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The Senator from Kentucky blocked extended federal unemployment benefits and Cobra health coverage for the down and out and jobless Americans. Both expired today for millions.
No one in the Senate could reason with the man who is obviously hell bent on a crusade to further punish the struggling and out of work families in his district and across the U.S. Senator Bunning does not care about people in Kentucky. Nor does he care about anyone other than his vile, mean-spirited and narcissistic self.
There is no reason for Senator Bunning to have done this other than spite and pure cold hearted vindictiveness. He is not running for a third term. He chose to retire but he obviously has every intention of heaping as much hell and misery upon the American people as possible until November.
It takes a Texas Republican to go as low as Bunning.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) took the floor after Reid to stick up for Bunning. He noted that there is broad bipartisan support for extending benefits, but said Bunning was right to take a stand against adding $10 billion to the deficit. He also pointed out that the jobs bill that Reid scrapped two weeks ago, crafted by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), contained an extension of UI and COBRA.
Can someone please tell me why Republicans continue to vote for politicians who so nakedly hate them?
(This is so much more polite than I was feeling when I read about McCain's comment. Thank you, Pollchecker for crossposting from the Great Orange Satan... - promoted by boadicea)
At today's health care summit, Senator McCain used Texas as an example of HCR. Bad example John.
Yesterday I had emailed Senators Cornyn and Hutchison in a hopeless attempt to prevail upon them to work with President Obama on passing health care reform. I knew that my plea was very likely a useless exercise in both the hopeless and the impossible.
At the very least, I thought, the horrible statistics I presented would perhaps grab the attention of one of their staff members.
Surely, I thought, both U.S. Senators would put aside their partisan differences, at least for a few hours, in order to serve the needs of those who elected them to office.
23 million folks will lose their insurance this year, 930,000 will file bankruptcy and 45,000 more people will die.
As we know Texas has the highest number of uninsured resident. Folks can learn about the appalling state of our health care system here and here.
Below is Senator Hutchison's response.
Hint: My efforts were a miserable failure. I did not get through. Senator Hutchison, it seems, has received $619,450 from the insurance industry and she is obviously working overtime to protect it.
None of the above statistics had any impact on her whatsoever. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison could care less about the plight of hard working Texans.
Texans are particularly aware of the need for health care reform, but it cannot come with a trillion dollar price tag and a government takeover of our health care system. Our state has over 6 million uninsured residents, the highest percentage of uninsured in the nation. This number poses a huge challenge for our hospitals, taxpayers, and many working individuals and families who cannot afford the health care coverage they need.
Lie 1: Several months ago, Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC challenged Senator Hutchison's assertions that the current proposals for HCR are a government takeover of health care. HCR is not a government takeover of the insurance industry. Mitchell is correct, Hutchison lied.
As far as 6 million uninsured residents in Texas are concerned, all have been posing problems 24/7/365 for doctors, hospitals and taxpayers. Senator Hutchison has been in the U.S. Senate since 1993. If she was so concerned about affordable insurance for Texans she would have done something about it by now.
Last week in Austin, an untreated mentally ill man with serious federal tax problems flew his plane into an IRS building. The suicide bomber, Joe Stack was a software engineer who owned a home and a pricey private plane. Instead of making reasonable efforts to work with the IRS to pay his tax burden, Mr. Stack chose the irrational and pathological path to violence. He killed a federal employee, Mr. Vernon Hunter and himself. Thirteen other federal employees were injured.
The long, rambling rant posted on a website eerily reflected the angry populist sentiments that have swept the country in the past year. In it, a Joe Stack inveighed against intrusive Big Brother government, corrupt corporate giants, irrational taxes, as well as the "puppet" George Bush. "I choose not to pretend that business as usual won't continue," he wrote. "I have just had enough. I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt." And then Stack apparently got in a Piper Cherokee PA-28 at about 9:40 a.m. at an airport in suburban Austin, Texas, and flew the plane into a commercial building housing an IRS office, killing himself, seriously injuring two people on the ground and starting a conflagration that lasted several hours.
The Texas Progressive Alliance reminds you that early voting runs through this Friday at 7 PM for the primaries as it brings you this week's blog highlights.
BossKitty at TruthHugger is amazed that anger is directed toward the Internal Revenue Service when Americans elect the very people who make the laws IRS enforces. Joe Stack targeted the wrong end of this chain. Taxpayers get end up owing money because they do not understand the laws their representatives make. Tax and Defiance - Short Sighted Protester, Joe Stack.
Governor, lately you've been pitching, twitching and puffing a lot of hot air about secession.
Texas is a real unique place all right and the Governor is a major contributor to its uniqueness.
Come on Governor, put your money where your mouth is. Just do it. Leave already. You can take all of your worshipers, i.e. secessionists, teabaggers, Birchers, birthers, racists and xenophobes with you.
Hit the road dude.
Leave, dude. Voters are the meanest old women you will have ever seen. You won't be packing any of our money with you when you leave, either.
But you can, Sir, help yourself to all of the creationism, witchcraft and voodoo science text books that you and your supporters put in our schools in yet another endless crusade of right wing conservative efforts to dumb down the children of Texas.
I'm sure you all will find a cozy place to establish a new Republic, Governor. Hell, Sir, you could name your new territory the New Republic of Teabagistan, Secessistan or Birchistan in honor of your strongest supporters. Below is a little reminder to help you sort out the guiding principles of your new Republic.
This would be a perfect time for you to leave Governor. After all, Bill White, Houston's former and very popular mayor raised $2.2 million last month. So far he has over $9 mil in his war chest.
Of course we evil doing liberals know for absolute certain that Republicans would never, ever, hell would have to freeze over,crack down on a scam that rips off people but is good for business.
Houston's conservative readers in Houston did not want to know about the totally screwed temporary but really permanent employees as reported by Rick Casey. With all due respect to Casey, he is not exactly a flaming liberal pinko communist progressive.
Houston area conservatives tore into Casey because they did not like his article.
In response to a comment I had posted on Mr. Casey's online article, a conservative responded with the following.
....as far as jobs and benefits, the unemployment rate has increased dramatically since the Demos took charge of both houses of Congress and Presidency. this is because evil white old white guys, the Chinese who hold our debt and many others are scared of the Demos reckless spending that will soon bankrupt the country.
Hint: This dude watches FOX and listens to Rush.
I wonder where this guy was when then Vice President Dick Cheney said deficits didn't matter and he and Bush stuck an unnecessary war and tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans at the same time, putting all on our national credit card? All of a sudden Republicans are all but hysterical over the deficit. And yet when the Senate introduced a bill proposing a deficit reduction commission 7 Republicans who supported it voted NO when the President said it was a good idea. Talk about political bi-polar disorderly dysfunction syndrome. What is wrong with them?
The truth of the matter is, Democrats are really good at cleaning up Republican made messes. We know what it takes to rebuild a devastated economy and we know how to catch terrorist leaders. The Obama Administration has caught more Taliban terrorist leaders, by the way, in one month than the Bush Administration caught in 6 years. And U.S. troops seized a Taliban headquarters in Afghanistan today. Poor Dick Cheney must have fainted when he learned about this. He is running out of stones to throw at President Obama. So much for Democrats being weak on national security.
The anti-choice protest 40 Days for Life began yesterday, and for the next forty days clients of Planned Parenthood will be subjected to harassment from protesters. The protest, which takes place during the forty days of Lent and forty days in the fall, focuses on reproductive health care facilities and specifically on Planned Parenthood. This protest has been happening for several years and each year they have expanded the protest to more locations around the country. However, locally the protest has received less media coverage and the amount of protesters who have continued the vigil throughout the protest has also diminished. But, something is different this time.
What makes this 40 Days for Life different is that it is the first protest since the former director of Planned Parenthood Abby Johnson resigned, and joined the organizer of the protest the Coalition for Life. When Johnson first resigned I was among the first to question the validity of the claims that she made against Planned Parenthood. Recently investigations by Texas Monthly, and the Texas Observer also raised questions about the legitimacy her conversion. Fellow KEOS radio show host and blogger, Shelly Blair, was interview for both of those stories, and appeared on Biased Transmission last night and gave more insight into those events.
That is the only thing that is different this time. Nothing has changed about the message of the protesters, and none of the information given to clients has become more factual. Nothing has change the fact that women need access to reproductive health care, and the protesters continue to harass and impede women's ability to access reproductive health care while having their privacy protected. Nothing has changed the dedication of the employees of Planned Parenthood, and the volunteers who escort patients into the facility. Nothing has changed except that there is a new face on the other side of the fence.
The Internal Revenue Service has offices in the building, including its civil enforcement and criminal investigations divisions, said Special Agent Michael Lemoine, a spokesman for the criminal investigations division.
He said that some IRS offices are on the first floor, which Lemoine said was hit by the plane.
