A bill in Utah to almost triple the cigarette tax from 69.5 cents to $2 per pack has failed in committee, although there is another bill coming right behind it to increase the tax to $1.70.
Hey, Mormons! How about taxing children, Prozac, and churches instead?
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Hopefully the rejection of this first bill is a sign that lawmakers realize that trying to balance the budget on the backs of a politically unpopular minority is bad policy.
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It's easy to call the wingnuts and the freakazoids and the teabaggers and the birthers and the tenthers stupid; they prove themselves stupid - or deliberate liars - every time they defy facts and reality to claim something stupid.
But why are they stupid? And why do so many people believe the stupidity spouted by the deliberate liars?
Because that's what they're taught in school. I don't mean the minority who attend christian madrasas where all they learn is fiction from the bible; I mean the majority who attend public schools, where the wingnut freakazoids dictate the curriculum.
Keep reading: http://www.theygaveusarepublic.com/diary/5030/how-the-liars-get-away-with-so-much-part-2
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Frank Rich: The leaders embraced by the new grass roots right are a different slate entirely: Glenn Beck, Ron Paul and Sarah Palin. Simple math dictates that none of this trio can be elected president. As George F. Will recently pointed out, Palin will not even be the G.O.P. nominee "unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states" (as it did in Barry Goldwater's 1964 Waterloo). But these leaders do have a consistent ideology, and that ideology plays to the lock-and-load nutcases out there, not just to the peaceable (if riled up) populist conservatives also attracted to Tea Partyism. This ideology is far more troubling than the boilerplate corporate conservatism and knee-jerk obstructionism of the anti-Obama G.O.P. Congressional minority.
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UT-Sen: Merrill Cook Ready To Make A Comeback
What a week of blessings it has been for those of us who love entertaining politicos. First Jim Traficant graced us with his re-emergence on the political scene, and now he has been followed by volatile Utah Republican Merrill Cook, who announced on Thursday that he will challenge incumbent GOP Senator Bob Bennett. Cook was known, in his days in the House, as one of the most ill-tempered members of the Congress. His rationale for running against Bennett is based on the teabagger-esque meme that Bennett is too tight with Wall Street, and not tight enough with Main Street.
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The torture gang: the entire Bush administration.
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The Vulgar Pigboy mocks the uninsured: let them eat applesauce.
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Obama/Democrats: Stop Kissing Republicans' Asses and Just Pass the Dang Health Care Bill Already!
For an incredible, unprecedented six hours Thursday President Obama presided over a much ballyhooed health-care forum with Republican rivals who have as much intention of helping him pass his reform bill as I have of slicing off my own lips with a box-cutter. So why the effort then? Because for some apparently deeply-psychologically-rooted reason, Obama and the Democrats are on an embarrassing, futile quest for bi-partisanship that's starting to make them look about as emotionally needy as an insecure 5-year-old relentlessly seeking parental adulation and approval. But with Republicans, it's never going to come. Ever. Period. The only thing they are going to help him do is fail. So to the president and Democratic leaders I have three words: stop...kissing...ass. Just drop the nuclear option--reconciliation--on 'em and get this damned health-care bill passed already. Enough's enough.
Reconciliation is a parliamentary tactic which in essence allows the majority party to pass certain legislation--that which impacts the federal budget--with just 51 Senate votes instead of the filibuster-proof 60. With Democrats in control and threatening to use this weapon to ultimately pass reform, Republicans are outraged and crying foul. Yet 16 of the 22 bills passed this way since its adoption in 1974 came under Republican majorities, including former President Bush's tax cuts. Reconciliation is so popular among Republicans that New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg said in 2005, "Is there something wrong with 'majority rules'? I don't think so." He was referring to his support of the GOP using reconciliation to pass legislation allowing drilling in Alaska's Arctic Wildlife Refuge.
But Sen. Gregg now sings a different tune over health-care reform: "The purpose of the Senate on something this complex and this comprehensive is to be a place where you have debate and you have amendments. And if you have a decent bill you shouldn't fear them." Sorry pal, can't have it both ways. If reconciliation was acceptable under Republican majorities, then so shall it be under Harry Reid's Democratic Senate. Can you say, colossal hypocrite?
