left-leaning voters have been scrubbed

This is exactly what happened in Florida in 2000 and what is happening AGAIN throughout the USA in 2011 in preparation for 2012.

Do not let the Necons take control of this country AGAIN!! We dont need more war, debt, financial crisis, Katrina's BP oil spills, and thousands of other countless corporate welfare programs to enrich the few.

Clipped from www.guardian.co.uk

Mexico and Florida have more in common than heat

There is evidence that left-leaning voters have been scrubbed from key electoral lists in Latin America

There's something rotten in Mexico. And it smells like Florida. The ruling party, the Washington-friendly National Action Party (Pan), proclaimed yesterday their victory in the presidential race, albeit tortilla thin, was Mexico's first "clean" election. But that requires we close our eyes to some very dodgy doings in the vote count that are far too reminiscent of the games played in Florida in 2000 by the Bush family. And indeed, evidence suggests that Team Bush had a hand in what may be another presidential election heist. Just before the 2000 balloting in Florida, I reported in the Guardian that its governor, Jeb Bush, had ordered the removal of tens of thousands of black citizens from the state's voter rolls. He called them "felons", but our investigation discovered their only crime was Voting While Black. And that little scrub of the voter rolls gave the White House to his brother George. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

 

GOP Skimming Off Voters for 2012 @maddow

Have we not seen this crap before? THIS MUST BE STOPPED!!

We cannot let the mainstream media simply capitulate to the Neocons while they strip legitimate voters from their civil rights because they know they will vote DEMOCRATIC.

Clipped from washingtonindependent.com

Florida 2000 Redux?

You know it’s going to be a heated election when a state attorney general sues his own state agency for not cracking down on voter fraud. But that’s just what’s happened in Wisconsin. It’s indicative of the kinds of legal challenges now being brought in hotly contested states around the country. The outcomes of those challenges will decide whose votes get counted and whose don’t — and in a race as close as this one, that could make all the difference.

In each case, Republicans claim voter fraud is rampant and the government has to crack down on it. Democrats, meanwhile, argue it’s rare – and far less of a problem than intimidation and harassment of voters at the polls. Read more at washingtonindependent.com

 

GOP Rigging Democracy @maddow

Clipped from articles.sfgate.com

'Stealing America': Voting-fraud documentary

The numbers don't add up.

$3.8 billion: The initial Help America Vote Act allocation that California Secretary of State Deborah Bowen said "pushed many counties into buying electronic systems that ... were not properly reviewed or tested."

18,000: Votes that did not register in a 2006 Sarasota County, Fla., local election using touch-screen machines, in a Democratic stronghold that the Republican challenger won by 368 votes. Read more at articles.sfgate.com

 

GOP destroying democracy in USA @maddow

Clipped from old.nationalreview.com

Democracy Imperiled

EDITOR'S NOTE:This is the introduction of John Fund's new book, Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy, released today from Encounter Books.

Our nation may be on the brink of repeating the 2000 Florida election debacle, but this time in several states, with allegations of voter fraud, intimidation and manipulation of voting machines added to the generalized chaos that sent our last presidential contest into overtime. There is still time to reduce the chance of another electoral meltdown, both this year and in future years. But this will not happen unless we acknowledge that the United States has a haphazard, fraud-prone election system befitting an emerging Third World country rather than the world's leading democracy. Read more at old.nationalreview.com

 

GOP Voter Fraud Again & Again @maddow

HELP! We cannot let the Neocons sabotage the national elections again like they did in 2000. They are doing it now in various states across the US. Republican Governors are destroying the the essence of democracy RIGHT NOW in 2011, preparing for 2012.

We cannot let this happen. Watch this film!

Clipped from movies.netflix.com

XXI Century

An in-depth exploration into the state of our society at the start of the 21st century, this probing set of documentaries examines the 2000 U.S. presidential elections, repercussions of the 9/11 attacks, the build-up to the Iraq War and more. Through hard-hitting interviews with experts such as Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis and Howard Zinn, the series also showcases compelling perspectives on mainstream media, patriotism and human rights. Read more at movies.netflix.com

 

Media Capitulated to Hitler

Clipped from movies.netflix.com

Independent Intervention (Independent Intervention: Breaking Silence)

This penetrating documentary stresses the need for an independent media, free from political bias and corporate ideologies, by examining how various media outlets have crafted the information we've been given about the war in Iraq since 2003. Footage from independent sources is compared with that from mainstream media, which often focuses on technology rather than people. Interviews with experts Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman are included. Read more at movies.netflix.com

 

Lower Taxes 4 Wealthy Cut Prgrm 4 Poor

Yes, because this is exactly what we need right now. More tax breaks for the wealthy and fewer support programs for those lazy poor people.

