Hypocrisy thy name is Steve Katz.

Katz, in his position on committees for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, has a duty to his constituents to personally investigate the problem. :rolleyes:

@Griff: It's interesting to me is that such an event is already labelled...

Yeah, that's interesting isn't it.

"Higher education" ... giggles...

It's so often the way, isn't it? The loudest voices against something usually turn out to be up to their eyeballs in it.

In the same vein, I've seen some recent internet rumours that Phelps of the WBC is gay or had gay experiences in the past. No kiddin? :eyebrow:

The trains been running away for a loooong time
 

So for the sake of politics, Nixon spent 22,000 American lives, and god knows how many Vietnamese, in the next 5 years of war.

Pissing on Nixon's grave is high on my bucket list. :mad2:

You'd think that would be a reason why straight people wouldn't have any reason to oppose gay marriage, but instead it was the reason Saxby Chambliss gave for why he wants it to be illegal.

I say let 'em get married but they're not allowed to throw rice. That preserves the sanctity of traditional marriage. :haha:

This is the nature of today's elected Republicans .

US News & World Report
By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News
4/3/13
First Amendment doesn't apply here: N.C. lawmakers push bill for state religion
[*] The article has a link to the Bill

And:

He wants to charge someone with sodomy for having sex with an underage girl. Presumably he'd have been fine with it if they'd done it missionary-style.

I fucking hate Cuccinelli. Normally I don't fucking hate the political opposition, but he's such an asshole about it.

This is the guy who subpoenaed emails and other records of scientists at UVA because he wanted to refute their research on climate change.

What business an attorney general has getting involved in scientific research, I still don't understand.

I'm afraid he's going to be our next governor. Nobody votes in the non-presidential elections, so the Republicans have a chance to take control at the state level. Ugh.

I honestly thought this was an April Fools joke. Well, there are fools involved.....

These are the same people who rail against attempts to implement Sharia law in the US. What do they think they are setting the stage for....?

I got a letter from the Democratic Governors Association warning about the Tea Party push for control of governorships and state houses, with a particular worry about Cuccinelli this year. They said the polls are dead even at the moment, in VA.

Where, Oh where, is Larry Flint and his $1million rewards when you need him ?

Lying sack of shit department.

:eyebrow:

The State of MO may not be able to issue drivers licenses if this goes through.

Yep another repub run away train. Rather than pass legislation to direct a state agencies policies or business practices and take the risk of not getting it all my way. Lets just get rid of the whole damn thing. Very childish.

Hypocrite update: Katz gets charges dropped, because politician not regular human.

And someones going to call him on it. And he's going to claim that his personal life and his job have nothing to do with each other, which is bullshit.

We elect (hire) these schmucks because we expect them to represent us. That means that they are supposed to take their experience as normal human beings from the same geographic area and with presumably similar experiences to us and use those views to work on our behalf. And then we go ahead and insulate them from the consequences of the stupid laws that they support based on political expediency.

They're not the stupid ones....we are for letting the system get screwed up to this point.


BTW, saw your HillBilly/HillWilliam tag. Two of my coworkers were discussing the origin of the term this week.

Looks like some fuzzy beginnings. Etymology is pretty interesting though. Our thoughts are governed by the words we have for organizing them.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?...wed_in_frame=0

Once more the Republicans are found wanting...
This time in their handling of their so-called "I.R.S scandal"

The full letter (PDF) to House Oversight Committee Chairman, (R)Darrell Issa, is here.

Atlanta Journal Constitution
From Reuters: By Jay Bookman
June 10, 2013

When do we start chasing Obama's penis?

It should be easy to take him down over Syria and the NSA but let's face it we have a one party system with two branches, substantive issues need not be addressed. I'm sure they're chasing the penis though.

small dic foreign policy

Is that a challenge?

If so, someone has accepted it:

Ban abortion because fetuses masturbate!

I'm surprised. You have to choose between the lesser of evils.

I would have thought abortion would be a cure for premature masturbation.

Also note that only male fetuses are considered to be feeling pleasure when their hand is between their legs.

(R-SC)Lindsey Graham predicted the Republicans were going
to do something "dramatic" on immigration.
He said he didn't know what, but it would be dramatic !

Well, here it is....

Chicago Tribune
6/20/13

Senate immigration deal would double number of U.S. border agents
With a Mexico-U.S. border of 1969 miles, that's about 1 Federal agent every 260 feet

Will the funding come from cutting foodstamps?

That, plus as of laws passed today, it will come from savings
by restricting when legal abortions can be performed.

...before to 6 weeks in North Dakota signed by (R) Gov. Jack Dalrymple
or, in Iowa on a case-by-case basis, at the personal discretion of (R)Gov. Terry Branstad.

The Republicans have been busy this week... maybe due to super-full moon ?

Back to the IRS thing for a moment...

Is it possible that the cure is going to be worse than the disease ?

Sure, that'll work out well, because no one would ever cheat on the IRS !


The quote above is from this article...

USA Today
Deirdre Shesgreen
6/23/13

IRS: Other 'inappropriate' screening of groups done
Oh, by the way... regarding Werfel quote above about "self certification":

There are moments in legislative proceedings when someone must "think on their feet".
Last night, the Texas Senate demonstrated this to a world of viewers
while Senator Wendy Davis was filibustering the latest circus on abortion.
But Sen Davis was only one of three heroines of the night.


Now enters Senator Leticia Van de Putte Heroine #3 to deliver a perfect "estocada"...



"At what point," Senator Leticia Van de Putte asked in the wake of the overridden objections,
"must a female senator raise her voice or hand to be recognized over male colleagues in the room?"

UPDATE: Wendy Davis and the Texas Democratic Party confirmed that Senate Bill 5 is dead.

Overnight, she's gone from being nobody to being discussed as a serious candidate for governor. God it would be nice to finally get rid of Rick Perry...

Why do wacko extremists think that hate of gays, hate of immigrants, muslims are evil, and imposing their religious beliefs on all others will make them popular? Well it does work on brainwashed disciples. Adults who only know what they are told to believe. Their parents were told to "lynch the negro". Were also just as easily brainwashed by that extremist rhetoric. And also became just as unpopular.

Or did they? People such as Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond became the darlings of people who hate gays, blame immigrants, disparage innovation, fear muslims, and impose their religion on all others.

But not before the Republicans tried to fraudulently alter the timestamp on the vote to make it seem to have occurred before the deadline.

And now, Mr Brooks, have you ever used the word "mutt" ?

NY Times
DAVID BROOKS
Published: June 27, 2013

A Nation of Mutts
Will someone please tell David his star has faded.

Already there......

Back during the Nixon days, there were "operatives" in charge of "dirty tricks".
They were young fellows, Republicans, that spent their pre-election time
finding ways to embarrass the Democrats.
Sometimes, their tricks worked, sometimes backfired, and sometimes
they were found out...to the embarrassment of the G.O.P.
Now, some such Republicans have matured into the Congressional leadership.

Can we take a look at Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, for a minute ?

Washington Post
Dana Milbank
June 28, 2013

Darrell Issa and the overblown scandals
Darrell Issa seems bound and determined to prove the validity of the Peter Principal.

Obama is finally learning to play the game by rules the Republicans will understand...

USA TODAY
David Jackson,
July 11, 2013

White House pledges veto of GOP farm bill
Typical Republican behavior of late...They will pass this House Bill,
and then take their bat-n-ball and go home for summer recess.
.

Rep Mark Takano (D - CA), I love you.

http://www.happyplace.com/25021/form...with-a-red-pen

Love the red pen, but have you ever read a bill of say, 300 pages? Every page will typically refer you to another part of the bill, and that part of the bill, will refer you to one or more other parts. You probably read some of them before, but you need to reread them again, in this new context.

They are typically complex legal documents. Even if you read 300 pages per day, you might very well not finish a full reading of a 300 page bill, in a week, since every page requires a re-read of several sections, in the new context.

No one had read Obamacare fully, before it was passed. Most had not even managed a half-decent overview of it, and it's implications on an industry (health care), that makes up in total, nearly 1/3rd of our economy.

Public opinion was turning against Obamacare, so it had to be rammed down our throats, and some Senators and Representatives, had to be blatantly bribed with $$$ promises.

There is no earthly reason to lump a farm aid bill, with non-farm aid matters. The unearthly reason to do so, is so a LOT of welfare can be covered over as "farm aid", instead of welfare for non-farmers.

