Ah, Halloween!

…Spookier With Every Sound bite

It’s Trick-Or-Treat time and the scary right-wing, flat earth, teabagging, birther hate and fear mongers are out in full costume.

Here’s the Trick: They are eating their own as those purporting to represent sides of the conservative movement in this country attack one another for ‘not being conservative enough’ or ‘too radically conservative to be effective at the polls.’

Here’s the Treat: Those calling themselves Republicans in this country are now a mere twenty percent or less of the population.

I’m loving every spooky moment of it as we watch the last burning remnants of what used to be the fiscally conservative and responsible Republican Party being burned to the ground and its rancid corpses of dead, regressive ideas being led to the graveyard by ultra-conservative neo-fascist, race-baiting, FOX and radio liars in collusion with Middle-Eastern Bible-thumping C-Street preachers of vileness—the very groups Bush, Cheney and Rove used to launch them and their evil regime to power. What were we told when we were young? Oh, yeah, now I remember. Play with fire and you’re gonna get burned. Look at all the angry ghouls and goblins with torches! Oh, my!

Happy Halloween.

President Obama

…Shows Respect To Fallen Heroes

This Commander-In-Chief has brought honor back to the Presidency. This morning he flew to Dover Air Force Base to receive home the bodies of 18 U.S. military and law enforcement personnel killed in Afghanistan.

In all the years of the Bush/Cheney regime, never did Mr. AWOL Bush the Consummate Liar or Mr. Five Military Deferments Cheney the Cowardly Blowhard have the concern, compassion, intelligence or guts to show the respect to our military displayed by President Obama this morning. To those two pathetic losers of the previous administration, the military was nothing more than a tool to further their selfish, personal and murderous political agendas.

We salute you, President Obama.

How Greedy Can They Get?

…’Very’, Evidently

Credit card companies are concocting new ways to bring in revenues, increase profits and crap on their customers—especially the ones who pay off their cards each month and don’t carry a balance—according to this account here at wcbstv.

In a bald-faced lie, the Director of Consumer Research at CreditCards.com said, "There is a big segment of their population that they will have never made money on, which is people who pay their bills on time every month."

Excuse me? “…never made money on..” Yeah, if you exclude all those annual payments just to carry the cards, maybe.

What these loan sharks (example: Bank of America) are doing now, is taking a $29.00 annual fee and hiking it to $99.00 on those accounts that do not carry a balance, thus punishing people for paying their bills on time. Think you can get back at them and just cancel your card? Think again.

“They can either pay that fee or they can close the account, and if they have had the account for a while and they close it, they are potentially going to hurt their credit card score,” said the CreditCard.com spokesman.

Capitalism is the best form of business system on the planet—unless and until greed is allowed to run rampant and uncontrolled. This is just another example of why strong regulatory government is needed to watch over and control such business. Next thing you know, credit card companies will be wanting the government to bail them out…Oh, wait…never mind.

Our Generals Can't Be Trusted

…Time To Clean House

President Obama is being ill-served by the Generals tasked with running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They can’t be trusted. The information and advice he’s getting is not solid, factual advice the Commander-In-Chief can use to formulate a decision on those two theaters of war. Rather, it is information designed by the Generals to perpetuate America’s wars against all reasonable arguments to stop such folly and to continue the vast funding for those in the military-industrial complex profiting from such murderous adventures.

McChrystal, Commander of the U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, isn’t to be trusted. General Petraeus isn’t to be trusted. Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mullen isn’t to be trusted. General Odierno, Iraq Commander, isn’t to be trusted. For personal, religious and political reasons these men are actively working against the President of the United States.

General McChrystal tops the list of these conspirators. He’s both a consummate politician when it comes to selfishly protecting his career and his backside and he’s a proven liar. General McChrystal—a Bush Regime Christian soldier—was involved in the cover-up of the murder of NFL player turned soldier Pat Tillman. Tillman’s crime? He was an avowed atheist who was doing good work for his country and getting good press coverage for his endeavors.

In the myopic, hateful world of Bush’s and McChrystal’s American Christian Crusader Army atheists are considered worse than Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Tillman had to go and his murder had to be covered up. McChrystal did the dirty deed.

As reported at www.thedailybeast.com and elsewhere, "In the week after Tillman was killed McChrystal administered a fraudulent medal recommendation and submitted it to secretary of the Army, thereby concealing the cause of Tillman’s death. Army officers then embarked on an elaborate campaign to suppress the truth. Soldiers were ordered to lie and Tillman’s notebook, uniform, ammo vest and body armor were burned."

President Obama needs to clean our military house of these evil, warmongering crusaders and put in place honest, reliable, trustworthy military leaders who understand and respect our country and the laws by which we operate.

McChrystal, Petraeus, Mullen and Odierno all serve an evil master that puts them on the opposite side of the best interests of their Commander-In-Chief and the United States of America.

Bush's Guantanamo Crimes

…Continue To Haunt

There seems to be no end to the horrific, evil manifestations of the Bush/Cheney eight years of darkness unleashed upon America and the World, not the least of which is the torture facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This stain upon the United States of America cannot be erased from the history books but mitigation of some of the damage caused can be helped along by closing the facility and bringing Bush, Cheney and all those involved in war crimes to justice. To do that, the truth needs to be revealed, facts gathered. Such a fact-finding movement is underway by a group you may not have thought of as being interested in such an endeavor.

