Tonight I have a great performance by The Head and the Heart at KEXP from September of last year. I’m really looking forward to the release of their new album on Tuesday. I will post about it once I manage to get my hands on it. In the meantime, enjoy this excellent live performance…….
Shutting down the US Government is not enough for the Right Wing Extremist Tea Party. They’re now intent on causing the US to default by preventing the US Congress from raising the debt limit. These people are insane and this latest gambit has the potential to plunge the US, and the rest of the world, into another Recession (or even worse) a Depression.
As I sat in my house a day ago feeling helpless I listened to the following song and felt re-energized. Like Patti says in the song, “People have the power”. I believe that in the end the American people will come together vote the Right Wing Extremist that are responsible for our problems out of their positions of power. Today I am adding a new song, Revolution, by Jefferson Airplane…..trying to add in a little 1960’s activism to the mix.
I hope you like these songs…..I plan to listen to them each day until our Shutdown/Default crises are resolved. I will post them each day so you can listen with me.
People Have The Power
Revolution
The Republican Right Wing Extremist Tea Party continues to hold the US Government hostage. Looking like this could go on a while with the House crazies looking to link raising the Debt Ceiling to Obamacare. Speaking of those crazies, I though you might like the following song that describes them pretty well…………
Mo Brooks, our Congressional Representative here in North Alabama, is one of those fanatics. Hopefully that will not be the case after next year.
Shutting down the US Government is not enough for the Right Wing Extremist Tea Party. They’re now intent on causing the US to default by preventing the US Congress from raising the debt limit. These people are insane and this latest gambit has the potential to plunge the US, and the rest of the world, into another Recession (or even worse) a Depression.
As I sat in my house tonight feeling helpless I listened to the following song and felt re-energized. Like Patti says in the song, “People have the power”. I believe that in the end the American people will come together vote the Right Wing Extremist that are responsible for our problems out of their positions of power.
I hope you like this song…..I plan to listen to it each day until our Shutdown/Default crises are resolved. Of course I wouldn’t leave you out so I plan to post each day as well so you can listen with me.
The Republican Right Wing Extremist Tea Party continues to hold the US Government hostage. Looking like this could go on a while with the House crazies looking to link raising the Debt Ceiling to Obamacare.
First up today a little humor.
Next is a recent article from The Atlantic that identifies Mo Brooks as one of the 32 Republicans who caused the Government Shutdown. The North Alabama area that Mo “represents” is tightly coupled with Army and NASA work all of which is based on government funding so Mo’s work to shutdown the government significantly impacts the people he “represents”. Enjoy your infamy while you can Mo…….you are going down…….
By Svati Kirsten Narula, Ryan Jacobs, and Judith Ohikuare
Friday was the fourth day of the government shutdown, and there’s still no sign of an exit. What’s surprising about the ongoing fight is how a small group of members of Congress have managed to bring Washington to a halt. Just months ago, Speaker John Boehner was warning that forcing the government to shut down over Obamacare or anything else was politically hazardous. Yet Boehner remains stuck, his strategy dictated by a small rump of members in the Republican caucus who refuse to budge. On Monday night, as government funding ran out, a group of around 40 hardline conservatives refused to support any resolution to fund the government that didn’t defund Obamacare. Since Monday night, their goals may have become less clear, but their resolve has not weakened. While it’s widely believed that a “clean” resolution would pass the House handily, it would also likely lead to a right-wing rebellion in the caucus that would spell the end of Boehner’s speakership.
So who are those hardliners? To compile this list, we started with a roster that the Senate Conservatives Fund, a group aligned with Ted Cruz, created of representatives who were allied with them. We cross-checked it with the list of members who signed an August letter by Rep. Mark Meadows demanding that Boehner use a shutdown as a threat to defund Obamacare, and against other public statements this week. It’s not a comprehensive roll — there’s no official “wacko bird” caucus that keeps a register — but it’s a window into the small but powerful group of men and women in the House of Representatives who brought the federal government to a standstill.
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Representative: Justin Amash
Home District: Grand Rapids, Michigan
Quoted: “President Obama and Senator Reid refuse to negotiate over giving regular Americans the same breaks they give themselves, government workers, and big business.”
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Representative: Michele Bachmann
Home District: Stillwater, Minnesota
Quoted: “This is about the happiest I’ve seen members in a long time because we’ve seen we’re starting to win this dialogue on a national level.”
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Representative: Marsha Blackburn
Home District: Brentwood, Tennessee
Quoted: “There is some good news out of the shutdown, the EPA can’t issue new regulations.”
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Representative: Mo Brooks
Home District: Huntsville, Alabama
Quoted: “America survived the last 17 government shutdowns.”
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Representative: Paul Broun
Home District: Athens, Georgia
Quoted: “[The Democrats] need to look in the mirror, because they’re the ones to blame. They’re the ones that shut the government down.”
