Millions of women depend upon that funding in Title 10 which provides reproductive and preventative care. Since it is mainly low-income women who are the beneficiary of these funds, Republicans don't care. After all, low-income people are not their voting demographic. Nor have they ever done anything for women either.
The whole process is disingenuous. To get the $100 billion the Tea Party demands, it's obvious: all you have to do is stop these idiot wars in Afghanistan and Iraq where we spend billions per month. And now our heavy involvement in Libya is equally expensive - to the tune of $1 million per Tomahawk missile fired to enforce the No-Fly Zone.
Want more easy cuts? Try the $1 billion 'tax cuts' for the wealthy that President Obama gave away far too easily, especially when 70 percent of the entire country said they did not want the rich to get tax cuts. He foolishly did it anyway. And now, here we are months later, with all of Congress and the President looking stupid in this budget fight."
The Social Poets: America Is NOT Broke Wisconsin Speech: Activist Michael Moore: "Moore spoke at a rally against Gov. Walker's decision to deny collective bargaining rights to the teachers he has decided to fire. First the public workers lose their rights, then the rest of us across the country watch our wages drop like a rock to ten cents an hour like in a third world country."
From Denny: "Got Palin fatigue?" You have plenty of company, like 56 percent of the rest of America, according to a new CNN poll. How is Palin's unpopularity among women? It's gone up 10 points.
How does she poll among Independents? They sure don't like her either. That score has risen rapidly in the past few months a stunning 14 points to 59 percent against Palin. Independents tend to prefer civility and bipartisanship of which Palin does not subscribe.
Her unfavorable rating is up three points among men. Her overall unfavorable rating is up seven points since the last poll two weeks before the midterms.
Reasons for her upticked unfavorable rating
What has contributed to her increased negative rating in America? Palin handed her fellow Americans a long laundry list of reasons: her tone deaf attitude after the Tucson shooting when people cited her for placing bullseye targets on Democratic politicians and telling fellow GOP to "reload." People are most turned off by her reaction to her cross-hairs website she had up last year during the health care debate where she targeted Democrats, notably Rep. Gabrielle Giffords who was shot in Tucson two weeks ago.
She's hawked ghost-written books as if they were her own, stiffing her fans who waited for hours at book signings. Her reality TV is just TMI (Too Much Information - for our second language friends outside of the USA).
Then there's the constant family psycho-dramas that play out incessantly, giving fodder to the tabloids. Mindless tweeting on Twitter. She tweets without much consideration that millions of people read it - and maybe some things should not be said publicly - because of those persons who are not mentally stable enough to realize she was just being outrageous and obnoxious.
Obnoxious is the word to accurately describe Sarah Palin. She started out as this cute hockey mom with a love of family, children and her conservative values. Then she morphed into this greedy multi-media extravaganza whirlwind, picking up $100,000 fees just to "speak" at this conservative event or that. Her speeches often ramble and make little sense, sprinkled with "You betcha!" and "reload" and other catchy phrases, tossed out with a wink and a nod.
Palin is now this pushy annoying snake oil saleswoman constantly knocking on your door no matter how many times you yell through the door, "Go away!" Yet she continues to accost us without ever being invited into our living rooms. Gee, "do ya think?" she has overstayed her welcome in the public eye?
GOP worries about 2012 election
Most Republicans are getting nervous about her indecent exposure in the public eye. In fact, the GOP circles are now talking about how toxic she could be in any presidential race. Well, they created this monster it's up to them to solve the problem. Be careful what you wish for, GOP.
Of course, GOP hopefuls in the 2012 election are already circling like vultures over the Palin carcass. They see those unfavorable poll numbers over 50 percent and know it's virtually impossible to come back from that toxic level.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, known for his outrageous rhetoric of the "Don't do as I do, do as I say" hypocrisy - and several wives later - tells Palin to dial it back and be more careful about what she is saying. While that may be true consider the source. Gingrich, a former history professor, also has compared himself to Emperor Napoleon. Strange but true. I told you that politics should be classified as a sport.
These GOP wannabees know they cannot directly attack Palin because of her weirdly loyal followers. Talk about strange. When she gets criticized her followers actually believe she is more right. Other Republicans who have tried to sideline her were demonized savagely. The new guys vying for the GOP nomination in 2012 are treading lightly for the moment. Even the GOP is getting the message to quit going so negative as evidenced by the Palin example. What the entire GOP is hoping is that Palin will tweet herself right out of existence. Now there's some bipartisanship to which maybe we all can agree.
