Wealth of Nations (pg. 498)

Please, proceed Sean. By all means, Go Galt. Go... Leave...

Sean Hannity recently conducted an interview with Nice Polite Republican Lincoln Chafee after the Democratic Debate. During the interview, Hannity and Chafee spared over raising taxes. As the back-and-forth continued about taxes Hannity, in a petulant fit, fished around in his pants, took out a wad of cash, and threw it in the air exclaiming, "Hang on. Hang on. I’ll give it to the government, hand it over. Why should I work?"

It's the last rhetorical question by Hannity that caught my attention. Exactly, what "work" does Sean Hannity do that's so indespensible? Does Sean believe that if he was to Shrug and Go Galt his radio show and tv hour would be replaced with naught but static? That no one else can do what he does?

Sean Hannity is One in a Million, by which I mean there are a million other conservatives eager to step into his spot as a loud-mouthed, know-nothing, conservative blowhard.

I don't judge a person's worth by their working utility, that's Hannity's and a Right-Wing metric. But, by his own standard Sean Hannity is worthless.

Ah, but to the Vulture Capitalists who employ him, Sean Hannity is a jewel, a rare treasure. You see Sean Hannity is paid vast sums of money to convince poor conservatives to support policies which demonstrably hurt them and the rest of the 99%. Sean Hannity is the Mouth of Sauron for the Plutocracy. His "work" is to pass on the Idealogy of the Wealthy and get the poor to accept it.

As Paulo Freire noted in Pedagogy of the Oppressed,

The dominant elites, on the other hand, can - and do -think without the people - although they do not permit themselves the luxury of failing to think about the people in order to know them better and thus dominant them more efficiently. Consequently, any apparent dialogue or communication between the elites and the masses is really the depositing of "communiques," whose contents are intended to exercise a domesticating influence. (pg. 112)

When Sean Hannity speaks or when erstwhile Catholic Brian Kilmeade attacks the Pope and says the Pope "should go home" because "he's in the wrong country" and declares "America is Capitalist", or when Stuart Varney with his affected RP accent declares "the Poor lack a richness of spirit" they and every other right-wing loudmouth is passing along the agenda of the Rich.

None, of the Faux News talkers or Conservative Internet bloggers could survive actually working real jobs, it's why they are so rabid in their defense of Capitalism. Without being paid to "catapult the propaganda" the Right-Wing Internet fart bubble would burst and those conservatives paid handsomely to sit on their expansive derrieres and expound on the beauty of Capitalism, would starve because, without food stamps, none of them could earn enough doing actual labor to eat.

Republican Dennis Hastert is going to jail. Every other Republican should as well.

Hastert just entered a guilty plea in his Hush Money Case which means he'll avoid a Criminal Trial which would have revealed a minimum number of boys he molested. This is par for the course for Republicans, who engage in despicable criminal actions and quietly admit guilt years later after they've done maximum damage to the Nation.

Dennis Hastert, "Coach" of the Republican Party, took over the Speakership in the House after the faithless and despicable Newt Gingrich was forced out for one of his many transgressions and ethical violations.

As such Hastert led the Republicans as they continued their assault on President Bill Clinton and backed every course of action undertaken by the War Criminals W(orst POTUS Ever) and Dick Cheney. This is beyond mere hypocrisy. Republicans are very, very evil people and the most recent examples in Illinois, the shockingly profligate Aaron Schock and molesting Coach Hastert, are just a microcosm of the Republican Party in toto.

Everywhere across the USA we see Republicans engaged in blatant crimes, as well as crimes against the American People in service to their Rich Plutocratic Overlords.

Republicans seek and succeed in restricting voting, they deregulate and decriminalize overt financial, environmental and murderous crimes by Corporations, they defund Governmental Agencies empowered to curb the Rapacious behavior of the Vulture Capitalists who pull the Republicans' Strings, they obstruct and impede efforts to keep Americans safe from the blood-soaked NRA and Gun Makers.

For years Republicans have gotten away with imposing the Will of the 1% on the Nation by couching their rhetoric with false claims of piety, vague descriptions of liberty and freedom, and the braggadocio of Chicken Hawks claiming Stolen Valor, while invoking the boogeymen of Gay Marriage and Welfare Queens to demonize the Left.

However, we've seen a demonstrable shift in the Republican Lies of late, as they've adopted a Faux Populism and tried to co-opt the message of economic fairness. Of course, this is all a ruse for whenever a Republican is elected he (still overwhelmingly pudgy old white men) immediately goes about enacting the Policies of Wage Slavery and Corporate Bondage, while conservative dupes happily fasten the shackles of Our Oppressors about themselves and others.

Bernie Sanders has called for a Revolution of Voting. This is exactly right. America will not be freed of the tyrannical jaws of the Plutocracy until we vote out their Guard Dogs and replace them with Real Americans not controlled by the Billionaires and Massive Undying Corporate "Persons".

CPAC 2015 Conservatives and Republicans are destroying the Nation because they Hate America

"Oh, the naive Obama State Department. They say we can't kill our way out of war. Really? Tell that to the Nazis. Oh wait, you can't. They're dead. We killed 'em" -Sarah I read all of 'em Palin.

Gather round while I sing you of Wernher Von Braun
A man whose allegience
Is ruled by expedience
Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown
'Ha Nazi-Schmazi,' says Wernher Von Braun - Tom Lehrer

It's always good to start of the Conservative Clown Car cavalcade of cowardly chickenhawks with a pig-ignorant Sarah Palin quote and link (warning The Blaze) to the right-wing buffoons who know nothing of history.

As we watch the Republican Congressional Circus fail to fund The Department of Homeland Security and Clowns at CPAC 2015 the big takeaways are the mounting evidence that Conservatives and Republicans are destroying the Nation they profese to love so dearly, in service to their Plutocratic Masters.

Because Conservatives don't love the real America they love Imaginary America. Their Imaginary America is even more of a mockery than Ronnie Raygun's Shining City on a Hill because it's a Plutocratic Neo-Feudalist Wage Slavery State in which trickle down economics works, conservative icons like Bullshit O'Lielly, Racist Limpballs and Sean Insannity are Icons of Veracity and dogmatic truth-tellers, where the Iraq War was a massive success, where skin color, gender, and sexual orientation are not used against people ever, where poverty is totally the fault of the child born into it, where everyone could be rich if you were just willing to work harder, and everyone can get healthcare coverage sans the Government.