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Representative: John Carter
Home District: Round Rock, Texas
Quoted: “We must postpone this overreaching and damaging law that I believe will bankrupt the hard-working every day American.”
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Representative: John Culberson
Home District: Houston, Texas
Quoted: “The whole room [said]: ‘Let’s vote!’ I said, like 9/11, ‘Let’s roll!”
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Representative: Ron DeSantis
Home District: Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida
Quoted: “It is a simple issue of fairness: Members of Congress, their staff, and the political elite should not be given special relief from the harmful effects of Obamacare while the rest of America is left holding the bag.”
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Representative: Scott DesJarlais
Home District: Jasper, Tennessee
Quoted: “I remain committed in refusing to vote for any proposal that funds the president’s health-care law, and I call upon my colleagues to join me. A temporary government shutdown pales in comparison to the long-term negative consequences that Obamacare will impose on our economy and our healthcare system.”
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Representative: Jeff Duncan
Home District: Laurens, South Carolina
Quoted: “I believe Obamacare has shut down America, so I’d rather shut down the government than continue doing what we’re doing, which is penalizing businesses and families in this country.”
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Representative: John Fleming
Home District: Minden, Louisiana
Quoted: “This is what my constituents send me here for. This does underscore just how serious we are and how serious our constituents are about putting an end to Obamacare.”
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Representative: Scott Garrett
Home District: Wantange Township, New Jersey
Quoted: “I am deeply disappointed that President Obama and the Senate refused to come to the negotiation table and failed to fund the federal government.”
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Representative: Phil Gingrey
Home District: Marietta, Georgia
Quoted: “A majority of Americans think Obamacare will make health care in our country worse, and they’re right. House Republicans are listening to the American people, and I urge Harry Reid and Senate Democrats to do the same.”
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Representative: Louie Gohmert
Home District: Tyler, Texas
Quoted: “There are just so many broken promises that we need to slow this train wreck, this nightmare. It’s time to put the skids on this thing and slow it down before more people get hurt.”
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Representative: Tom Graves
Home District: Ranger, Georgia
Quoted: “House GOP is united around a very reasonable policy: POTUS should give families the same Obamacare delay he gave to businesses.”
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Representative: Vicky Hartzler
Home District: Harrisonville, Missouri
Quoted: “The American people have spoken already on this: They do not want Obamacare …. It is hurting people.”
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Representative: Tim Huelskamp
Home District: Fowler, Kansas
Quoted: “Most Americans realize the government shutdown has no impact on their daily life. They got their mail today; they’re going to get their Social Security check.”
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Representative: Jim Jordan
Home District: Urbana, Ohio
Quoted: “We have to get something on Obamacare, because that — if you want to get this country on a fiscal path to balance, you cannot let an entitlement of this size that will truly bankrupt the country and, more importantly, one that’s not going to help Americans with their health care, you can’t let this happen. ”
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Representative: Steve King
Home District: Kiron, Iowa
Quoted: “The American people have rejected Obamacare. The president is willing to put all of that on the line to save his namesake legislation, which I think would go down in history as the largest political tantrum ever.”
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Representative: Raul Labrador
Home District: Eagle, Idaho
Quoted: To Chris Matthews of MSNBC: “You know, your boss, Tip O’Neill, shut down the government 12 different times. And you didn’t call him a terrorist.”
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Representative: Tom Massie
Home District: Garrison, Kentucky
Quoted: “It’s just not that big of a deal.”
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Representative: Tom McClintock
Home District: Elk Grove, California
Quoted: In response to Harry Reid calling Tea Partiers “anarchists”: “When the other guy starts calling you names, you know that you’re winning the debate, and you know that he knows you’re winning the debate.”
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Representative: Mark Meadows
Home District: Cashier, North Carolina
Quoted: “James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 58 that ‘the power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon . . . for obtaining redress of every grievance.’”
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Representative: Randy Neugebauer
Home District: Lubbock, Texas
Quoted: “We get tons of mail and E-mails and phone calls. And overwhelmingly, those phone calls say, ‘Congressman, do everything you can to get rid of this very onerous piece of legislation. We don’t want the government running our health care.’ And so, from my perspective, we’re doing the people’s work here.”
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Representative: Matt Salmon
Home District: Mesa, Arizona
Quoted: “I was here during the government shutdown in 1995. It was a divided government. we had a Democrat president of the United States. We had a Republican Congress. And I believe that that government shutdown actually gave us the impetus, as we went forward, to push toward some real serious compromise.”
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Representative: Mark Sanford
Home District: Charleston, South Carolina
Quoted: “Our society has been held together for over 200 years in no small part due to the belief that our system was fair or equitable, yet the implementation of the Affordable Care Act has been anything but that.”