Clipped from www.nytimes.com

Republicans intend to cut benefits and programs for the nation’s retirees and neediest citizens while protecting corporate America and the wealthiest people from paying their share of taxes. They will be certain to challenge the budget plan and make its bold efforts to reshape Medicare and Medicaid — the health care programs for older Americans and the poor

proposes not only to limit federal spending and reconfigure major federal health programs, but also to rewrite the tax code, cutting the top tax rate for both individuals and corporations to 25 percent from 35 percent, reducing the number of income tax brackets and eliminating what it calls a “burdensome tangle of loopholes

G.O.P. Budget Proposal Cuts $5.8 Trillion in Spending Read more at www.nytimes.com

 

Antitrust laws redistribute wealth

Use Antitrust to break up oligopolies, make distributed small business expansion the end goal, small businesses pay less taxes than employees and teaparty might back it

Check out this podcast on iTunes:

http://ax.itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-breakdown/id350793623

Privatization of Medicare? @chrislhayes

How is it possible that some perceive private corporations as being able to offer cost reductions for key government functions?

Corporations must produce profits and improve them over time. that is the nature of capitalism. They will underestimate the cost initially to get the business and then slowly increase the cost once the options are null.

What about all the military (Boeing, Halliburton) and health insurance industry projects that have costs Billions more than originally planned? The Federal government has been screwed over the past 60 years by the military industrial complex and citizens have been screwed since the 1970's by the health care industry.

How about the prison system? We spend more on incarceration than education at the State level. Privatized.

Why would we want to do this to our future generations for medicare?

Clipped from www.bloomberg.com

Ryan’s Budget Would Cut Medicare, Medicaid and Trim $4 Trillion

Phasing Out Medicare

Ryan’s proposal will call for phasing out the traditional Medicare health-care program for the elderly, with new beneficiaries starting in 2022 instead being provided subsidies to buy private health insurance.

It would cap spending on Medicaid, the health-care plan for the poor, and give states more discretion over how to run the joint federal-state program. Read more at www.bloomberg.com

 

US Total Spending - Drill Down @maddow

This is a handy little site that has all the US spending at Federal and State levels.

Clipped from www.usgovernmentspending.com

United States Total Spending Pie Chart

See more at www.usgovernmentspending.com

 

Sugarcane vs Corn Ethanol

Clipped from en.wikipedia.org

The U.S., potentially the largest market for Brazilian ethanol imports, currently imposes a tariff on Brazilian ethanol of $USD 0.54 per gallon in order to encourage domestic ethanol production and protect the budding ethanol industry in the United States.[89] Historically, this tariff was intended to offset the 45-cent per gallon blender's federal tax credit that is applied to ethanol no matter its country of origin.[5][90][91][92] Exports of Brazilian ethanol to the U.S. reached a total of US$ 1 billion in 2006, an increase of 1,020% over 2005 (US$ 98 millions),[93] but fell significantly in 2007 due to sharp increases in American ethanol production from maize.[94][95] A recent study by Iowa State University's Center for Agricultural and Rural Development found that removing the U.S. import tariff would result in less than 5% of the United States’ ethanol being imported from Brazil.[96][97] Set to expire at the end of 2010, the $USD 0.54 per gallon tariff and $USD 0.45 per gallon blender’s credit have been the subject of contentious debate in Washington,DC with ethanol interest groups and politicians staking positions on both sides of the issue.[98][99][100][101][102]

Brazil's sugar cane-based industry is more efficient than the U.S. corn-based industry. Sugar cane ethanol has an energy balance seven times greater than ethanol produced from corn.[3] Brazilian distillers are able to produce ethanol for 22 cents per liter, compared with the 30 cents per liter for corn-based ethanol.[118] U.S. corn-derived ethanol costs 30% more because the corn starch must first be converted to sugar before being distilled into alcohol.[78] Despite this cost differential in production, the U.S. does not import more Brazilian ethanol because of U.S. trade barriers corresponding to a tariff of 54-cent per gallon, first imposed in 1980, but kept to offset the 45-cent per gallon blender's federal tax credit that is applied to ethanol no matter its country of origin.[5][90][91][92]

Sugarcane cultivation requires a tropical or subtropical climate, with a minimum of 600 mm (24 in) of annual rainfall. Sugarcane is one of the most efficient photosynthesizers in the plant kingdom, able to convert up to 2% of incident solar energy into biomass. Sugarcane production in the United States occurs in Florida, Louisiana, Hawaii, and Texas. The first three plants to produce sugarcane-based ethanol are expected to go online in Louisiana by mid 2009. Sugar mill plants in Lacassine, St. James and Bunkie were converted to sugar cane-based ethanol production using Colombian technology in order to make possible a profitable ethanol production. These three plants will produce 100 million gallons of ethanol within five years.[119] By 2009 two other sugarcane ethanol production projects are being developed in Kauai, Hawaii and Imperial Valley, California.[120] Read more at en.wikipedia.org

 

Biofuels Provide Energy Independence

At least Brazil isnt dependent on OPEC for oil...