It's a Total Fantasy. But, conservatives also demand everyone publically swear fealty to Imaginary America. And woe be unto anyone who does not for the 1% will sic their Conservative Media and Republican Attack dogs to destroy that person.

For the Plutocracy knows that with their Media and Government they can destroy any challenges to their hegemony, which is why they've spent the last 50 years buying them both up.

At CPAC, Wisconsin (a subsidiary of Koch Industries) Governor Scott Walker proclaimed Wisconsin Liberals and Union Employees are exactly the same as ISIS terrorists. Because to the Koch Brothers, Walker's owners, anything which threatens their total domination and creation of a Neo-Feudalist America is a threat.

The Rich destroyed Occupy Wall Street, they destroyed the Anti-Iraq War Protests, they've stolen Voting Rights away from thousands, they've bleed Unions, they've methodically enacted Right-to-Work for Less laws but, they won't be satisifed until every American is shackled into Corporate Bondage and ground down into penury and crushing poverty.

For the Plutocracy sees no Nation, they respect no Flag, or National Borders; what they see in the United States is a labor force which is too expensive.

And Conservatives are their New Pinkertons, the new strike breakers ready to beat liberals, shoot minorities, murder homosexuals, put unchaste women in their place and destroy America and replace it with Imaginary America.

Vicious Conservatives have broken the Social Contract in order to shred the Social Safety Net

The Guard Dogs of the Plutocracy, the Republican Party in the 114th Congress are tasked with destroying the Holy Grail of the Social Safety Net, Social Security. Thus, they immediately took up the task of swindling the 99% out of their earned benefits by setting disabled Americans against elderly Americans.

By the end of 2016, Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits, which benefit 11 million disabled Americans, will be facing a budget hole, so of course, the Republicans are using this opportunity and their Congressional control to change the way funds are transferred between Social Security to SSDI. The Republican changes demand any transfers to Disability funds must be accompanied by benefit cuts or tax increases.

Republicans have no problem using Legerdermain and chicanery to accomplish the goals of their Rich Masters. Vicious Conservatives are out to swindle Social Security in order to remove any hope of help for poor retired Americans or those unable to work due to injury and illness.

"Our preference has always been that the depletion of the DI trust fund become the impetus for comprehensive Social Security reform," Ed Lorenzen, senior advisor to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Vicious Conservatives, their Libertarian "intellectuals" and Republican Masters seek nothing less than the return of the Feudal System in which Corporate Monsters like Duke Energy, AmWay and Koch Industries are in charge of huge swaths of the Nation-State beholden to no government, constrained by no regulations and free to crush the working class under the iron heel of wage slavery and corporate bondage.

Right-Wingers readily go along with this because they no longer see a compact with their fellow Americans. They've been conditioned to view 47% of their countrymen as moochers. They've been lead to believe Republicans will stop "those people" from stealing Social Security. They'd rather Let'em Die.

But, Republicans can not tell their duped right-wing drones that they are actually out to destroy Social Security entirely, including for them, so they lie about saving it and return to the tried and true method of warning them of "fraud".

Congressman P90X Ryan who benefited from Social Security as a teenager, when his father died, wants to pull the Ladder Up and make sure it isn't there for poor Americans but, doesn't want to be known as the Granny-Starving Congressman, so the Ways and Means Chairman sent his sub-chairman Republican Representative Sam Johnson to proclaim SSDI is "fraud-plagued",

"This program cannot afford more fraud. It is only a matter of time when Congress may be asked to bailout this program with the retirement side having to come to the rescue. If that is the case then all taxpayers and beneficiaries will shoulder the crime wave."

The crime wave? Ridiculous. What Republicans think is a crime is that Poor and Working Class people have protections from Vandal Capitalists. So, they are fervently working to remove that protection.

Without any Government protection, you and your fellow working class members will have No Shield from rapacious capitalists who see no country and no countrymen. To them there are only assets and liabilities.

So what are you going to do when Koch Industries dumps 4000 tons of Petcoke on your doorstep? Whom will you turn to for assistance when a pipeline bursts and floods your drinking water with sweet, sweet crude oil? How will you eat when Social Security is declared insolvent after the next Wall Street implosion? What hopes for redress will you get when Obamacare is repealed and you're denied medical care for your pre-existing condition?

You will have none; just as the Republican Lap Dogs of the 1% intend. Getting rid of Social Security and having their duped vicious Conservative drones aid them will help the Republican Party shackle Americans with the chains of Wage Slavery.

Governor Bruce Rauner says it's time to Break Illinois

In his State of the State Address, Bruce Rauner laid out his vision for Illinois Workers; Wage Slavery and Corporate Bondage.

"It is make or break time for the Land of Lincoln," Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner.

As always Rauner was short on specifics, he nonetheless let the Public Employee and Private Sector workers in Illinois know that he'll not stand for them making so much money.

Rauner declared his intent to destroy Unions (both Public and Private) and Public Sector Bargaining and he'll do so by whatever means available. Bruce Rauner issued an Executive Order declaring "Fair Share" employees Union dues should be held in a Trust until he can get his "Employee Empowerment Zones" established.

Rauner's Employee Empowerment Zones are the newest attempt to undercut Unions by allowing local muncipalities to create Right-to-Work Zones without the State of Illinois passing the necessary legislation.

Right-to-Work laws are best known as Right-to-Work for Less. Once passed these laws transfer all bargaining power to Business, which immediately enact cuts to pay and benefits.

Rauner claims these Orwellian-titled Empowerment Zones are needed because of the broken economic situation in Illinois. Of course, it was Bruce Rauner and his Hedge Fund Wealth Manager buddies who broke Illinois Public employees pensions.

By Rauner's own estimate 2/3rds of the funds for his Hedge Fund Firm GTCR were supplied by Public Pensions. In Illinois, GTCR "mismanaged" money for the Illinois Teachers' Retirement System (TRS) and the Illinois State Board of Investment, the state's largest and third-largest, respectively. Additionally, GTCR had access to state and municipal pension plans from the San Francisco City and County Employees' Retirement System to the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board.

For this "work" GTCR, takes 20% or more plus consultation and management fees. Rauner got his compensation no matter what the funds he "managed" did.

So, it's not surprising that Illinois and other Public Pensions began to go into insolvency once Rauner and other Vandal Capitalists got their hands on the funds. In fiscal year 2009, TRS lost $4.4 Billion (22% of its' value) in 2008 TRS lost 5% of it's value because of the Management of their Portfolios by Rauner-types.