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Representative: Steve Scalise
Home District: Jefferson, Louisiana
Quoted: “Either Obamacare is good enough that it should apply to all or it is so bad that it should apply to none. It is time for the sweetheart deals and backroom exemptions to end.”
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Representative: Dave Schweikert
Home District: Fountain Hills, Arizona
Quoted: “I know it’s not comfortable for a lot of people here, but this is how it’s supposed to work. It’s supposed to be cantankerous. It’s supposed to be this constant grinding.” *
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Representative: Steve Stockman
Home District: Clear Lake, Texas
Quoted: “Americans want Congress to do two things, work together on our national fiscal crisis and stop Obamacare. It’s time Congress started listening to them.”
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Representative: Marlin Stutzman
Home District: Howe, Indiana
Quoted: “We aren’t going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”
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Representative: Randy Weber
Home District: Pearland, Texas
Quoted: “When the Democrats passed [Obamacare] over 60 percent of America’s wishes three years ago, they began this government shutdown.”
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Representative: Ted Yoho
Home District: Gainesville, Florida
Quoted: “It only takes one with passion — look at Rosa Parks, Lech Walesa, Martin Luther King.”
Shutting down the US Government is not enough for the Right Wing Extremist Tea Party. They’re now intent on causing the US to default by preventing the US Congress from raising the debt limit. These people are insane and this latest gambit has the potential to plunge the US, and the rest of the world, into another Recession (or even worse) a Depression.
Bruce Springsteen and his band just wrapped up their Wrecking Ball tour and he distributed this letter to his fans.
As a special treat for his fans Bruce has also released the following video that includes some amazing tour footage. Bruce has amazed and inspired me for over 40 years and this video is no different. Gerard – I’m sending this one out to you……
The Republican Right Wing Extremist Tea Party continues to hold the US Government hostage. Looking like this could go on a while with the House crazies looking to link raising the Debt Ceiling to Obamacare. First up today a little humor. Following that is another great article from Huffington Post. This article prominently features Mo Brooks, North Alabama’s Representative, who has chosen to support the Tea Party loonies in the Government shutdown which significantly impacts the people of North Alabama. Mo is now trying to change his tune but I’ve got news for him……..it’s too damn late.
By: Robert Reich
Representative Mo Brooks, Republican of Alabama and a fierce critic of the Affordable Care Act, has just changed his tune. He now says: “My primary focus is on minimizing risk of insolvency and bankruptcy. There are many paths you can take to get there. Socialized medicine is just one of the component parts of our debt and deficits that put us at financial risk.”
Translated: House Republicans are under intense pressure. A new Gallup poll shows the Republican Party now viewed favorably by only 28 percent of Americans, down from 38 percent in September. That’s the lowest favorable rating measured for either party since Gallup began asking this question in 1992. The Democratic Party is viewed favorably by 43 percent, down four percentage points from last month.
So Republicans are desperately looking for a way of getting out of the hold they’ve dug for themselves — and the president has given them one. He told them that if they agree to temporarily fund the government and raise the debt ceiling without holding as ransom the Affordable Care Act or anything else, negotiations can begin on reducing the overall budget deficit.
What’s the lesson here? The radicals who tried to hijack America didn’t understand one very basic thing. While most Americans don’t like big government, Americans revere our system of government. That’s why even though a majority disapprove of the Affordable Care Act, a majority also disapprove of Republican tactics for repealing or delaying it.
Government itself has never been popular in America except during palpable crises such as war or deep depression. The nation was founded in a revolution against an abusive government — that was what the original Tea Party was all about — and that distrust is in our genes. The Constitution reflects it. That’s why it’s hard for government to do anything very easily. I’ve never been as frustrated as when I was secretary of labor — continuously running into the realities of separation of power, checks and balances, and the endless complications of federal, state, and local levels of authority. But frustration goes with the job.
No one likes big government. If you’re on the left, you worry about the military-industrial-congressional complex that’s spending zillions of dollars creating new weapons of mass destruction, spying on Americans, and killing innocents abroad. And you don’t like government interfering in your sex life, telling you how and when you can have an abortion, whom you can marry. If you’re on the right, you worry about taxes and regulations stifling innovation, out-of-control bureaucrats infringing on your freedom, and government deficits as far as the eye can see.
So when Tea Party Republicans, bankrolled by a handful of billionaires, began calling the Affordable Care Act a “wholesale takeover of American health care,” many Americans were inclined to believe them. Health care is such a huge and complicated system, affecting us and our families so intimately, that our inherent distrust of government makes us instinctively wary. It’s no accident we’re still the only advanced nation not to have universal health care. FDR decided against adding it to his plan for Social Security because he didn’t want to jeopardize the rest of the program; subsequent presidents never got close, at least until Obama.