On a more positive note: Today is the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address. This president was one of our most inspiring among us. That day he called for national service and civility. He believed in a dedication to human rights. He wanted our country to make a commitment to arms control. "Eloquent" is the one word to describe President Kennedy for he defined the aspirations of a generation of Americans.
We prefer our leaders inspire us to show us the way to what we are capable of becoming. President Obama was elected with this kind of Kennedy speech-making. He should not allow the toxic atmosphere of those who would tear down this country to deter him from following his original course he set in the 2008 election. President Obama has been feeling his way through this tough times presidency, with many a misstep - and wrong alliances - with coddling Big Business over meeting the needs of the middle class.
He still has a small amount of time to recapture American confidence as a positive and inspiring leader for there is no guarantee that his GOP opposition will be so obviously easy to beat like a Palin. At this snapshot in time, two years out, President Obama is six points higher than GOP Mitt Romney, the only real contender among the Republicans. That isn't enough of a gap to produce favorable results for a reelection and is too close to call.
**** The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted Jan. 14-16, with 1,014 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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From Denny: Talk about bizarre political theater. Today the Republicans took over for their first day as Majority Party in the House. What did they do? They wasted your tax dollars and mine by spending the day reading aloud the Constitution. Can you believe it? We taxpayers give them free health care for which they begrudge the rest of us. We taxpayers give them an outrageous $168,000 a year salary for a part-time job. They have the nerve to waste our money, our time - and insult our intelligence - by reading the Constitution aloud like a bunch of fourth graders in a bad readers reading class.
Then The Birthers crowd - all 12 GOP strong - sounds off with complaints about President Obama not having the constitutional right to be President because he was born in Hawaii, a state that belongs to America. What a bunch of Bozo Sapiens.
To top off the day? They took a vote. Oh, the "by the way" on that one is that the vote did not count. The Republicans didn't realize how clueless they were about that vote. Why? Because at least two members were not yet sworn in to the capacity of being able to vote as actual members of the House.
Who were the most clueless GOP Bozos? Reps. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) They missed the official swearing-in ceremony yesterday. Turns out Sessions had chaired the Rules committee on repealing the health care reform bill. How rich. Yet the guy was not even sworn in as a member of Congress. Clueless. Still not sworn in these two clueless guys had voted on congressional budget cuts.
From DCCC spokeswoman Jennifer Crider: “When Congressmen-elect Pete Sessions and Mike Fitzpatrick participated in reading parts of the U.S. Constitution on the House floor, Speaker Boehner should have given them Article 6, which requires members of Congress to be sworn in. Jokes aside,
"Congressmen-elect Pete Sessions and Mike Fitzpatrick’s actions raise serious questions: What in the world was more important to Congressmen-elect Pete Sessions and Mike Fitzpatrick than taking the oath of office, committing to support and defend the U.S. Constitution?
"Why did Speaker Boehner and House Republican leadership allow two people who were not sworn members of Congress to vote and speak on the House floor? Republicans have spent a lot of time over the past two days proselytizing about House rules, but they don’t seem very keen on actually following the rules.”
So, new GOP Speaker Boehner and crowd were busy trying to weasel their way out of this screw-up. They went whining to Minority Speaker Pelosi wanting Mommy to make things all right for them by counting the illegal votes as if they were legal. Sound familiar? It's formally called a unanimous consent request so they could count the illegal votes retroactively. Basically, this violates the constitution - unless the entire House agrees to it. Didn't these Bozos just spend hours reading aloud the constitution? They complain the Democrats don't know the constitution. Someone should tell the GOP they are the ones who are completely clueless about the very job the equally clueless voters are who sent them to Washington.
Funny Christmas Cartoons - Check out the irreverent cartoonist offerings for the holiday season.
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From Denny: We all have heavy hearts as we watched the coal mining disaster in West Virginia unfold this week. I haven't commented any about this news story as I had a bad feeling all the miners were dead. When families are grieving they need to hold onto hope as they process what they already know to be true. Like so much of America I've been praying for the families of the miners as they travel through this sad journey.
The harshest fact is this disaster should never have happened. The owners and managers of that mine were fined constantly for not ventilating the mine properly. That's mining 101 in any one's book. It's bad karma when business people exhibit this depraved indifference toward others. This is another sad example as to why we must place restraints upon unrestricted free trade and rash business practices. Safety should be the utmost priority for workers.