Rauner made his fortune through "coin-clipping" he and his Vandal Capitalists clipped points off of Worker's Pensions to make their fortunes. Additionally, in keeping with his Transfer of Wealth Upwards, Rauner wants to lower taxes on the Rich and Corporations and expand sales taxes because those taxes hit the Working Class the hardest.

Rauner and his aides know exactly what Employee Empowerment Zones, his Reverse Robin Hood Tax Rates and Theft of Pensions will do to Illinois during interviews with the Chicago Tribune; how to improve the state's business climate as companies move out of state in search of a cheaper workforce.

So yes, Rauner wants to bring jobs here, the kind of jobs where you work 40 hours a week for wages which barely get you over the poverty line, with no prospects of being able to retire and no pension, working until the day you die.

Dishonorable Conservative Hypocrites piss on the Troops, Veterans and Bowe Bergdahl

Dishonorable Conservatives, as natural cowards and chicken hawks, hate Service members. As such, if you're a veteran and you aren't a rabid unthinking proponent of the conservative beliefs of Hatred, Oppression, Intolerance and Adulation of the Rich they will piss on you. Doesn't matter if you are Pat Tillman or Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth or a Marine Veteran in Texas on Memorial Day or Bowe Bergdahl.

Once President Obama secured the release of Bowe Bergdahl the furious right-wing efforts to turn the fulfillment of America's sacred duty to her military members into a scandal erupted.

Of course, as Right-Wing hypocrisy knows no bounds, dishonorable conservatives were forced to delete and scrub their sites of pro-Bergdahl solidarity.

Over at Gawker, Adam Weinstein has a collection of tweets from conservatives who condemned President Obama, praised Bergdahl and agitated for his return until it was accomplished then they condemned President Obama, damned Bergdahl and agitated against his return.

Right-Wing powerblogger Jim Hoft, the thrice-awarded dumbest man on the internet, declared in October 2013, Horrible. Obama to leave POW to rot in Afghanistan after Withdrawal.

Bridgett Johnson of Pajamas Media, a "leading" Right-Wing disseminator of lies, back in Jan 2014 championed Bring POW Bergdahl Back by any means.

But that was Then, this is Now.

No More Mister Nice Guy has a Bergdahl Hypocrite Hall of Fame post highlighting how quickly the incestuous Right-Wing internet fart bubble got on-board with angrily espousing deeply held beliefs which are in direct opposition to their supposedly deeply held beliefs regarding Bowe Bergdahl.

But, it's not limited to everyday conservatives or "popular" right-wing bloggers.

Former Congressman and Lt. Col Allen West wrote piece after piece about how President Obama abandoned Bowe Bergdahl on the battlefield.

Republican Congressmen Lee Terry and Thad Cochran praised the return of Bergdahl until they learned it was anathema.

Unfortunately, as conservatives are shameless, no matter how many times you show their blatant hypocrisy, no matter how many of their previous statements undermine their current positions, you will never be able to mollify or blunt their efforts to destroy America. Jon Stewart on The Daily Show has been highlighting and ridiculing conservatives for over a decade and all it's down is strengthen their resolve to be disgusting anti-American scumbags.

I expect no less from Conservatives. They are the unthinking dishonorable drones of the Republican Party and by extension the Plutocracy. Conservatives piss on the military service of anyone who doesn't help them advance the Agenda of the Rich.

So, when Bergdahl was a POW his continued imprisonment was a way for Conservatives to attack President Obama. Now his release merely affords them another opportunity to attack President Obama.

Conservatives and Republicans don't see the Troops as people but as tokens for them to use to advance the Right-Wing Agenda to destroy the Democratic Republic and turn the Nation into a NeoFeudalist Wage Slave State owned and ruled by the 1%.

As for poor Bowe Bergdahl, he's going to face a Court Martial and Faux News is going to ensure it is a spectacle because the Right-Wing will see it as a way to put President Obama on trial by proxy.

The SCOTUS McCutcheon Ruling empowers the Koch Brothers and Plutocracy to Buy the Republic

"These five justices are working night and day to make the wealthy and powerful more wealthy and more powerful. The Supreme Court is paving the way toward an oligarchic form of society in which a handful of billionaires like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson will control our political process." Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

The Supreme Court took another step in transforming the United States of America into a Neo-Feudal Oligarchy with the McCutcheon Ruling. The Roberts Court in a 5-4 ruling decided Elections can bought outright and cheaply, as they slowly build towards 2016: The Year the Plutocracy Rules.

As the Power of the Plutocrats has grown in the last 35 years of Neoliberal Piss Down Your Back and Tell You It's Raining Prosperity Reaganomics, the 1% has grown more vocal. While most of their nefarious schemes remain hidden from the public via PACs and phony 501(c)(4) organizations they've felt more and more comfortable telling the 99% to look forward to Wage Slavery.

Just a day after Paul Ryan revealed the latest Republican Death to the Poor Budget, Charles Koch wrote an op-ed to explain his worldview. Of course, Charles Koch sees the problem as the plebeians daring to criticize him, Rather than try to understand my vision for a free society...

As always Mister Koch, we do understand "your vision for a free society" which is why Our Voices are getting louder and louder and why Plutocrats, such as yourself, are getting shriller and shriller.

Charles Koch and his despicable brethren know their Oppression is intolerable and making the 99% desperate, so the Plutocrats tell their Media Lap Dogs that Opposing the Will of Plutocracy equals Kristallnacht and then call those whom they Oppress, Nazis.

Peppered with language swiped from his father's John Birch Anti-Commie screeds, Charles Koch goes on to decry "Collectivists" and blame "The System", while invoking Arthur Schopenhauer and Saul Alinsky.

Of course, Charles Koch blames it all on Obama, The central belief and fatal conceit of the current administration is that you are incapable of running your own life, but those in power are capable of running it for you. This is the essence of big government and collectivism.

Like, all scoundrels, Charles Koch swaddles himself in the Bosom of America. Those in power fail to see that more government means less liberty and liberty is the essence of what it means to be American. Love of liberty is the American ideal.

This screed is the supersonic whine of a rich entitled plutocrat. What Charles Koch means by Liberty is the Freedom for him to rule a Section of the Nation as his own little Fiefdom as a Landgrave, accountable to no one who, along with his fellow Plutocrats, chooses the Government and ensures those chosen do nothing but, enforce the Will of the Rich.

Medicare? Don't need it. Social Security? Not necessary. Food Stamps? Collectivism! To Charles Koch and his ilk, Government exists only to quell domestic dissent and expand overseas business opportunities; everything else is "Unconstitutional". Charles Koch desires nothing less than a return to brutal Feudalism.