Clipped from www.time.com

Brazil's Counterattack on Biofuels

But Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva complains that the criticism is driven by an ulterior motive. He suggests it forms part of a concerted effort by the industrialized world to prevent Brazil, one of the world's most important agricultural powers, from taking its place at the top table. The problem, he argues, lies with the "same old policies of the rich countries," such as subsidies and tariffs.

"Biofuels are not the villains threatening the food security of poorer nations," Lula told delegates at the Food and Agricultural Organization's regional conference in Brasilia last week. "Quite the contrary, as long as they are developed with the right criteria, and in keeping with each nation's own reality, they can be essential instruments for generating wealth and lifting nations out of food and energy insecurity... The real crime against humanity is discounting biofuels a priori."

"I think that the sudden rise in price of food has got people looking for causes, and biofuels are a convenient scapegoat," says Reid Detchon, Executive Director of the Energy Future Coalition, a think tank funded by the U.N. Foundation. "There's a connection to some degree... but increased demand from Asia for grain-fed meat, combined with some other factors like oil prices, droughts in wheat-producing countries, and the demand for corn in the U.S. for ethanol, have all contributed to this sudden price spike. Ethanol is not the major factor."

Brazil is most angered by critics' failure to distinguish between the sugar-cane-based ethanol produced in the tropics and the more expensive and less efficient ethanol that comes from wheat, corn, beets and other crops grown in more temperate climes.

Sugar-cane-based ethanol is up to eight times more efficient than its corn counterpart. (The amount of energy produced by one unit invested in producing sugar-cane ethanol is up to eight times greater than the amount of energy produced by investing that same unit in the process of making corn ethanol.) The crop itself uses less fertilizers and pesticides, and Brazilian farmers who grow it do not receive government subsidies. Crucially, Brazil last year exported two-thirds of its sugar crop, meaning no cane was diverted from human consumption to produce ethanol. Read more at www.time.com

 

US Gas Artificial & Dependant on Oil

Remove this tariff and start importing more sugarcane based ethanol!!

Clipped from en.wikipedia.org

Brazil's sugar cane-based industry is more efficient than the U.S. corn-based industry. Sugar cane ethanol has an energy balance seven times greater than ethanol produced from corn.[3] Brazilian distillers are able to produce ethanol for 22 cents per liter, compared with the 30 cents per liter for corn-based ethanol.[118] U.S. corn-derived ethanol costs 30% more because the corn starch must first be converted to sugar before being distilled into alcohol.[78] Despite this cost differential in production, the U.S. does not import more Brazilian ethanol because of U.S. trade barriers corresponding to a tariff of 54-cent per gallon, first imposed in 1980, but kept to offset the 45-cent per gallon blender's federal tax credit that is applied to ethanol no matter its country of origin.[5][90][91][92]

Alcohol and gasoline prices per liter at Rio de Janeiro (left) and São Paulo (right), corresponding to a price ratio of E100 ethanol to E25 gasoline of 0.64 and 0.56.

Ethanol fuel in Brazil

Brazil is the world's second largest producer of ethanol fuel and the world's largest exporter. Together, Brazil and the United States lead the industrial production of ethanol fuel, accounting together for 89% of the world's production in 2009.[1][2] In 2009 Brazil produced 24.9 billion litres (6.57 billion U.S. liquid gallons), representing 37.7% of the world's total ethanol used as fuel.[1] Read more at en.wikipedia.org

 

Is Glenn Beck Right? '50 were better?

Great Depression years of the early 1930s, a time when so many Americans seemed politically depressed and defeated, would have predicted that Americans, by the millions, would be “clamoring for redistribution” by the mid 1930s — and reshaping American politics with that clamor.

Out of that new politics would come, by the 1950s, a much more equal America. We’ve lost that equality over the last three decades. We can get it back.

Clipped from toomuchonline.org

Great Depression years of the early 1930s, a time when so many Americans seemed politically depressed and defeated, would have predicted that Americans, by the millions, would be “clamoring for redistribution” by the mid 1930s — and reshaping American politics with that clamor. Out of that new politics would come, by the 1950s, a much more equal America. We’ve lost that equality over the last three decades. We can get it back.

Inequality’s Impact: A New Debate Opens

If the wealth of the wealthy really bothered Americans, flacks for grand fortune enjoy declaring, our political system would be shaking something fierce. They don’t see a whole lot of shaking. Should we? Read more at toomuchonline.org

 

Wealthy 1% Have ALWAYS Controlled USA

Clipped from www.tax.com

Figure 5: Share of wealth held by the Bottom 99% and Top 1% in the United States, 1922-2007.