Moving along to political disasters there is the much touted Tea Party, comprised of loud screamers and unhooded racists. There is a nasty violence growing among these loosely formed - and increasingly trending as - domestic political terrorists. Too many of their leaders have advocated violence against America's lawmakers and President. Too many of the wing nut followers have taken up the call and phoned in and faxed death threats to the President and the lawmakers, primarily Democrats.
There is just something inherently so terribly un-American about Americans calling on other Americans to turn on each other like a pack of rabid dogs. There was a time when this country used to stand for something and we stood together - in spite of our political differences. The toxic atmosphere by this generation's version of Republicans and vicious talk show hosts has turned America into a virtual wasteland where neighbors don't trust each other any more or care for one another like they once did. How long before America comes to its senses to realize how much the worst and darkest parts of themselves have been manipulated into doing the bidding of vicious people?
Adding more insult to America is the Virginia governor who was pandering to his Republican Party racists and promoted the month of April as Confederate Month. The Civil War was the ugliest war in America's history where brother literally fought against brother - and not always for the reasons listed by history books. Many families fought on both sides of the war. For some in the South who were wealthy it really was about fighting against abolishing slavery. They knew if slavery was abolished they would go bankrupt as slavery was the cheapest labor on the market. Depraved but true.
Most in the South, especially those who were not wealthy, fought for state's rights over a centralized federal government which frightened many. You have to remember, in another time, Big Business and Congress charged the first impeachment process toward President Andrew Johnson over the fact he was serious about turning America to a centralized banking system.
Immature people hate and fear change. They want what they already know over an uncertain future even when all turns out well in the end. Which brings us to the Tea Party folks who dread change like temper tantrum throwing toddlers whose whole world is self-centered interest. They don't want change even when it will benefit them. I guess these are the control freaks in America who don't like their authority taken away. They did such a lousy job of leadership they did not deserve to continue in power because they caused so much misery to millions of fellow Americans on so many levels.
Speaking of abuse, the Catholic Church has yet to accept accountability at the heart of the Vatican. The corruption is so rampant the Church is already fractured and breaking up on a spiritual level. It's time to decentralize this Church of one billion members into country or continental groups where it is more manageable to keep track of and discipline unacceptable clergy. No one should have the right to prey upon little children. It's despicable. It's even more despicable to enable these guys to continue, not standing up for the vulnerable in society and doing right by them. To be excommunicated by a corrupt clergy means nothing to the real God. If you are right with God then He is right with you. No church can exercise otherwise.
To prevent this sexual abuse in the future it's time the federal governments - where especially America should take the lead and - should start taxing the church environment. Exempting churches from taxes has been a wrong social experiment that requires correction. The church environment, no matter the religion or the denomination or sect, has been an environment ripe for corruption. It is easy to hide wrong-doing like Muslim terrorists, easy to develop an unhealthy cult like the bizarre Waco crowd, and easy to encourage sexual predators in a group that is above the touch of the law - like the recent Protestant and Catholic situations.
On a lighter note, cartoonists had great fun lampooning the new iPad roll out in technology. Steve Jobs was compared often to God and his followers as mindless sheep addicted to the newest technology.
More fun was poked at the IRS season with all kinds of good humor and hand-wringing by the average taxpayer. Well, at least we are rid of King George Bush's excessive taxation "fun." That's one piece of good news. I figure if we all howl loud enough, and vote often, over the next few years we can fine tune our current government's efforts into something good for all. We must continue to press hard against the wealthiest interests as the lobbyists have not left our lawmaker's sides as the thorns in the side of the American public.
Racist American Militia Groups Rising in conjunction with the Tea Party. Makes you wonder how many of them have dual-"citizenship" in those two groups:
Tiger Woods - who still doesn't "get it" - again. He actually had the nerve today to compare his comeback with that of golfer Hogue. Hogue was in a terrible car accident where he was told he would never walk again. He was a hero. He had thrown his body over his wife, and, in so doing, saved her life. He eventually learned to walk again and returned to golf. Somehow, Tiger Woods is living in a fantasy in his head if he thinks he can even remotely compare himself to this man of good character and heroics. Woods must be an undiagnosed narcissist and that condition is very difficult to treat:
*** For more of the "Irritating IRS" cartoons that were not available for embedding and so very funny, go here.
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GOP Cantor, left, GOP Speaker Boehner, right - Image by TalkMediaNews via Flickr