Now, Plutocrats however can't rule without a Guardian Class, empowered to attack the Enemies of Inequality and the Opponents of the 1%; Enter the Republican Party.

The Sole Purpose of the Republican Party is to ensure the 1% get Richer while the rest of us are ground into perpetual Wage Slavery and unending Corporate Bondage.

The day after Koch's Declaration of Neo-Feudalism, Republican Senator Jerry Moran took to the floor of the US Senate to genuflect before Charles Koch and read his op-ed into the Congressional Record.

"It seems to me the things that are outlined in Mr. Koch’s opinion piece are certainly within the wide mainstream of American thought..." and " I wanted to share one of Koch Industries owner’s beliefs about those values and his philosophy and how it affects Americans today,"

During CPAC 2014 in March, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann thanked god for David Koch and declared RICO laws should be used against those who speak out against the Koch Brothers,

"I just thank god that there’s a billionaire or two on our side. I hope we get a few more that are willing that come out but realize also this is an intimidation movement, I’m sure that the donors on our side don’t like to have their names vilified and that’s what this is about, intimidating people from giving money to our cause, that’s it. There’s something called the RICO statute, the racketeering law, that should be applied against them for doing this."

Meanwhile, other Republicans are engaged in a slander campaign of Senator Harry Reid. Not debating his viewpoint but insinuating that he has suffered a mental breakdown or is drunk or on drugs.

Republicans exist to guard and increase the Vast Wealth of the Rich at the expense of everyone else.

The odious Newt Gingrich, a viciously racist miserable political failure famous only for cheating on two wives while trying to impeach President Clinton for cheating on one, took to the Sunday Morning talk Circuit to bask in the beauty of the McCutcheon Ruling. Gingrich went further and declared,

"Candidates should be allowed to take unlimited amounts of money from anybody and you would overnight equalize the middle class and the rich."

In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread. Anatole France, 1894. Sheldon Adelson can give a million dollars to Gingrich or Christ Christie and so can you!

Meanwhile, Republicans have adopted the Kochtopus approach of attacking the Working Class on multiple fronts to crush the 99% and enforce brutal Koch Feudalism. Republicans want to give Companies time to delay Union vote because Republicans use the Awesome Power of the Government to aid the Rich in crushing Labor.

Republican Congressman John Kline of Minnesota and Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee introduced legislation requiring the NLRB let 35 days pass after employees file a petition before they are allowed to vote on forming a union. 

Because Companies might need extra time to threaten workers against Unionizing, bring in Armed Forces to ensure the proper votes are cast and give Republicans time to interfere in the Free Market as Senator Bob Corker, Tennessee Governor Haslam and State Republicans did against workers trying unionize a VW factory.

Republicans don't care about the American People. They are solely in office to succor, defend and protect the Plutocracy. Medicaid eliminated, Medicare eviscerated, Social Security Swindled, Unions abolished, The Working Class impoverished, higher education made unaffordable, laws applied unequally, Plutocrats buying elections, Corporations telling you what you can spend your earnings on and what you can do with your free time, these are ancillary benefits of the Brutal Koch Feudalism, Republicans are pushing upon the Nation.

Charles Koch used a quote from Thomas Jefferson so shall I,

"I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country." Jefferson to George Logan Nov. 12, 1816.

Money is not Speech and Corporations are not People. MovetoAmend!

Bruce Rauner like all Plutocrats is a Vandal. Illlinois Public Pension insolvency is his and other Capitalists fault

Bruce Rauner is running for Governor of Illinois. He'll have to win the Republican Primary for a chance to square off against Governor Quinn in the general election. Rauner's sole remaining competition for the Republican Primary is Kirk Dillard after Rauner's Squad eliminated Dan Rutherford's chances with allegations of Sexual Harassment and a homosexual relationship with an intern.

Billionaire Bruce Rauner is an implacable foe of Working people in Illinois. Besides vowing to reduce Illinois' Minimum Wage to make Illinois workers more appealing to Corporate Wage Slavers, once he wins, a Governor Bruce Rauner will do to the State and citizens of Illinois what he and other Capitalists have done to Illinois Public Pensions, they will cart off all the assets in a legislative orgy of Vandalism.

Because that is what Bruce Rauner is; A Vandal, in the most ancient sense of the term. Rauner's entire fortune has been made from identifying previously existing wealth charging in and looting it.

Bruce Rauner worked for 30 years at "Wealth Management" Firm GTCR, the R for Rauner was added during his tenure. Rauner's firm "managed" Public Pensions for nearly two decades. Now, after Rauner and other Vandal Capitalists have had access to Pensions, surprise Illinois is facing a massive Pension Crisis.

By Rauner's own estimate 2/3rds of GTCR funds were supplied by Public Pensions. Here in Illinois

GTCR has "managed" money for the Illinois Teachers' Retirement System (TRS) and the Illinois State Board of Investment, the state's largest and third-largest, respectively. Additionally, GTCR had access to state and municipal pension plans from the San Francisco City and County Employees' Retirement System to the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board. 

For this "work" GTCR, takes a 20% or more slice plus consultation and management fees. Rauner got paid no matter what the funds he "managed" did.

So, it's not surprising that Illinois and other Public Pensions began to go into insolvency once Vandal Capitalists got their hands on the funds. In fiscal year 2009, TRS lost $4.4 Billion (22% of its' value) in 2008 TRS lost 5% of it's value because of the Management of their Portfolios by Rauner-types.

The Wall Street-Hedge Fund-Wealth Management Implosion of 2007 and on-going Republican Recession was the end result of unchaining Capitalism and opening up the gates to the Vandal Capitalists like Rauner. The Vandals took the secure Public backed funds from dozens of states, hundreds of municipalities and Unions and stole them.

Bruce Rauner's not alone in the Vandal Capitalist method. It's the method de rigueur of the 1%.

"The problem is that the world and this country should not talk about envy of the 1 percent. It should talk about emulating the 1 percent. The 1 percent work harder. The 1 percent are much bigger factors in all forms of our society." Sam Zell, in defense of Tom Perkins who compared the Working Class to Nazis.

The 1% do work hard. It takes a lot of gall for the Vandals to raid, loot and plunder and call themselves Job Creators.

Chris Hayes summed up Zell's "business" model,

Let me tell you something about Sam Zell. He bought The Tribune Company in 2008 for $8.2 billion, an extremely highly leveraged deal. It was widely regarded. I reported on it at the time as an unsustainable debt structure that would implode in on itself.  

