And if that wasn't enough, here's a second story from Fox in which they try to mislead their audience. They claim that Obama's evil regulations will make your car cost $2000 more. They don't tell you that the same regulations will be saving you around $5000 to $6000 in fuel over the lifetime in the car, so actually the new regulations will save the average consumer $3000 to $4000. Kind of relevant to the story, you think?
During a town hall meeting in Ottumwa, Iowa Friday afternoon, Rick Santorum argued that Americans receive too many government benefits and ought to "suffer" in the Christian tradition. If "you're lower income, you can qualify for Medicaid, you can qualify for food stamps, you can qualify for housing assistance," Santorum complained, before adding, "suffering is part of life and it's not a bad thing, it is an essential thing in life."
Such is the lot of the peasant in the Kingdom Of Froth And Lube. If the invisible sky dude wanted you to be rich, you'd have money. Since you're not, please take comfort in the fact that you're meant to hurt. It'll build character. Please pay no attention to the people raiding the treasury and saying we need to make more peasants suffer, I'm sure they have an excellent reason for not going through any of the standard character-building suffering exercises along with you.
Now do get back to work.
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The worst idea in the history of bad ideas didn't make it out of the House this afternoon, when sanity prevailed and the Balanced Budget Amendment was voted down:
The House voted 261-165 on Friday to reject a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution - falling short of the two-thirds majority needed.The balanced budget amendment that failed to pass the House Friday was similar to the version voted on in 1995, which passed the House by 300-132 but fell short by one vote in the Senate. It required a simple majority to raise taxes and three-fifths vote to raise the nation's debt limit.
Most Democrats opposed the balanced-budget amendment, but a handful of Republicans joined them, including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who argued this version wasn't tough enough.
"I'm concerned that this version will lead to a much bigger government fueled by more taxes," he told POLITICO. "Spending is the problem, yet this version of the [balanced-budget amendment] makes it more likely taxes will be raised, government will grow, and economic freedom will be diminished."
Many conservative House Republicans had pushed for a tougher balanced-budget amendment that would require a two-thirds majority to raise taxes, as well capping spending at 18 percent of GDP.
Yes, you read that passage correctly. Some republicans (Paul Ruan, Louie Gohmert) voted against it because it wasn't quite stupid and destructive enough for them, they wanted it to be even more stupid and destructive. But whatever. I will take republican failure -- and the opportunity to mock those ridiculous fuckwits -- wherever I can find it.
But I will admit to being pleasantly surprised that it fell so far short. It needed 290 to pass and it only garnered 261. I honestly figured it would pass the House, like it did back in the mid-90s and that the fight would be in the Senate, where it would fall short, and then the GOP would make a bunch of ads that attacked Democrats as wild, out-of-control big spenders of other peoples money to run during next year's elections.
Never mind that if a BBA were in effect when the economy went to hell in 2008 after eight years of George Bush's maladministration inconveniently caught up to him before he skated out of office, we would have been plunged into a depression that would have far exceeded the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Now, let's dispense with the "I have to balance my checkbook, Washington should, too!" cannard that a lot of people who should know better have been gulled into accepting.
Governments and families are not the same fucking thing. Period. Full stop. And besides that, families engage in deficit spending, too. They do so every time they borrow money, whether it's a car loan, or a mortgage or a student loan, but that's neither here nor there. The real difference is between macro and micro economics.
And frankly, if you try that "balance your checkbook" line of ignorant bullshit with me, and you can't explain the difference between the two, the mockery and ridicule will be scathing and brutal and humiliating...surpassed only by the mockery and ridicule and humiliation I will heap upon you if you can explain the difference and still persist in willfull dumbassery.
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In one of the greatest signs yet that the 99 Percenters are having an impact, Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, today introduced an amendment that would ban corporate money in politics and end corporate personhood once and for all.