Obama needs to stop pussyfooting around with The Party of No. He needs to stop seeking the Republicans' approval on everything he campaigned on and believes in. He needs to stop wasting precious time trying to convince the unconvincable that they should partner with him on his historic health-care legislation. He needs to grow some balls, quite frankly, and just get the job done, one way or another.
Time to spend a little time connecting dots again. Today's dots: Goldman Sachs and the SCOTUS decision allowing unlimited corporate interference in our elections.
Dot No 1: Goldman Sachs
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"First Senator from the Tea Party" Marco Rubio got hammered last week when it came out that he ran up large personal expenses on the Florida GOP's credit card — and that was just the tip of the iceberg.
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"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."
Scientific proof that John Stuart Mill was correct.
Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs.So very liberal people are typically above average, and very wingnutty people are typically below average.
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The study found that young adults who said they were "very conservative" had an average adolescent IQ of 95, whereas those who said they were "very liberal" averaged 106.
Sounds right to me. And yes, I know I reported on this yesterday. It bears repeating.
Yay! But he forgot to mention that god caused the earthquake.
One of the strangest prongs of conventional Beltway wisdom is the lament that there is not enough bipartisanship. The opposite is true: many of the most damaging acts inflicted on the country by Washington are enacted on a fully bipartisan basis - the most destructive political act of this generation, the invasion of Iraq, was fully bipartisan, as were most of the post-9/11 civil liberties abuses and other Bush-era initiatives- and, at least in certain areas, the harmonious joining together of Republicans and Democrats continues unabated:One day, the Dems will realize that being afraid the Republicans will call you names is no reason to support bad legislation and water down the good.
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Carl Hulse writing in the NYTimes on why some senators may not be willing to force Republicans to work for their filibusters:
Then there is the fact that many senators are advanced in years and not eager to pull all-nighters.
Sorry bout that guys, but ya know, people are actually dying out there.
I still have to wonder how the Sunday shows could not find a moment to mention that Senator Jim Bunning is obstructing 1.2 million Americans from getting unemployment benefits just to be a dick. One would have thought that this might merit a comment somewhere. On ABC there was ample time to discuss the departure of the White House Party Planner, but not the real world impact of obstructionism on so many people's lives. I guess important 'journalists' can't be bothered with things like news when catty Georgetown gossip is at hand.
It might have been a good question to ask Gramps McCain as he guest hosted another one of these shows, but it didn't happen. (I think it was on the Network that has a funny show on Thursday night, but he is on so many of these Sunday shows it is hard to tell which network will toss the old fella softballs on any given weekend).
Yes, I already know why. And yet, I thought I would ask the question regardless of that.
I recently watched "The Most Dangerous Man in America", a documentary film in theatres these days. It is the story of Daniel Ellsberg and the release of the Pentagon Papers. It is pretty amazing film and reminds one that there was a time—not so long ago—when people actually practiced journalism in America.
Now we just get MC Rove's back-up dancers.
***sigh***
Eric Cantor claims that no one wants to go on Medicaid. Really? I wonder if those with no insurance at all or with their premiums going through the roof that might prefer that option would agree with you? He also says the GOP wants "more people uninsured". As Media Matters asked, Freudian slip?
CANTOR: ...the, the reality is, and take a little bit a different approach here and difference with that statement, the reality is Republicans do care about health care. We want to address the first and most foundational element which is cost, because if we can bring down costs, more people can access care. But we also know that there is something we need to do to get more people on insured. The problem is with the president's bill, it's about expanding Medicaid. No one wants to, to go onto Medicaid. That's why physicians in Florida and other states are leaving Medicaid in droves because of the imperfect reimbursement structure. That's what this bill is about is expanding the government programs that don't work. We need real reform to bring down costs.
Polluters, such as companies and even some Federal agencies (such as the Air Force), have seized upon two Supreme Court rulings to claim that they have the right to dump whatever filth they want into the nation's water supplies. Congress has been unable to fix the legal problems, first because a polluter's best friend was in the White House and now because a certain blubbery fascist with a television show has seized on the issue; when he blubbers for his idiot viewers call Congress, they do.
So if your local water supply is becoming contaminated, you can thank your nearest conservative.[1]
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