Well, guess what? Less than a year, the company went bankrupt, listing $7.6 billion in assets and $13 billion in debt. More than 4,200 people lost their jobs. But despite the company`s troubles, executives received tens of millions of dollars in bonuses. 

Sam Zell is like the action movie hero who throws the lighter behind him not bothering to look back at the explosion. That`s Sam Zell.

Zell bought the Tribune Company and loaded them up with debt ($13 billion) as he drained the companies assets then had them claim bankruptcy and sold off the Chicago Cubs to the semi-odious Billionaire Rickets Family.

Loading debt onto companies in highly leveraged deals is a classic technique Zell and Mitt Romney have profited from immensely. This is the Hard Work that Zell, Rauner, Romney, Steven Cohen, Paul E. Singer, Stephen Schwarzman, Clifford S. Asness, the Koch Brothers, and Tom Perkins demand to be lauded for, deferred to and praised.

The Vandals have already sacked the Public Pensions. With the help of Republican Governors, like Koch Brothers controlled Scott Walker in Wisconsin, several states have fallen to the rapacious hunger of the Vandal Capitalists.

If Bruce Rauner makes his way into Springfield as the Governor of Illinois, another gate will be thrown open to his Looting brethren and Illinois will be Sacked, just as the Vandals have done to other States.

Tom Perkins, Peter Schiff and the Plutocrats are Wyrms (SOTU Update)

"Maybe someone who is – what’s the politically correct word, you know, for mentally retarded, I believe in the principles this country was founded on. I’m not going to say that we’re all created equal you’re worth what you’re worth."

The Plutocracy is very very angry. How dare poor people mention Income Inequality! How dare poor people agitate and organize against Fracking! This is Kristallnacht II!

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent “progressive” radicalism unthinkable now?
Tom Perkins

In 2012, Smaug the Magnificent was listed as the Richest Fictional Character in History. J. R.R. Tolkien wrote of Smaug that when Bilbo Baggins took a small chalice from of "his" hoard Smaug's Rage was the kind which "is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy lose something they have long had but never before used or wanted."

Poor People are Poor for a Reason... namely because they have been robbed for generations by the Rich.

Plutocrats, like the Koch Brothers and Tom Perkins, are fire-breathing Wyrms, destructive, nearly invincible forces which don't create anything but, destroy and destroy and destroy then steal hordes of Capital which they proclaim to be theirs. They poison and destroy people's lives and livelihoods in pursuit of profits. 

While most Plutocrats are content to let their massive Conglomerations and political henchmen do the dirty work of squeezing blood from the poor, Perkins is a rare Plutocrat in that he personally got his hands dirty, or rather the fiberglass hull of his yacht, murdering a Nice Doctor. 

The Rich been doing it so long and with such deference from their wholly owned Politicians and paid lickspittles, Peter Schiff, Maria Bartiromo, Jim Cramer, Larry Kudlow, Neil Cavuto, Rick Santelli and a host of people willing to sell others into servitude, the Rich believe they owed not only money and power but respect and obsequious deference as well.

Peter Schiff was last seen demanding random working class people give him 15% of whatever they just spent coming out of Wal-Mart (yeah it didn't make sense when he did it and it doesn't make sense when you read it) and telling Occupy Wall Street to get a job.

Since, Ronnie Raygun's placement in the Presidency, Progressives have been fighting a rear-guard action against the Plutocracy and their rapacious ways.

Plutocratic Wyrms were not going to simply sit back and agree that Progressive Victories in the 20th century were the way the World was going to be. Plutocrats have thus been in engaged in a Long March towards returning the World and the people under their Domination.

This is why Occupy Wall Street was such an important new maneuver against the rapacious Rich and why the Rich used their political muscle and Ultra-Reactionary shills to crush Occupy.

Nonetheless, Occupy forced the issue of Income Inequality into the media, who would have been more than content to just remake Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous.

And that is what has Tom Perkins so frightened that Progressives are fighting back against the Plutocracy instead of bowing in Awe to their August Majesty.

I! Have had! Enough! of YOU!!!

State of the Union Update:

President Obama has 3 years to attempt to undue the 30 years of Thachter-ite Neoliberal Reaganomics. Our problem today, is not too much or too little Government; it's the focus of 99% of Government time, resources and efforts on the 1%. 

We have two inverted pyramids at work in which the 1% get 99% of Government's attention while the 99% are lucky to get anytime spent by government addressing our concerns.

Republicans want to steal Social Security via Sequestration

Sequestration is back. Coming up very soon are the automatic cuts to Military Spending that were supposed to make Republicans balk at the Sequestration deal in the first place.

Except ha ha! It's time to change the rules. Republicans never, ever bargain fairly. Their goals are always to transfer as much taxpayer money to the Plutocracy. Thus, they agreed to Sequestration because they got the cuts to programs they wanted right away and once the cuts they don't like come into play they always planned to just renege on the deal.

"Deficits don't matter", Republican Arch-Fiend Dick Cheney. At least when Republicans control the White House, when a Democrat gets in their Republicans wail and moan about the Debt and beat their manly-boobs about deficits.

"Washington has a spending problem, but incessantly and mindlessly cutting national security will not get us out of our fiscal mess,” said Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn of Colorado.

Lamborn and Jim Bridenstein of Oklahoma have introduced the Republican Plan to steal Social Security, increase Federal Government employee pension contributions and eliminate Medicare, in a bill entitled Provide for the Common Defense.

The Sequestration cuts to DoD Budget, which Lamborn called mindless, is set to drop Military Spending from $670 Billion in 2013 to $625 Billion in 2014 and $590 Billion in 2015. So the cuts to the Official DoD Budget for 2013-2015 will be only a reduction in spending to $1.815 Trillion instead of $2.010 Trillion.

"In this protracted struggle, good management dictates that we resist overspending as resolutely as we oppose underspending. Every dollar uselessly spent on military mechanisms decreases our total strength and, therefore, our security" Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower 1961.

The Lamborn/Bridenstein Bill is nothing more than the slimy Republican tactic of Using the Troops to steal from the Working Class, poor, sick, elderly and Veterans in prostrate service to the insatiable appetite of the 1%.

But, this is a special circumstance, the Republicans see a way to accomplish their goals of Oppression and Subjugation while also transferring the blame onto the Democratic Party.

If they manage to get Provide for the Common Defense or any bill passed which affects Social Security, while President Obama is in office, Barack Obama will effectively save the Republican Party and dismantle his "own". It would be a simple four step process;

Step 1) Get President Obama to sign onto cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. 