He said that the criminal investigations division personnel are safe and accounted for. He did not have information on the civil division workers, who conduct audits and other activity at the offices
web0219crash.jpg
According to an FBI agent who asked not to be identified because he isn't authorized to release information, the incident is being investigated as an accident, although eyewitnesses said the plane seemed to come in at full throttle. He said the plane was out of Waco and that Federal Aviation Administration officials are en route to the scene.
I used to live and work not a half mile from this site. Keep a good thought and if you can spare a prayer, that won't go amiss either.
Republican lawmakers seem to suffer from a serious case of bi-polar disorder. The Party of No (because they vote NO on every bill in the U.S. Congress that would throw a life line to we the little people) suddenly say YES when major $$$$$$$$$ federal bucks will flow to their districts.
Bringing big bucks to Republican districts pleases both voters and the politician's fat cat donors. Republican lawmakers somehow believe they can vote NO in Washington but take credit for YES results that come from the evil doing Democrats in the U.S. Congress.
I guess Republican lawmakers assume their constituents are both stupid and uninformed.
We have a fresh load of Republican award winning hypocrites who join Senators Hutchison and Cornyn in the GOP Hall of Hypocritical Shame.
All voted against the recovery act but all behave as if they personally delivered stimulus money to their home districts.
• Representative Pete Sessions (TX-32) - Representative Pete Sessions showed his hypocrisy after asking the Obama Administration for three billion in funds for NASA from the economic recovery act, which he voted against. Members of the Texas delegation signed the letter, including two Republican Senators and 19 House Republicans who all voted against the recovery act in February. [Texas delegation wants stimulus money for NASA, Houston Chronicle, 10/5/09]
• Representative Michael McCaul (TX-10) - "I didn't support final passage but at the same time I wanted to make sure if we are spending that kind of money that much of that gets directed to Texas." [KVUE News; 2/22/09]
• Representative Michael McCaul showed his hypocrisy after asking the Obama Administration for three billion in funds for NASA from the economic recovery act, which he voted against. Members of the Texas delegation signed the letter, including two Republican Senators and 19 House Republicans who all voted against the recovery act in February. [Texas delegation wants stimulus money for NASA, Houston Chronicle, 10/5/09]
You remember Pyote and the TYC facility there, don't you? A remainder:
Link1At a school in West Texas, a youth commission official acknowledged at a hearing of the State Senate Criminal Justice Committee, the school's superintendent was aware that two supervisors routinely awakened boys for late-night encounters behind closed doors in deserted offices.
A follow up From the NYTBR:
The Rape of American Prisoners Since January 2000, it turned out, juvenile inmates had filed more than 750 complaints of sexual misconduct by staff. Even that number was generally thought to underrepresent the true extent of such abuse, because most children were too afraid to report it: TYC staff commonly had their favorite inmates beat up those who complained. And even when they did file grievances, the kids knew it was unlikely to do them much good. Reports were frequently sabotaged, evidence routinely destroyed.[13]
In the same six-year period, ninety-two TYC staff had been disciplined or fired for sexual contact with inmates, which can be a felony. (One wonders just how blatant they must have been.) But again, as children's advocate Isela Gutierrez put it, "local prosecutors don't consider these kids to be their constituents."[14] Although five of the ninety-two were "convicted of lesser charges related to sexual misconduct," all received probation or had their cases deferred. Not one agency employee in those six years was sent to prison for sexually abusing a confined child.[15] And despite fierce public outrage at the scandal, neither Brookins nor Hernandez has yet faced trial. In the face of overwhelming evidence, but with recent history making their convictions unlikely, both claim innocence.
What is there to say, except what has been said before. If you put people who hate government in charge of government, they govern badly. The victims of bad government are all of us, but especially the vulnerable, the poor and the children. Nobody deserves to be raped, no matter how "bad" a kid they were or are.
Are you listening Texas voters? What are you doing about this outrage Rick Perry? Too busy grandstanding on environmental regulations to do any real governing.....
It seems that we voters need to hold or obtain doctorate degrees in psychology or medical degrees in psychiatry to understand the twisted and dysfunctional behavior emanating from our fearless Republican leaders in Washington and Austin.
Both Senators Cornyn and Hutchison have trashed the stimulus bill (The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act,) railing against its waste and its abysmal failure to deliver cash infusions to our state while they extol the bill's virtues at the very same time. Maybe a little bird told the Senators that the recovery act they've been attacking for all kinds of reasons is actually a success.
To further complicate the Senators' stand on the stimulus package that both hate but love, John Cornyn has begged the EPA to deliver bucks for clean diesel projects in San Antonio and Houston.