This is very handy for the Democratic party. They love the poor so much. They want a lot more of them, and under the past several liberal Presidents and Congresses - by god, it's working!

The farm aid bill is government welfare to big corporations. As a result, American now pays about $140 million to Brazilian farmers annually. A fine imposed on America due to illegal 'corporate welfare' in that existing bill.

The farm bill is almost entirely welfare to big corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland. A right wing research organization (Cato Institute) even discusses this:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-241.html

Why do we waste energy and money on ethanol? Corporate welfare. Even that only exists because charity to big corporations is more important than science, reality, and the advancement of America.

We have a serious problem. Due to an economy created by 'enrich the rich' legislation, we know have an increasing number of people even working in poverty. And now dependent on food stamps. They must be evil. Instead we must protection welfare to corporations. And continue the policies that have created our economic malaise.

The farm bill is welfare to big agriculture - corporations.

Very true, it's impossible to do a comprehensive read through. In the bill writers defense, the sections of the bill(or another bill) they refer to were probably hashed in subcommittee and maybe even court tested for language.
Bullshit, just nobody who could vote on it. We spend millions for congressional staff to do just that, and explain to the drones we elect what it says. And business spends billions to do the same. You can be sure every syllable was thoroughly parsed.
Why? Because of all the Chicken Littles screaming the sky is falling, for their various and often devious reasons. So the confused public hearing growling from inside the cave, says back up, don't go in there.
Au contraire, the farm bill is more than just giving large farm corporations millions of dollars, and a few bucks for the little guys. A large portion of that hard to read legalese pertains to the government stabilizing markets/price floors, by buying excess production... can you say government cheese.

I admit there is a whole lot of hiding shit in unrelated bills, and should be stopped. But in this case it would be logical... ok, as logical as any government plans, to use the stuff they bought to help feed the people they've deemed worthy of not starving. So you see, it's all tied together.

I actually deliver a daily piece of this action. The bulk of the bill is free money for Big Ag but they occasionally do good by people.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/care/

CACFP plays a vital role in improving the quality of day care for children and elderly adults by making care more affordable for many low-income families.

Through CACFP, more than 3.3 million children and 120,000 adults receive nutritious meals and snacks each day as part of the day care they receive.

Don't you remember the Speaker of the House (Nancy Pelosi), saying that the bill should be voted on now, and we'll find out what's in the bill, later?

Absolutely, our Congress did NOT have a chance to read through the bill before they voted on it. Even with the help of their staff, all they could do was peruse through parts of it. This was widely discussed on the conservative talk shows, and all the Senators and Reps who were interviewed all agreed, they had not had time to read through it all. That's one reason why they were so upset. They did not know the complete contents of the bill, before they had to vote on it.

I'm just thrilled that we are making more and more people, dependent on the federal government. Because we know there could never be a 30-40% fraud rate in any of their programs.

If it's one thing we need to do to raise our standard of living, it's put a few more million people, onto welfare programs - yep! That will really help! :rolleyes:

Yeah, welfare is for corporations! Because they never try to cheat the government.

Sure, and agree it was a stupid remark made in frustration with congressmen whining about not having time to read it, using that to try and drag out the process for month after month after month.

In truth her remark meant nothing, everyone of those cocksuckers knew exactly what they were voting for after the staff and more importantly the lobbyists briefed them.

Because of the concerted effort by the political overlords wanting Obama would fail, and the tremendous power of the insurance, drug, and medical device suppliers, the only way to make it happen was to pass an imperfect bill and then make adjustments. A truly bipartisan effort in favor of the voters, could slowly wrest the power back from the lobbyists and build a world class system of medical care for everyone.

You mean like GE paying no corporate income tax?

Sure! But who MADE THE LAWS that make all those exemptions possible for GE?

Our corrupt politicians in Washington, that's who!

I want to blame GE, but they're just big enough, and smart enough, to use the legal exemptions, already in place. They did NOT make them the law of the land.

Corporations SHOULD limit their legal liability (taxes). So should we. Our politicians should QUIT pandering to everything the corporations want, so they can get $$$ for their next election.

We are LONG overdue for election reform in this country.

Close. Four "our" read "their" and for "corrupt" read "tame".