Step 2) Triumphantly tell Wall Street Thieves they got the cuts they've always wanted while crying to the Media they never wanted to cut Social Security or Medicare. 

Step 3) Roll Social Security into Hedge Fund Accounts were the Trillions will be clipped, stolen and find its' way into a few thousand Cayman Island and Swiss Bank Accounts 

Step 4) Run ads in every campaign for every office for the next 100 years that President Obama and the Democrat Party cut Social Security.

Sequestration has afforded the Republicans a special circumstance in order to really screw the Working Class over, but it's nothing new in the right-wing playbook. Back in the 1970's Jude Wanniski created the Two-Santa Theory by Jude Wanniski, which lead directly to the Creation of Supply-Side Economics.

Under Reagan and W(orst President Ever), Republicans engage in massive Government spending while unemployment is kept down and the "economy" is kept going by creating millions of Government jobs with millions of dollars in direct Federal aid to local and state government to help boost state government spending.

Ah, but see that all changes when a Democrat is the President because then, all of a sudden, the bills come due; "We're broke, broke going on bankrupt," Speaker of the House John Boehner in February 28, 2011.

Under President Obama, over 500,000 federal jobs have been eliminated, wages for federal employees were frozen for two years, deficit spending has decreased faster than under any President since Eisenhower, and since 2010 the only spending bills passed cut food stamps, unemployment benefits or programs for the sick and needy.

And if someone points out the incredible shrinking of Government spending under President Obama why Republicans simply ignore it.

"Are you arguing that there are fewer government employees under Obama than they were under Bush?" Senator Rand Paul asked. 

"That's a fact. That's a Tremendous Fact." Paul Krugmann 

"No, the size of government is enormous under President Obama." Rand Paul

But, while the Neoliberal Piss Down Your Back and Tell You It's Raining Prosperity Reaganomic Model has been incredibly successful at transferring Billions from the 99% into the pockets of the 1%, the Tea Party Fanatics don't have a grasp on the finer points of using the Apparatus of Government to steal The Wealth of Nations.

But, it's not the 1970's and 1980's anymore.

The Two-Santa Theory is being hampered by the Zealotry of the Tea Party types who have no time for RINOs and "Squishes", like Mitch McConnell and Grover Norquist, and in their quest for right-wing purity they make war on Working Class, minorities and women.

So, the Republicans have increasingly turn to the new Breed of Democrat, the so-called Reagan Democrat or Pro-Business Democrat or Third Way Democrats, to aid them in passing the Politics of Austerity.

Defend the Vatican Attack the Pope

Right-Wingers are geniuses. They are able to hold two ideas in direct opposition in their head at the same time.

The United States is closing it's Embassy in Vatican City and consolidating it with the Embassy and Consulate grounds the US has in Rome and throughout the Italian Peninsula.

Ka-boom! Right-Wingers took to their fainting couches to bemoan President Obama's continuing attacks on all that is Holy.

How is Nicholas Cage supposed to find the secret documents in the Vatican Archives which prove that Jesus hand wrote the Constitution so that conservatives could use their guns to crush liberal communists and rule America with an Iron Fist?

Of course, there isn't a U.S. Embassy in Vatican City, which is less than 1 mile across and doesn't have grounds for anything not associated with the Church, but hey details and truth are anathema to conservatives.

But... A funny thing happened recently. The New Pope Francis, having been born in Argentina (albeit safely from Italian immigrant parents) has been using the Papal Pulpit to point out how evil Capitalism actually is and how the unholy pursuit of money has led to huge suffering amongst people considered by Capitalists as disposable.

Some points from the Pope Francis' recent APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION,

How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly home- less person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?  

Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded.  

In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.  

A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules

Everything the Pope has commented upon is the reflected in Dominant Ayn Randian Culture in America. Despicable Capitalists, guarded by their Republican lap dogs and Pro-Business Democrats, and serviced by well-paid media sycophants have introduced the vicious Rule of the 1% and their Piss Down Your Back and Tell You It's Raining Prosperity upon the Nation, where the Mass of Humanity is nothing and the beautiful, rich 'job-creator' class is everything. 

It so alarmed Rupert Murdoch and other Plutocratic swine the Media was brought in to begin the attacks on the Pope.

Faux News resident Upper Class Twit Stuart Varney, a reliably asinine Tory who holds nothing but hatred towards the poor, but is a stupid conservatives ideal of a smart man because he speaks with a RP accent, took time to scold the Pope and defend his Moneyed Masters.

Racist Limpballs (Rush Limbaugh), King of the Conservatives, managed to take time away from his dreams of raping Sandra Fluke and whatever other woman he wants, to decry the "pure marxism coming out of the mouth of the Pope". We all know what comes out of the mouth of Limpballs.

American Catholics, who have for years given their support to Republicans and the Right, are in for a shock when their "brethren" the anti-human, let'em die, kill the poor, guardians of Plutocracy and Vulture Capitalists, turn upon them.

They'll be surprised when conservatives begin to spit out epithets like papists and defame the 'Bishop of Rome' while expecting Catholics to toe-the-line and prostrate themselves in front of the conservative idols of Oppression, Subjugation, and adulation of the Rich.

And they'll be forced to choose between Supply-Side Jesus and the Vicar of Christ. Interesting times indeed.

Obamacare Follies and the Republican Playbook

The Obamacare role out was a flub, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Why the administration didn't include a PPACA kiosk in every Social Security Administration office and field banks of 24-hour phone operators throughout the Nation is a mystery to me.

What should not come as a surprise to anyone the least bit familiar with the GOP is the disingenuous despicable evil sabotage and subterfuge Eric Cantor and his party were planning because the Republicans had a playbook designed to sow discontent and anger at the PPACA.

These are the same people who decried fluoridation of water as a "commie plot". These are the same people who originated Truther Movements in the 1940's by claiming FDR knew the Japanese were on the way to bomb Pearl Harbor. These are the same people who distributed JFK: Wanted for Treason fliers in Texas just prior to his assassination.

Republicans hate the Poor, hate Government and hate everything and anything which takes away from their ability to oppress and harm Working Class Americans.

This is what we're faced with; an intransigent Party which will never argue in good faith, will never propose any government based solution, and will do everything in their considerable power to harm the Nation in service to their Moneyed Masters.