The best argument for the Affordable Care Act is that our current health care system is so dysfunctional — the most expensive in the world with the least healthy outcomes (highest infant mortality, shortest life spans, worst rates of chronic disease) of any advanced nation — that we had no choice but to try to fix it. Even so, it’s a typical American fix: We’re still basing it on private health providers and private insurers. All government does is subsidize the poor, require insurers to take in people with pre-existing health problems, and pay for it by requiring everyone to be insured.
The Tea Party Republicans’ mistake was to assume that Americans’ distrust of big government, and, by extension, the Affordable Care Act, would allow them to ride roughshod over the process we have for making laws.
Their double-barreled threats to shut down the government and cause the United States to default on its obligations if the Affordable Care Act wasn’t repealed or at least delayed was a direct assault on our system of government: If even unpopular laws can be gutted by a majority in one house of Congress holding the rest of government hostage, there’s no end to it. No law on the books would be safe. (Their retort that Congress holds the “purse strings” and can therefore decide to de-fund what it dislikes is bunk; appropriation bills have to be agreed to by both houses and signed into law by the president, like any other legislation.)
While most of us distrust government, we’re indelibly proud of our system of government. We like to think it’s just about the best system in the world. We don’t much like politicians but we canonize the Founding Fathers, the Framers of the Constitution. And we revere the fading parchment on which the Constitution is written. When we pledge allegiance to the United States we bind ourselves to that system of government. Anyone who seeks to overthrow or undermine that system is deemed a traitor.
And that’s exactly what some Tea Partiers have began sounding like — traitors to the system, radicals for whom the end they seek justifies whatever means they think necessary to achieve it. They began losing support even among Americans who had bought their view of the Affordable Care Act.
So they’ve had to back down, and soon, hopefully, we can move to the next stage — negotiating over the size of government. That’s should be stronger ground for the Tea Partiers. But the President, Democrats, and any moderate Republican who dares show his face can still gain ground by framing the question properly: The size of government is not the problem. It’s who government is for. The best way to reduce future budget deficits is to ensure it’s for all of us and not just a privileged few.
That means revenues should be raised from the wealthy, who have never been wealthier — limiting their deductions and tax credits, closing loopholes like “carried interest,” and taxing financial transactions. Spending should be cut by ending corporate welfare — terminating tax subsidies to oil and gas, ballooning payments to agribusiness, sweetheart deals for military contractors, and the “too big to fail” subsidy for Wall Street’s biggest banks. Future health-care costs should be contained by using the government’s bargaining leverage over providers (through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act) to force a shift from fee-for-service to payments-for-healthy-outcomes. And we should spend more on high-quality education and infrastructure for everyone.
Americans distrust big government, and always will. There’s ample reason — especially given the huge sums now bankrolling politicians, from a relative handful of billionaires, big corporations, and Wall Street. But we love our system of government. That’s what must be strengthened.
By using tactics perceived to violate that system, the Tea Partiers have overplayed their hand. If they don’t stop their recklessness, they’ll be out of the game.
If you had any doubts as to the smartest person in Crosby, Stills, and Nash I think this interview with Graham will convince you that it’s him. He’s not just a great musician and an accomplished photographer…..he’s also a successful entrepreneur. I think you will enjoy this video……..
As much as I enjoyed the interview, we can’t leave without at least one song from Graham. Here’s a really good 1874 solo performance from the Old Grey Whistle Test……
Graham Nash – Old Grey Whistle Test (1974)
The Republican Right Wing Extremist Tea Party continues to hold the US Government hostage. Looking like this could go on a while with the House crazies looking to link raising the Debt Ceiling to Obamacare. First up today a little humor. Following that is another great article from Huffington Post on how the Republican Party is starting to pay the price for their stupidity………
There may be plenty of blame to go around for the nine-day government shutdown, but the Republican brand is taking the harder hit in public opinion.
Just 28 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of the Republican Party, down 10 percentage points from last month, according to a Gallup poll. The polling firm called it a “record low,” noting that “this is the lowest favorable rating measured for either party since Gallup began asking this question in 1992.”
While the Democratic Party isn’t popular either, it fared better, with 43 percent of Americans approving of the party — down a comparatively small 4 points from September.
The percentage of Americans rating the Republicans unfavorably also reached a record high of 60 percent, while 49 percent gave the Democrats a negative rating. Remarkably, more than one-quarter of Republicans (27 percent) viewed their own party unfavorably.
In Gallup’s tracking, the only previous loss of approval that came anywhere close for the Republicans was a drop from 43 to 31 percent immediately following the House of Representatives vote to impeach President Bill Clinton in December 1998. As The New Republic’s Nate Cohn notes, the only good news for the Republicans is that the last time, their rating snapped back to 40 percent a few weeks later.
Nonetheless, the negative perceptions of Republicans during the impeachment debate helped Democrats to gain five House seats in the November 1998 election. That was the first time since 1934 that the president’s party gained seats in a midterm election.
thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard 