Beyond The Choir:: Same Old: How the Right Harnesses White Fear (& Religious Fear) for Plutocratic Ends

Beyond The Choir:: Same Old: How the Right Harnesses White Fear (& Religious Fear) for Plutocratic Ends: "And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek "deeply religious" elected officials, approve of religious leaders' engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party's generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government."

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With the death penalty, ‘probably’ isn’t good enough - The Washington Post

With the death penalty, ‘probably’ isn’t good enough - The Washington Post: "The death penalty is a barbaric anachronism, a crude instrument not of justice but of revenge. Most countries banished it long ago. This country should banish it now.

The state of Georgia was wrong to execute convicted murderer Troy Anthony Davis as protesters and journalists kept a ghoulish vigil Wednesday night — just as the state of Texas was wrong, hours earlier, to execute racist killer Lawrence Russell Brewer."

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Joe Walsh Running In Illinois' 14th District: Could Face Fellow Republican Randy Hultgren

Joe Walsh Running In Illinois' 14th District: Could Face Fellow Republican Randy Hultgren: "Joe Walsh Among Congress's 'Most Corrupt' Members In New Report
U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) on Tuesday received the distinction of being named among Congress's thirteen "most corrupt" representatives by the group Citizens For Responsibility...
"

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Michele Bachmann Can't Win, HuffPost-Patch GOP Power Outsiders Say

Michele Bachmann Can't Win, HuffPost-Patch GOP Power Outsiders Say: "Alaska: Miller (R) vs McAdams (D) vs Murkowski (I)
California: Fiorina (R) vs Boxer (D)
Colorado: Buck (R) vs Bennet (D)
Delaware: O'Donnell (R) vs Coons (D)
Florida: Rubio (R) vs Meek (D) vs Crist (I)
Illinois: Kirk (R) vs Giannoulias (D)
Missouri: Blunt (R) vs Carnahan (D)
Nevada: Angle (R) vs Reid (D)
New Hampshire: Ayotte (R) vs Hodes (D)
Ohio: Portman (R) vs Fisher (D)
Pennsylvania: Toomey (R) vs Sestak (D)
Washington: Rossi (R) vs Murray (D)
West Virginia: Raese (R) vs Manchin (D)
Wisconsin: Johnson (R) vs Feingold (D)
"

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Republicans Decrying 'Job Killing' Green Energy Agenda Have Sought Green Jobs For Their Own Districts

Republicans Decrying 'Job Killing' Green Energy Agenda Have Sought Green Jobs For Their Own Districts: "
Someone needs to launch an investigat­ion on Darrell Issa.

Darrell Issa

~~ His net worth has been estimated at more than $251 million, making him the "richest member of Congress."

~~ Issa left the Army nearly two years early after being stripped of his duties as a b_0mb specialist­. A retired Army sergeant claimed that Issa st0|e a Dodge sedan from an Army post near Pittsburgh in 1971.

~~ In 1972, Issa and his brother allegedly st0|e a red Maserati sports car from a car dealership in Cleveland. He and his brother were indicted for car theft.

~~ That same year, Issa was c0nv!cted in Michigan for p0ssess!0n of an unregister­ed g_un. He received three months pr0bation and paid a $204 fine.

~~ On December 28, 1979, Issa and his brother allegedly f_aked the theft of Issa's Mercedes Benz sedan.

~~ Issa made his fortune through his company, Directed Electronic­s Incorporat­ed.

..........­....... and many more.
"

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Troy Davis Execution: Martina Correria Gets Out Of Wheelchair To 'Stand For My Brother' (VIDEO)

Troy Davis Execution: Martina Correria Gets Out Of Wheelchair To 'Stand For My Brother' (VIDEO): "The State of Georgia should be held to the same standards that it's citizens are held to, i.e.; they should not be able to legally murder someone. It is a sorry day when I must hold in utter contempt the Government of my own State, but this man found neither justice nor mercy at the hands of those who should have protected his right to a fair trial and hearing."

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Marc Lewis: One of the great failings in our criminal justice system

Marc Lewis: One of the great failings in our criminal justice system: "“One of the great failings in our criminal justice system is how 'the burden of proof' is applied. GA v. Davis is a perfect example. It must be obvious that there was a great deal of misconduct on the side of the prosecutio­n. Nonetheles­s, having been found guilty, it is Davis who must now prove his innocence and Davis is being held to a higher burden of proof as to his innocence, than the DA was held to in proving his guilt. This is not just true in this case but in most cases. A person who has been convicted must produce many times more evidence of innocence than the Prosecutio­n had had to produce to find them guilty. Include with this fact that the State can spend any part of its large budget it wants to find you guilty but you have only your Public Defender who gets as low as $62 a day to defend you.”"

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Bianca Jagger: A Day of Shame for the State of Georgia and the Justice System

Bianca Jagger: A Day of Shame for the State of Georgia and the Justice System: "In all legal actions in the USA our judicial system is not measuring up. If you are poor you do not get justice in our system unless by sheer chance. One must 'buy' justice in the courts of the United States. If you are Black or Hispanic it costs you more to 'buy' it than if you were White. Public Defenders Offices are under funded compared to the amount of resource the District Attorneys Office has at it's disposal and few Public Defenders are interested in irritating the Trial Judge by actually putting up a meaningful defense. In Civil Courts the poor can only prevail if they have a case which will generate enough money for an attorney to take it on 'spec' (for a percentage of the award). Many of us Georgians are not only aware of this but are trying to change it, for all the States not just Georgia. We can't begin to make a start here, or anywhere else, till we rid ourselves of our hypocritic­al office holders who spout the Constituti­on out of one side of their mouths and Christiani­ty out the other without caring one bit about either."

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Troy Davis Denied Clemency By Georgia Pardons Board

Troy Davis Denied Clemency By Georgia Pardons Board: "ATLANTA — Yet another appeal denied, Troy Davis was left with little to do Tuesday but wait to be executed for a murder he insists he did not commit.

He lost his most realistic chance to avoid lethal injection on Tuesday, when Georgia's pardons board rejected his appeal for clemency. As his scheduled 7 p.m. Wednesday execution neared, his backers resorted to far-fetched measures. They asked prisons officials to let him to take a polygraph test; urged prison workers to strike or call in sick; asked prosecutors to block the execution and they even considered a desperate appeal for White House intervention.

He has gotten support from hundreds of thousands of people, including a former FBI director, former President Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI, and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling gave him an unusual opportunity to prove his innocence last year. State and federal courts, however, repeatedly upheld his conviction for the 1989 killing of Mark MacPhail, an off-duty police officer who was working as a security guard in Savannah when he was shot dead rushing to help a homeless man who was being attacked."

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Democrats Hit Back On 'Class Warfare' Claims, Call Out GOP For Cutting Aid To Women And Children

Democrats Hit Back On 'Class Warfare' Claims, Call Out GOP For Cutting Aid To Women And Children: "-- Interagency Council on Homelessness: The GOP zeroed out this agency in their proposed FY12 Transportation, HUD Appropriations Bill. The USICH enhances the Federal Government’s response to homelessness by enhancing coordination between agencies, addressing duplicative programs, and identifying best-practices.
-- Head Start: The cut of $1.1 billion (14%) below the FY10 level and more than $500 million below FY2008, would have translated to a massive loss of comprehensive early childhood services, with more than 200,000 children across the country being kicked out of the program and put 55,000 Head Start teachers out of work and into unemployment lines. Additionally, this funding level would have meant cuts to research grants, training and technical assistance grants and monitoring activities.
-- Help for the Poor and Elderly: Community Services Block Grants were cut by $305 million below the FY10 level. The Administration on Aging was cut by $71 million which would have reduced senior center and Meals on Wheels services to the elderly."

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Koch-Funded Congressional Civil Justice Caucus Academy Gives Congress Big Freebies

Koch-Funded Congressional Civil Justice Caucus Academy Gives Congress Big Freebies: "According to an invitation and an agenda obtained by The Huffington Post for the October retreat, participants will be "educated" on "civil justice issues" by three different experts, all of whom belong to the same controversial "Law and Economics" movement in the legal community. The movement's speakers favor the use of economic principles to make legal decisions, with a high value placed on the most efficient solution. As such, Law and Economics tends to favor corporations over individuals where lawsuits and punitive damages are concerned, making it especially popular among industries with high litigation rates and plaintiff class actions, such as pharmaceuticals and consumer goods. These same industries are the ones that fund the academy's work: In addition to the corporations above, the Law and Economics Center has received donations from Verizon, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Google, State Farm, Pfizer, Conoco Phillips, Boeing, AT&T and 3M -- every one of which has been the target of at least one class action lawsuit since 2009."

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Koch-Funded Congressional Civil Justice Caucus Academy Gives Congress Big Freebies

Koch-Funded Congressional Civil Justice Caucus Academy Gives Congress Big Freebies: "ARLINGTON, Va. -- A recently-formed judicial "academy" funded by industry groups and conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch is offering members of Congress and their staff free meals and trips in order to "educate" the lawmakers on controversial pro-business reforms.

The group is the Congressional Civil Justice Caucus Academy (CCJCA), launched earlier this year by the Law and Economics Center (LEC) at George Mason University's School of Law. Despite being part of the university, the right-leaning LEC depends entirely on specially-designated donations which come from a core group of about 50 corporations and foundations, including The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, Merck, Exxon, Eli Lilly, Altria, Wal-Mart, and the conservative Bradley Foundation."

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The "Hard-Working" Rich | Republicans for Obama

The "Hard-Working" Rich | Republicans for Obama: "The "Hard-Working" Rich
By Suzi LeVeaux - Posted on 20 August 2011

For those who are so quick to loudly defend the wealthy, preferring to call them "the successful" while not even offering a whisper for the plight of the poor:

All wealth in America comes from two sources: Lifetime earnings and savings, and inheritance. Larry Summers and Laurence Kotlikoff analyzed these two sources of wealth and figured out the percentages that came from each.

Only 19 percent came from earnings and savings. The rest- 81 percent- comes from inheritance. Their conclusion: "The pure life-cycle component of aggregate U.S. savings is very small. American capital accumulation results primarily from intergenerational transfers."

In other words, the VAST majority of the wealthy in this country are wealthy because they INHERITED their wealth. The vast majority of the wealthy in America haven't "earned" their "success" by hard work. They've inherited it. That doesn't make them successful. It makes them LUCKY.

"

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Georgia Works: Obama Plan To Let Jobless Work For Free Gets Key Backing From Paul Ryan

Georgia Works: Obama Plan To Let Jobless Work For Free Gets Key Backing From Paul Ryan: "The Georgia Department of Labor has said that within three months of participating in a voluntary job training program, nearly two-thirds of trainees found work. The program has been copied by other states, and the White House has indicated it is considering something similar as part of a forthcoming jobs package.
But the 60 percent of workers who participated in the Georgia program and supposedly found steady work may not have done so. The statistic means only that at some point within 90 days after a person completed the training, the person's Social Security number popped up in state payroll data. It doesn't mean the trainee had a job at the 90-day mark; it could even mean that a person worked just one day during those three months."

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Marc Lewis on HuffingtonPost

Marc Lewis on HuffingtonPost: "Pat Robertson: Alzheimer's Justifies Divorce
Commented Sep 15, 2011 at 09:24:03 in Divorce
“Why do people keep equating these televangel­ists with Religion? They have no more to do with Religion than a Snake Oil huckster at a Medicine Show has to do with a Brain Surgeon.”"

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Marc Lewis on HuffingtonPost

Marc Lewis on HuffingtonPost: "Commented Sep 15, 2011 at 19:30:14 in Politics
“I was reading a 'load of crap' report somewhere saying that unemployme­nt payments caused people to not look for work, Now having been there quite a few times in my 47 yrs. of working, I know that's Crap. But, how about if you apply the concept to tax breaks and Corporatio­ns? Now there. It does seem to correlate. The more money they get from tax breaks, the less willing they seem to be to hire more people.”"

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Marc Lewis on HuffingtonPost

Marc Lewis on HuffingtonPost: "Commented Sep 16, 2011 at 11:52:46 in Politics
“Tea Bagger Motto: " Compromise in the face of economic collapse is no virtue! Lunacy in the forwarding of your own agenda is no vice!" (w/ apologies to B. Goldwater Sr. (R), AZ.).”"

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Marc Lewis on HuffingtonPost

Marc Lewis on HuffingtonPost: "Commented Sep 16, 2011 at 13:39:07 in Business
“Everyone is far too focused on Obama. In the end, whether he gets re-elected or not it is going to be necessary to seat a Democratic Congress next election, or nothing will be accomplish­ed. I'm not shocked voters think the GOP has a better handle on the economic issues than Obama. I don't agree, naturally, but when you have many GOP plans to pick from and only one Demo. plan, your pro-GOP voters are spreading out among-st the many different solutions and the Demos have only one that all must rally to (that it is the best does not matter). When the GOP finally comes to a point where they too have one plan they adhere to, the polls will change significan­tly, with the people who don't like either plan taking one side or the other. But to realize the Democratic plan we have to focus on unseating the Republican­s who control the House. With a large enough majority (which I do not believe we can achieve) we could even survive a GOP Pres.in the White House. We need to organize and fight State by State to shift the power in Washington to our side of the aisle.”"

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Class War

The Right Wing-Nuts are howling that the Demos. are engaged in Class Warfare. Reminds me of Hitler saying Poland attacked Germany. The're damn right there is a Class War going on. They should know, they started it. They have attacked the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively, in the State Houses they control. They have attacked the franchise of voters who do not fit their demographic by changing voter registration to make it more difficult for those who usually don't vote their way. They have suborned the voting process by rigging elections (in Ohio electronically, in Fla. physically and through graft). They have done it by changing the way campaigns are funded (corporations are people too), with the help of their flunkeys  on the Supreme Court, to be able to financially overwhelm their opponents with their corporate masters to foot the bill.  They have screamed that we have to close our borders but what they really mean is 'No Mexicans allowed'. I've lived many years in San Francisco which is full of illegal immigrants! Most of them from the British Isles and Canada, as they come in through Canada, get some work, kick around a few years, go back to Ireland, England, of Scotland, then, after awhile, come back to the States. I don't see the Republicans howling for a fence along the Canadian border!  The attack they have launched on Social Security is based on the idea that 'these people' are stealing from you, when it is ,in fact, the Republicans themselves (along with quite a few Democratic Administrations) who have looted the SS Fund like it was the Congressional Piggy Bank and SS recipients only want the money they have put into the fund, all their working lives, back. The Left is standing their ground (like a pole-axed Ox) instead of going on the attack and I mean in every State, over every Election (don't care if it's for dogcatcher, if he's a Repub. fight him to the death) and forget the Presidential Election. That is not where the issue will be decided. It will be decided in the House and the Senate, for if we cannot regain control over Congress it wont mater if Obama wins. He will still have his hands tied by Congress and we will have another four years of obstructionism and no meaningful legislation.