So, once the Republican Government Shutdown ended and the Obamacare Website snafus became the focus; our Elite Media reporters, bloggers and newspaper opinion pages dutifully covered Republican drones all repeating the same message from their disingenuous propaganda 'Obamacare failure... Obamacare failure... Obamacare failure... Num Num Num...' and focused on Poor Little Rich Girl sob stories about the troubles the Rich and "Low Affluent" are having with the PPACA, instead of Republican Sabotage or pointing out that Republicans have No Alternative, except if You are Poor Die Quickly."We've got to a point, where money is so powerful a force in politics and in the media that attention is paid, mostly, to people who are wealthy; upper middle class, that define what the politicians are looking at and concerned about and what the media are covering. I wish that were not the case but, in fact, as a political reality that is the case." - Robert Reich on Moyers & Company, 09/20/13

Dylan Ratigan, a multi-millionaire with a 30,000 square-foot hydroponic farm called "Archi's Acres" bemoaned that his catastrophic insurance coverage was going up $4000-a-year. Dylan is rich enough to not need regular healthcare coverage because he can just pay out of pocket. Why can't those poor moochers do the same???

Lori Gottlieb, "Obamacare or Kafkacare?" Unless you've become a Giant Dung Beetle, Lori, this is a lame comparison. But, do go on Lori and "Dare to Complain about Obamacare"

“The nation has been better off,” wrote one friend. “Over 33 million people who did not have insurance are now going to get it.” That’s all fine and good for “the nation,” but what about my $5,400 rate hike (after-tax dollars, I wanted to add, but dared not in this group of previously closeted Mother Teresas)? Another friend wrote, “Yes, I’m paying an extra 200 a month, but I’m okay with doing that so that others who need it can have health care.”

But, what about ME??????? Lori Gottlieb, in 2000, pouted when Six-Figures adds up to Zero, that when she reached an undisclosed six-figure salary in her late 20's and moved to Silicon Valley she was hurt and frustrated because she realized she wasn't wealthy and "could see the wealth all around me -- wealth that I most certainly didn't have." Won't someone please think of the poor put upon Rich Woman?

John Boehner, a chain-smoking, full on progressed cirrhosis individual staged a Obamacare Sign-up stunt which backfired upon him,

As it turns out, his willingness to “keep trying” was a good idea. Boehner, who is not yet eligible for Medicare, “called the DC Health Link help line,” and a “few hours later,” the process was complete. He’d signed up for health insurance.

Nicole L. Hopkins mother, to her shame can now receive medicaid through Obamacare, since she was "Unable to secure employer-sponsored health care," and had to settle for "$276 a month for bare-bones catastrophic coverage."

"How has it come to this?" she asked in one of our several talks over the past few weeks about what was happening. When she was a working mother and I was young, she easily carried health insurance for our whole family. "How have I fallen this far?"

How has it come to this? Because to Republicans if You're not Wealthy You don't get to be Healthy. 

Health care costs are 17-18% of GDP and rising. 20 years ago when costs were 10-12% people in the Medical Profession were alarmed. The proper time to act passed long ago, because while (((America))) is a Center-Left Nation there is a hard nut of Ultra-Reactionaries to whom no Republican is ever conservative enough. To these rabid fanatics Grover Norquist and Mitch McConnell are "squishes" who believe in policies of appeasement.

All of the firebaggers blaming President Obama for not getting Single-Payer, a proven system which has worked in multiple Nations and was recently adopted in the State of Vermont, seem to ignore the fact that a motivated and despicable section of our Nation would never approve and was directly responsible for Single-Payers doom. The United States was never going to get a National Healthcare System, ala Canada or Europe because powerful forces don't want it.

Power and Money concede nothing.

Update:
A reason Republicans loathe Obamacare is because it undermines their key 35 year running Talking Point, i.e. the Ronnie Reagan "Government is the problem," lie.

From The Impolitic, Why Mitch McConnell really hates Obamacare

Meanwhile, it will be too late for McConnell either way. He's led the vanguard against health care for his own constituents, so the newly covered rubes who once believed the lies won't vote for him now and the angry cons who won't ever sign up because, Dimmocrats invented it, won't vote for him because he signed off on a compromise or two. He's pretty well screwed.

Government isn't the problem, Republicans in Government is the Problem.

Let's keep this a secret from the U.S. corporate media, but, as Sy Mukherjee and Andrew Breiner note at ThinkProgress...

On Wednesday, the new head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers released a bombshell report finding that U.S. health care spending since 2010 has increased by just 1.3 percent - the smallest cost growth over a three-year period in American history - while prices in the health care sector rose by 50-year lows, thanks in part to structural changes made by the Affordable Care Act. But most media outlets ignored that story, instead choosing to focus on ongoing glitches with the Healthcare.gov website.

Welcome to Capitalism, America.

Capitalism is impoverishing and despoiling America.

The increasing unemployment. The transformation of the United States from a manufacturing powerhouse to a service-based industry. The creation of a economy built on the hedge-fund gambling, legerdemain and chicanery of Banking Institutions. The destruction of the Appalachian mountains for strip mining, the wholesale dumping of thousands of tons of petcoke in poor Chicago and Detroit neighborhoods are the end product of Capitalism.

For years Americans enjoyed the "benefits" of Capitalism as wage slaves in third world nations made products and corrupt banana republics gleefully exported their natural resources for Corporate exploitation.

But, while Labor Unions were shedding their blood and generations of Americans fought for better working conditions benefits and pay here at home, Capitalists were fighting back.

Prior to the modern age, Capitalists employed two basic weapons, illegal immigration and off-shoring of jobs. The Rich are fully in support of illegal immigration because it imports workers who are willing to do jobs here in the United States for lower pay, no benefits and if something happens to them those workers have little recourse or legal options.

But, Capitalists have also fought for years to break down barriers across Nation-States to make capital liquid, because once capital can flow freely then labor can be completely undercut.

NAFTA, CAFTA and the Trans Pacific Partnership are efforts by the 1% to be able to move their capital quickly and without restraint and to "create jobs" where costs are the cheapest. The 'Job Creators' touted by Republicans have no connection to the United States and see no difference between a Mexican worker, an Indonesian worker or an American. To the Job Creators whomever they can pay the lowest pay up to and including outright slavery is the "best".

Those manufacturing jobs currently in China and various third-world wage slave dictatorships are not coming back to the US. Until the day when US labor costs less than that overseas, worker protections are eliminated and anti-pollution regulations are stricken from law by Republican operatives.

What Libertarians and free-marketers don't understand and can't believe is one day they will be treated by Capitalism, the way Capitalism has treated the rest of the world.