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Billionaires Use Tax Loophole To Lower Their Tax Rates To 1 Percent
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Fox News Climate Denial Dominates Cable News | A new academic paper confirms that Fox News systematically deceives its viewers about climate change, significantly altering their views. Nearly 60 percent of Fox News broadcasts were dismissive of climate change, whereas less than 20 percent were accepting of climate change. The researchers also found that Fox News does more than just reinforce existing bias. Republicans who watch Fox News were more influenced than Democrats — Republicans who watch CNN or MSNBC are less skeptical when exposed to information on the reality and urgency of climate change. The authors — Lauren Feldman, Edward Maibach, Connie Roser-Renouf, and Anthony Leiserowitz — also found that Fox News covered global warming dramatically more than CNN or MSNBC, having nearly 70 percent of the prime-time coverage of global warming in 2007-2008.
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John Boehner's Drunken Crying Ruins NASA Ceremony (VIDEO)
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They Still Hate Us After All These Years
Sitting in a barber shop in Baghdad's Shi'ite Sadr City slum, three friends agreed after a long and hard argument that U.S. forces brought democracy to Iraq.
But they found it difficult to utter the words without raging about the flip side of what they saw as the U.S. occupation of their country.
"OK, we have democracy. We can talk freely with no fear. We can demonstrate and vote freely. All these are available, and all were not before 2003," said student Hussain Ali, 20, as he waited for his haircut.
"But why don't you ask us about the other side of the story of the U.S. presence in Iraq? Why don't you ask about their crimes, atrocities, the pain and anguish that we suffered because of their military presence here?" Ali said, his face turning red with anger.
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The Family Research Council is asking its followers to pray that millions of Americans remain without health care. The Bible demands it!
Please pray for each member of the Supreme Court during the weeks and months ahead. May God rule in this case, among the top 10 Supreme Court cases in American history, and may ObamaCare be ruled unconstitutional! (Dt 1:16-17; 2 Kg 24:Ps 82:1-5; Pr 14:34; 24:10-12;4; Is 10:1; Gal 5:1)
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Mario: Comment of the Week: Understanding the Occupy Movement
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Don't ever accuse Scott Walker and the Republican controlled Wisconsin legislature of not having their priorities in order.
Wisconsin is facing a jobs crisis. The state's official unemployment rate, down to 7.1 percent in January, has risen to 7.8 percent since Republican Gov. Scott Walker took office. But Walker and the GOP-led Legislature have a plan: First, they curtailed collective-bargaining rights and threatened to lay off government workers, including teachers, cops, and firefighters. Then Walker called a special jobs-focused session of the Legislature, which he dubbed "Back to Work Wisconsin," to pass even more "job-creating" laws. At the top of the jobs agenda? Gutting the state's sex ed standards and replacing them with abstinence-only education.
A bill launched during Walker's jobs session and nearing passage in the Legislature would repeal significant portions of the state law that requires schools to provide comprehensive, scientifically accurate, and age-appropriate sex ed.
I understand that Republicans care little for numbers and facts but just for the heck of it, here are a few stats anyway.
- more than 90% of Texas school districts teach abstinence only sex education
- Texas' teen birth rate is the highest in the country
- Teen pregnancy rate? Texas ranks 4th in the country
- The following health institutions all support comprehensive sex education:
American Medical Association
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Psychological Association
American Public Health Association
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
American Nurses Association
Society for Adolescent Medicine
National Institutes of Health
Institute of Medicine
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Child Welfare League of America
National Association of County and City Health Officials
Republicans like Walker and Perry would never let facts, science and human nature get in the way of promoting wholesome conservative values no matter how unworkable those principles may be. Operating on the notion that wishing something to be a certain way therefore makes it so, is infantile and foolish. Yet that is exactly what conservatives do when they deny man's role in climate change, claim that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, demand that they have a say with what women do with their own bodies or claim that abstinence-only education is an effective way to modify 100,000 years of human sexual behavior.
Pointing out the ignorance of these people does little to change things. A better way is what the people of Wisconsin have begun this week – the recall of Scott Walker. In a sane and just world, the recall effort will bring an end to this Koch created puppet's reign of insanity.
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