Kay Bailey Hutchison praised the Port of Houston for its clean air strategy. Residents of the area may have a different definition of "clean air."
The Wall St. Journal obtained letters written by stimulus bashing Republicans who solicited federal recovery money for their states. When the funding is awarded the Republicans that hate the stimulus bill in Washington take credit for it in their home districts.
The Wall St. Journal included letters submitted by Senators Cornyn and Hutchison.
The Environmental Protection Agency received two letters from Sen. John Cornyn of Texas asking for consideration of grants for clean diesel projects in San Antonio and Houston. Mr. Cornyn is the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
One of the letters was signed jointly with Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, also of Texas. The letter said that the Port of Houston Authority "has informed me of the positive impact this grant will have in the region by serving as a foundation for PHA's Clean Air Strategy Plan, creating jobs, and significantly reducing diesel emissions." Houston received millions of dollars in diesel funding.
Meanwhile, outside the Washington D.C. beltway bubble, our revered Texas Governor Rick Perry issued a fatwa against the EPA.
Gov. Rick Perry announced today Texas would legally challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's finding that carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming endanger the public's health and welfare.
The federal agency issued the finding in December in an attempt to regulate the heat-trapping gases under the Clean Air Act.
Texas is the nation's leading emitter of carbon dioxide, releasing enough each year that the state would rank seventh worldwide if it were a country.
The Senators and Rick Perry's behavior would be downright comical and would make great material for a new series of Homer Simpson cartoons or a Three Stooges redux except that the consequences of their hypocritical stupidity is downright dangerous to our financial security.
With this kind of leadership in power, I think we can safely assume
Texas we have a huge problem. If we don't fix it we are screwed.
Now is the time to throw at least one of the bums out. By 2014 we may have a modicum of responsible and sane leadership in both Austin and Washington.
It won't happen unless we Vote, Baby, Vote.
The polls opened yesterday.
CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme marvels at the jackassery presented to voters on the Republican ballot. No, we're not talking about the candidates. It's the propositions that disenfranchise voters, turn Texas into Colorado Springs or California, and humiliate pregnant women.
Sadly, there is very bad news for a city that is located west of the Houston area. Sealy recently lost an Army contract that will result in 3,000 lost jobs. This is devastating for a small city in which the Army contractor, BAE Systems, is a major employer.
In late November and early December several progressive bloggers, including me revealed just how Texas fell victim to an impending and significant job loss thanks to do nothing, self-serving Texas lawmakers who are too busy palling around with fat cat sugar daddy donors to have given a rat's derriere about their lowly constituents.
Did the powers that be at BAE submit a renewal bid to retain the contract or did the company rely on its go to boys and girls in Washington to make it happen?
How come the Texas lawmakers in Austin and in Washington D.C. failed to notice that 3,000 jobs were about to be lost? What were they thinking? Were they thinking about Texas at all?
As Phillip Martin over at The Burnt Orange Report (cited above) reports:
Today, McCaul is blaming Washington and the Obama administration. However, there was no effective effort to save it by McCaul, Senator Hutchison, or Governor Rick Perry. It was not until after the contract was announced that any of the state's Republican elected officials began to work on saving the contract -- something they have now failed to do, and are now quickly trying to point fingers at President Obama to avoid accepting the responsibility of their failures.
John Cornyn's threat to block the confirmation of a top Army acquisition official is not only too little and too late, but the American people are fed up with the never ending Republican blocks and obstruction that are paralyzing our federal government. Go ahead Senator, block the acquisition guy and show us how much you support our troops and the two wars that you voted for.
BAE and Texas politicians should have known, given today's economy and the devastation in the Midwestern region of the country, considering the number of closed factories, the contract renewal in Sealy would have been almost a literal battle to the death. Either all involved did not have the fortitude for such a fight. Or perhaps all grew too arrogant and complacent after decades of a Republican majority in both Texas and in the U.S. Congress.
Remember when Rick and the boys told us that we had to pass tort reform ? One of the reasons was that we were losing doctors and could face a crisis. This , of course , was a standard Perry lie. (See here).
The truth is , under our present Health Care system, we can't get doctors to service rural areas. There is in fact, a shortage, nationwide of primary care physicians, not just in Texas . The reasons are complex, but not hard to understand. There is no glamor in providing medical care in remote areas of West Texas. There is no easy access to the latest cutting edge medical technology. You will not get rich, you will not find it easy to pay your medical education loan.