And that is Capitalism; it's the impoverishment and enslaving of 99% of the world to enrich 1%.

Republicans are ready to Destroy America to "save" It

Are the Republicans just playing a game of political brinksmanship vis-a-vis the Affordable Care Act?

Or are they willing to hurt thousands of Americans and shut down the Government over the implementation of Obamacare?

The Government is no longer of the People, by the People and for the People but responds to the desires and whims of the Ultra-Elite and uber-entitled Plutocracy.

The 1% don't make anything in this country anymore. They are the true definition of "Capitalists" in as much as they make money from their Capital in the form of legerdemain, accounting gimmicks and outright deception.

The Super Rich have destroyed the Progressive Government of Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Ike and LBJ and have installed the Ultra-Reactionary Government of Saint Ronnie Raygun, Slick Willie and George W(orst President Ever) Bush.

In such a government Republican crotch-sniffing watchdogs of the 1% can vote to eliminate SNAP while they themselves receive millions in taxpayer "assistance" for their farms.

Now, the 1% have to fight to make their Financial Exploitation of the Nation legal. A Government shutdown might put a short term small dent in their portfolios but will drive many Americans to outright destitution and penury. Eliminating the ACA will bankrupt thousands of Americans and cost many their chance for healthcare coverage.

If the Republicans in the House and Senate really think that Obamacare is Tyranny and a Government Shutdown would, as Senator Marco Rubio put present,

"a major opportunity to save our people from the job-killing disaster that is Obamacare"

then the Tea Party Republicans would simply allow the ACA to be fully implemented and as the Death Panels were being convened use the youtube videos of dying Americans to Impeach President Obama.

But, the Republicans task from their Plutocratic Masters is to continue pulling the wool over the eyes of the duped and battered conservative voter so that they blithely participate in the theft of the blessings of liberty won for themselves and our posterity.

Because the Job of Republicans in Government is to ensure wealth continues to trickle upwards and accumulate in the Off-Shore Bank Accounts of the 1%.

Republicans will Agree to Bomb Syria in exchange for

Stealing Social Security, Defunding Obamacare and eliminating the EPA.

“…[E]veryone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious.” - Arthur Young; 1771

The Anti-American Party (Republicans and Pro-Business Democrats) are ready to give the President the Authority to Bomb Syria into Peace(s) in exchange for taking Social Security and transferring it into the coffers of the Warmongering Plutocracy. As a bonus we can kick some lazy poor people who won't join the military to fight to enrich the 1% off of Medicaid and SNAP. And we will necessarily have to eliminate the EPA because Corporations will need to be able to pollute the air and water in order to ensure our military is fighting with the best equipment.

Hey! It's the Right thing to do for Our Benighted Job Creators. We All have to sacrifice!

• Lower Benefits for the Poor! 
• Lower Rights for the Working Class! 
• Lower Life Expectancy for the Middle Class! 
• Lower Taxes for the Rich! 
• Lower Regulations for Polluters!

It's only fair we all have some skin in the game.

I mean how dare Detroit Mayor David Bing order the Koch Brothers Sovereign Corporation Koch Carbon LLC to clean up the four story tall multi-ton heap of Petroleum refining byproducts left from processing Alberta Tar Sands deposited along the banks of the Detroit River,

"The pet coke, a byproduct of tar sands oil refining, has caused a controversy for months since four-story-high piles appeared along the Detroit River near the Ambassador Bridge. Many local residents protested the eyesore and the potential for the piles to pollute both the air and the river."

Just this week, Koch Carbon apparently moved the petcoke to Ohio, where most likely the high-sulfur toxic pollutant will be burned for electrcitiy and befoul the air of Ohio but, Koch Carbon will not comment on the fate of the pollutants.

Of course, with the USA re-entering the Victorian Little Wars Era the only jobs left in America, outside being a Plutocracy Apologist, will be Cogs in the Machinery of War; Bravely opening up Foreign Markets for the Plutocracy to exploit.

"I don't believe in humanitarian wars. I don't believe in humanitarian bombings," Congressman Alan Grayson (D-Orlando).

The United States has entered a Ultra-Reactionary Period in which the Plutocratic Elites aided by their Media and Government Lapdogs are attacking every Progressive gain. 

"You know, if one day a kid doesn’t have lunch, right, maybe that’s a teaching moment when that kid doesn’t have lunch. That may sound harsh saying that, but we’ve got to get people to start being responsible for themselves." - Thomas Kersting on Fox & Friends

Oh yes, it's a teaching momement. We have to teach the Poor that they are here to toil and suffer to enrich the Plutocracy. Like Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher, who while voting to eliminate SNAP assistance for poor children and do away with subsidized lunches has raked in over $3,500,000 USC in free money from the Federal Government. Much of it for NOT growing certain crops.  

But when the despicable Rich Lowry of NRO is on Faux News stating, 

"[G]overnment has gone out and deliberately eroded the natural sense of stigma Americans feel about being on the dole in any form and that's a disgrace." 

He isn't talking about Stephen Fincher or Michele Bachmann and the millions they've received or the Trillions of Tax Payer Dollars which have been stolen by the 1%. A figure so large its' scope alone make people dismiss the theft because it's easier to believe the 1% aren't robbing Us into servitude and penury. But, Rich Lowry is a paid apologist for Power and Plutocracy. It's his job to defend the 1% and attack the Poor and Working Class.

What's making this so successful for the Plutocrats is the multiple fronts approach they've adopted. Instead of allowing Working Class resistance to build up to fight one battle, the Plutocracy is going after everything ensuring that resistance will be local and or fragmented.

So, while Republicans seek to dominate and subjugate women in Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin other Republicans are going after Social Security and Medicare.

“You want sequester relief? Then let’s talk about a reduction in entitlement spending,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell in July. 

"Now, it’s time to deal with the mandatory side,” Speaker of the House John Boehner told the crowd at a fundraiser for Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) in Boise, Idaho. “I’ve made it clear that we’re not going to increase the debt limit without cuts and reforms that are greater than the increase in the debt limit.”

"What we need to have happen is leadership on the part of this president and the White House to … say we’re going to fix the underlying problem that’s driving our deficit … the entitlement programs and the unfunded liability that they are leaving on this generation and the next.” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said earlier this month.

The 1% are satisfied with just Paying No Taxes, they also want to eliminate programs which aid the Working Class, they want potential opposition (Unions and Collective Bargaining) to their Dominance destroyed and they want all government spending rerouted to the Military-Industrial-Complex.