Here are some dramatic facts that sum up how the wealth distribution became even more concentrated between 1983 and 2004, in good part due to the tax cuts for the wealthy and the defeat of labor unions: Of all the new financial wealth created by the American economy in that 21-year-period, fully 42% of it went to the top 1%. A whopping 94% went to the top 20%, which of course means that the bottom 80% received only 6% of all the new financial wealth generated in the United States during the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s (Wolff, 2007). Read more at www.tax.com

 

Indiana Passes Largest Voucher Program

http://view.exacttarget.com/?j=fe5915797d6306797610&m=fef71276...

 

 

Size of Govt Conversation w/ TeaParty

A Teaparty activist send me this article which says Govt is too big.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050204576219073867182108.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

I countered

 

In general I agree Govt is too big in terms of # of people and expenditures.  However, I disagree on the allocation.  I think military spending and people should be cut, not public service programs and education (You and I agree that education needs revamping and changes seem to be underway).  We could drop $400B from the defense budget and still have the largest military in the world. 

 

However, I would also point out that the US is the largest manufacturer, many people have moved to the services sector, and many people are unemployed as a result of manufacturing outsourcing.

 

The Govt sector hires more educated people but they are paid less and loss their job less frequently than private sector which is subject to faster extreme swings.  Currenlty unemployment for those with a only high school education is really high – like 16%.

 

Same line of thought:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0416/p01s04-usec.html

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/05/the_public_trough_is_bigger_th.html

 

Federal Civilian is 2% of the American population.  Close to 10% with city, state (teachers, police, fire, etc)

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/78xx/doc7874/03-15-Federal_Personnel.pdf

 

This says 2007 numbers are 8% with military

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percentage_of_americans_are_government_employed

 

Im sure that 1) outsourcing 2) Move from Farming and manufacturing to services sector and 3) job loss as a result of the crissis adjusted the numbers.

http://www.cfr.org/pakistan/trade-outsourcing-jobs/p7749

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States

The United States is the world's largest manufacturer, with a 2007 industrial output of US$2.69 trillion. In 2008, its manufacturing output was greater than that of the manufacturing output of China, India, and Brazil combined, despite manufacturing being a very small portion of the entire US economy as compared to most other countries

 

http://facultysenate.unlv.edu/budget_memos/Public_Sector.pdf

More public sector workers are older, More public sector workers are more educated

 

Isnt this another GOP lie? @chrislhayes

URL:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050204...

 

 

More Americans work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, forestry, mining and utilities combined

9/11 Families Press 4 Truth @Mr_Electro

No hype, no unproven theorys, just the struggle of the 9/11 survivors to get reasonable answers from our government. It is touching, and at the same time shocking as actual film clips connect the dots in a way that our media should have, but didn't. Every citizen of the US should see this film. (I am sure many low votes are from "patriots" that haven't even seen this touching, thoughtful and at the same time provocative film).
370 out of 428 members found this review helpful

This film is a brilliant as it is shocking. There is absolutely NO speculation included that would damage the films credibility, it contains documented facts complete with verifiable sources that prove the government is hard at work trying to keep the facts of 9/11 hidden from the American public. Every American needs to see this movie, within in lies critical knowledge required to regain control of OUR Nation.

This movie is GOOD! The only reason it doesnt have 5 stars is because lying republicans give it one star. I dont think that Bush engineered the attacks, rather I think he lied to coverup his incompetency. There are lots news stories revealed here that shead a new light on what really happened.

Clipped from movies.netflix.com

9/11: Press for Truth

Based partly on Paul Thompson's book The Terror Timeline, this documentary chronicles the efforts of family members who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attack as they hound powerful officials to uncover the truth. The families succeed in generating an independent investigation, but more questions than answers emerge as the film spotlights secretive politicians, buried news items, government press conferences lacking substance and more. Read more at movies.netflix.com

 

Republicans' Lies @ Jobs @Mr_Electrico

Its about bloody time the left begins standing up to this BS that has been propagated by Laffer and the Reagan Admin.

Supply side economics did not trickle down, it defied gravity and floated up.

Clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com

The Republicans' Big Lies About Jobs (And Why Obama Must Repudiate Them)

"And if all others accepted the lie which the party imposed -- if all records told the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became the truth." ~ George Orwell, 1984 (published in 1949)

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was in town yesterday (specifically, at Stanford's Hoover Institute where he could surround himself with sympathetic Republicans) to tell this whopper: "Cutting the federal deficit will create jobs."

It's not true. Cutting the deficit will creates fewer jobs. Less government spending reduces overall demand. This is particularly worrisome when, as now, consumers and businesses are still holding back. Fewer government workers have paychecks to buy stuff from other Americans, some of whom in turn will lose their jobs without enough customers. Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com