Here is what one study found:
The impact of educational loan burden on housestaff career decisions. The past decade has seen declining interest in primary care medicine and a dramatic increase in the cost of a medical degree. Seventy-nine percent of housestaff in an internal medicine residency program responded to a survey to determine whether medical school loan burden was related to career choice in a primary care field or specialty area. Overall mean indebtedness was $45,185 (median $40,000). Thirty-eight percent of residents with debts < $40,000 chose a career in primary care, compared with 10% with debts > $40,000 (chi square = 9.44, p < 0.01). Fourteen percent of those with debts < 40,000 and 59% with debts > $40,000 stated that financial conditions had a moderate to marked impact on their career decision making. Excessive loan burden has a significant influence on residents' career decision making and a negative influence on choosing careers in primary care internal medicine
In 1984, 87% of public medical school students graduated with medical school debt, and the median amount for those who had debt was $22,000. For private medical schools, 90% had debt, and the median amount was $27,000 (Figure 2 and Figure 3). While the fraction of 2003 graduates who have medical school debt has declined to 85% for public school medical students and 81% for private school medical students, the median amounts for those who have debt have enormously increased, to $100,000 and $135,000, respectively.
All this might seem academic if troubling. When I read the following, I was lead to wonder how much impact this program has and will continue to have not just whether we have doctors in rural Texas/America, but on what price we must pay , quality and competence.
Nurse to Stand Trial for Reporting Doctor The hospital administrator, Stan Wiley, said in an interview that Dr. Arafiles had been reprimanded on several occasions for improprieties in writing prescriptions and performing surgery and had agreed to make changes. Mr. Wiley, who said it was difficult to recruit physicians to remote West Texas, said he knew when he hired Dr. Arafiles that he had a restriction on his license stemming from his supervision of a weight-loss clinic.
(John Robert Behrman is an economist and fifth-generation Texan. He is Executive Vice-Chair of the Progressive Populist Caucus of the Texas Democratic Party and State Committeeman for Senate District 13 writing his column here on Texas Kaos with his personal views only - promoted by boadicea)
From 1914 to 1989, 75 years, the foreign, defense, intelligence, and economic policies of the United States were dominated by an Anglo-American elite spanning both parties. A majority of both parties supported a vision of the United States as successor in interest to the Victorian and Edwardian empires.
This majority constituted a coalition government for most of that period. Remnants of the coalition still prevail in the Democratic Party, but not in the GOP.
So, legacies of the Great, World, and Cold war work less and less well today.
Two of the most important figures in the last phase of all that died this week.
Claim: On cap and trade legislation Edwards could have "stood up in several committee sessions and said that we need to not let this get out of committee."
Check: The American Clean Energy and Security Act (HR 2454), was passed by House of Representatives in June of 2009, and has yet to be voted on by the Senate. Before being voted on by the House, HR 2454 was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Foreign Affairs, Financial Services, Education and Labor, Science and Technology, Transportation and Infrastructure, Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Ways and Means. Congressman Edwards service on the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water, Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans' Affairs, and the House Committee on Budget. HR 2454 was not referred to any of the committees that Edwards is a member of, so it is doubtful that Edwards had any opportunity to object to the cap and trade legislation during a committee hearing.
Claim: He is the only candidate that believes that the United States should withdraw from the United Nations.
Check: According to the campaign literature, none of the other four candidates has made withdrawing the United States from the United Nations an issue. Is criticizing the United States' membership in the United Nations a successful political strategy? According to a recent Gallup poll, only 26% of Americans feel that the UN is doing a "good job" compared to the 65% that believe it is doing a "poor job." However, when asked if the United States should give up its membership in the United Nations only 13% believed that it should. Criticizing the UN might be good politics, but the United States leaving the UN is not a significant issue to most Americans.
Kay Bailey Hutchison joins the vast majority of her Republican colleagues in Washington in the GOP Hall of Hypocritical and Cowardly Shame.
Many Republicans voted for the stimulus bill and now they trash it day in and day out, at least when they are in Washington.
And yet when Republican lawmakers visit their home districts, all take credit for the projects and jobs that the stimulus bill made possible. In Texas we received:
1148 contracts: $1,178,584,964=1,398,97 jobs.
8852 grants:
$11,229,522,199=27,057,60 jobs.
Loan: (partially because Governor Perry refused to accept extended federal unemployment benefits)
$25,517,309. What were you thinking, Governor?
So, Senator Hutchison, given your stance on the evil doing stimulus package in Washington, do you suggest that Texas send the above back?
