If True, the Democratic Party is Dead

and this country is fucked:

As of today, after many weeks of progressive lobbying and pleading and petitioning nationwide, 47 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have refused to sign the letter, initiated by Congressmen Alan Grayson and Mark Takano, pledging to “vote against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits -- including raising the retirement age or cutting the cost of living adjustments that our constituents earned and need.”

After all this time, refusal to sign the Grayson-Takano letter is a big tipoff that those 47 House members are keeping their options open. (To see that list of 47, click here.) They want wiggle room for budget votes on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits. Most of them represent a left-leaning district, and some could be toppled by grassroots progressive campaigns.

This is all about kissing the ass of the fraud in the White House.

Obama never should have gotten the Democratic Party nomination in the first place, as he was so obviously a right-wing puppet serving his right-wing masters.

Our Worthless Congress

Can the Senate and Obama be trusted to do the right thing?

The US House of Representatives has adopted a budget resolution that calls for privatization of Medicare and the elimination of Medicaid, food stamps and many other federal entitlement benefits. The resolution is part of a bipartisan campaign to slash spending on social programs.

All but ten of the Republican majority in the House backed the resolution—and those ten wanted even bigger cuts. All Democrats voted against the resolution, while offering their own proposals that called for somewhat less drastic cuts in spending and token tax increases on the wealthy.

Not a single resolution was offered that called for increasing spending to meet social needs as the American economy staggers through a fifth year of economic slump and mass unemployment.

The "people's body" is out to destroy the American working and middle classes, not to mention kill the poor and elderly.

This moron Ryan is too young and too intoxicated with Ayn Rand nonsense to remember the reason those programs were put in: It's because the private sector wouldn't do it.

News, Etc.

Modifications were made on the plane which crashed at the Reno National Championship Air Races, which have now killed ten people.

So far five of the victims' names, including the pilot's, have been released.
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Obama, unmasked by all but the stupidest as nothing more than stealth Republican, tries his damnedest to get even more neoliberal hogwash passed in Congress.
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Obituary: Singer Dolores Hope, 102, died this morning. She had been in good health until recent months.

She was an accomplished singer when she had met comedian Bob Hope. They were married February 19, 1934, and stayed together until his death at 100 in 2003. She revived her singing career when she was in her late 80s.

It's quite unusual to find married couples where both of them reached the century mark.

link
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If you're desperate for work, there is always Amazon.com to work for--if you can survive the oppresive working conditions:

Workers said they were forced to endure brutal heat inside the sprawling warehouse and were pushed to work at a pace many could not sustain. Employees were frequently reprimanded regarding their productivity and threatened with termination, workers said. The consequences of not meeting work expectations were regularly on display, as employees lost their jobs and got escorted out of the warehouse. Such sights encouraged some workers to conceal pain and push through injury lest they get fired as well, workers said.

During summer heat waves, Amazon arranged to have paramedics parked in ambulances outside, ready to treat any workers who dehydrated or suffered other forms of heat stress. Those who couldn't quickly cool off and return to work were sent home or taken out in stretchers and wheelchairs and transported to area hospitals. And new applicants were ready to begin work at any time.

An emergency room doctor in June called federal regulators to report an "unsafe environment" after he treated several Amazon warehouse workers for heat-related problems. The doctor's report was echoed by warehouse workers who also complained to regulators, including a security guard who reported seeing pregnant employees suffering in the heat.

Etc.

When it comes to the social safety net, there is not a dime's worth of difference between the two national political parties anymore.
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Playing politics: If Democrats were really serious about raising tax rates on the rich, they'd have done it when they had control over both houses of Congress.

All they are doing with this is gearing up for 2012.
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A man reviled by researchers for peddling unproven causes of autism now has his theories getting a second look.
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Meanwhile, States Continue to Slash Medicaid

for the poor. Of course, Medicaid isn't what it is all cracked up to be, for it is the "right" of having health care in exchange for having liens placed on your property or future property.

The only way I would ever go on it is if I were in a nursing home and all of my possessions were sold. Otherwise, forget it.

So-Called Health Care Reform

Instead of reversing thirty years of tax policy, let's just cut more medical care for the elderly and poor.