As reported by LaFiga, musicians, including R.E.M, Pearl Jam, Jackson Browne, Billy Bragg, Michelle Branch, T-Bone Burnett, David Byrne, Rosanne Cash, Marc Cohn, Steve Earle, the Entrance Band, Joe Henry, Pearl Jam, Bonnie Raitt, Rise Against, and The Roots have launched a formal protest of the use of music used in conjunction with torture that took place at Guantanamo Bay and other facilities. They are supporting an effort seeking the declassification of all secret government records pertaining to how music was utilized as an interrogation device.

Tom Morello and Trent Reznor–the music of Rage Against the Machine and Nine Inch Nails were used as part the torture of inmates–are involved in the campaign. Says Morello in a statement:

“Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured – from water boarding, to stripping, hooding and forcing detainees into humiliating sexual acts – playing music for 72 hours in a row at volumes just below that to shatter the ear drums.”

Morello, Rage Against the Machine’s guitarist, adds:

“Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney’s idea of America, but it’s not mine. The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me – we need to end torture and close Guantanamo now”

Best Healthcare Reform Option

…Give All Citizens Medicare

Congress is set to finalize the House and Senate versions of the current so-called Healthcare Reform bills. I have little faith that anything meaningful will come of it (by ‘meaningful ‘ I mean benefiting the citizens, not the corporations). Sadly, too many of our lawmakers are on the corporate dole, taking thousands from the Healthcare Insurance and Pharmaceutical industries. Between the obstructionist regressive Republicans and the spineless ‘let’s compromise’ Democrats it seems almost guaranteed it will be corporations, not citizens that will see anything positive from all these months of political lip-flapping.

If there is any ‘final’ bill, it will be watered down and compromised so much that having no bill at all will likely to be better than the horrific monster we may end up with. This is especially true if Congress refuses to enact strong oversight laws, fails to abolish the price-gouging and price fixing currently ‘legal’ for healthcare insurance providers and give in completely to their corporate insurance industry masters and make it mandatory for all citizens to purchase healthcare insurance—this is a very, very bad idea that will put billions of dollars more into the coffers of the greedy insurance industry, penalize our citizens with higher rates and taxes, and guarantee rate hikes. With all that and much more to consider, I think the best idea for healthcare reform that benefits all our citizens is to move immediately into a single-payer, government run system. The infrastructure for such a system is already in place. It is called Medicare.

The "Who Do We Represent" Game

…Senators Pryor and Lincoln of Arkansas

Let’s play the “Who Do We Represent” Game. The “Who Do We Represent” game is an exercise to determine who it is that our elected officials actually represent. In today’s game, we have Senator Mark Pryor (D-Ark) and Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark). Who is it they care about the most and how can we determine the answer to this puzzle and win the game? Let’s examine some facts.

(1.) Aggregate polling shows 70% of the population and 75% of the medical community favors healthcare reform with a strong, viable public option. This is a majority of the voting public.

(2.) On the other side of the statistics, 100% of the Healthcare Insurance and Big Pharmaceutical industries oppose healthcare reform and any public option. This is a tiny minority of the voting public.

Which side do these two Senators represent? If you picked number (2 .) then you win the game.

Both Pryor and Lincoln support the smallest minority of our population and their biggest paying constituents, the Healthcare Insurance and Big Pharmaceutical industries and to hell with majority of the voting public. For these two Senators, the multi-thousands of dollars in bribes payoffs political donations from these two industries are more important than healthcare for the citizens of Arkansas and the nation.

Bipartisanship And Compromise?

…Or Compromised By Corruption?

President Obama can talk all he wants about the spirit of compromise and civility on healthcare reform issues. He won’t get it.

"I expect us to move forward with a spirit of civility, a seriousness of purpose, and a willingness to compromise that characterizes our democratic process at its very best. If we do that, I am confident that we will pass reform this year," the President said.

Civility? That’s a laugh. The people President Obama is attempting to negotiate ‘bipartisanship and civility’ with are incapable of both. Watching and listening to any Tea Bag Patriot gathering with our President portrayed as Hitler and the outright lies proclaimed by attendees explains all we need to know about the healthcare ‘debate’ in the United States. It’s the progressive, educated, rational, intelligent people against the regressive, hateful right-wing, pro-corporate profits, noisy lunatic fringe.

There will never be any bipartisanship on healthcare—or seemingly any other issue for that matter— because the Republicans and the Republican-lite Blue Dogs refuse (or are incapable of) offering any meaningful plan for the average citizen—unless, of course, one considers healthcare and big pharmacy executives with multi-million dollar paychecks to be average citizens. They aren’t and neither are our elected officials.

It’s no coincidence the elected officials in Congress who oppose meaningful healthcare reform are the very ones who have taken enormous amounts of money from the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry lobby. In a fair and just world this would be called what it is: Bribery. In a nation of fair laws, the perpetrators of such activity would be brought to justice.

With 72% of the country and 75% of the medical doctors in America wanting both a public option and meaningful healthcare reform, it is a crime (or it should be) to allow lobbyists and corrupt politicians to kill it. But that is what’s happening right now.

The President is willing to compromise but he fails to realize that in this current political climate, the spirit of compromise is trumped by the obvious evil of greedy corruption.