See above. See also Lobbyist, campaign contribution.

Still, you're largely right. (man, that's twice in two days! WTF?) If voters allow themselves to be suckered by the corporate funded ad blitz into electing a bunch of lobby-puppets, well, they get the government they deserve.

I understand the frustration for any US voters who actually pay attention and take things seriously.

I pay attention but I'm learning not to take things seriously. Empires fall, we're just in a unique position to watch. This is high entertainment if you keep your distance.

July 18, 2013

I keep trying to get this point across to my Dad, who laments the downfall of America every time we talk. It's inevitable. Someone else will be in power next. The human race will go on, just like Celine Dion's heart...

Most Republicans don't want a different result - they want to keep right on delaying the start of Obamacare.

Personally, I'd like to see a good NHS (National Health Service), but good to me, means it runs in a few county wide pilot projects first, while they work the kinks out of it. One thing nobody wants is a NHS that's got a lot of things wrong with it! Set it up, let it prove it's value in some pilot projects, and THEN implement it for the entire country.

And the cost of our health care will increase quite a bit, because there are a lot of people now with very minimal health care. Now, (one way or another), they would be covered.

And this idea that employers can opt out -- NO. We're all in this together, or it's crap. Workers at McDonalds, etc., all need health care, just as bad as anyone else.

We had a huge boost from WWII, while GB, France, Germany, Russia, China, Japan (and Korea in their war), all were seriously hurt. It's natural that other countries would start closing the gap, after all these years since 1945.

For now, I'll only take issue with this one paragraph.

Pilot projects have been run, but some people
either don't want to admit to their success,
or don't want to admit to their success.

Kaiser Permanente started during WWII... that's about 60+ years of "pilot project-ing".
Obamacare is closely modeled on this and similar health care programs.
All the things you hear about being included in Obamacare can be found in the KP health care coverages.
... no charges for preventative services such as immunizations
... no charges for diagnostic testing, such as lab tests
... no charges for diagnostic services, such as x-rays
... fixed costs of co-pays for "in hospital" surgeries, drugs, physician care, etc.
... no exclusion for pre-existing conditions
... no cap on total / annual care
... on and on, etc., etc.

As an example, my wife just came home last Sunday from having a
"full knee replacement" surgery + 2 days in hospital
(including free parking, private room with TV, meals, meds, etc.)
+ take-home cold-water pump to prevent/reduce swelling,
+ scheduled Physical / Occupational Therapy for 2 months post-surgery, etc. etc.
-------- our total co-pay cost was $215.00 + $28 for post-discharge pain meds.

If Kaiser Permanente can run such a health care provider program
in Washington, Oregon, and California for 60+ years,
how much more "pilot projecting" do you feel would be necessary
to switch Republicans over to supporting Obama ?
... Oh, I meant to say "over to supporting Obamacare ?" ;)

Here is just one link to KP,
but I'm sure it's easy to find more.

One problem with small scale pilots of health provision is that you don't get the economy if scale to bring prices down and more importantly you don't have leverage at the research and price setting stages.

The nhs in the uk is one of the workd's biggest single employers and the purchasing power it wields gives it a lot weight with phaceutical companies. It's one of the reasons the uk punches far above its weight in research
And development if new drugs.

I'm familiar with Kaiser. I used to be on it. Overall, I give Kaiser good marks, but I'll tell you a little anecdote:

My foot (bottom of) was starting to hurt more and more, as I walked on it. Every day just a bit worse than the day before. Finally, went to Kaiser.

The doctor, looked at it, twisted my foot all around (ouch!) and took X-rays. Then twisted it around some more, for good measure. (Yes, it STILL hurts when you do that!). Couldn't do anything, had no idea what was causing it. Nothing they could do (no, I don't want your pain pills, although it was tempting).

Next day, foot hurt badly again. Went to a little Podiatrist's office. The RECEPTIONIST guides me into a little exam room, and ask to see the foot. She is going to report to the doctor, what she sees. **

She takes one glance at it, says "Oh, it's a lajkdf;ljkf (some kind of plantar wart that grows inward, instead of outward).

Doctor comes in a bit later, says "Oh, it's a lajkdf;ljkf", and says "how are you with pain?"

I say "I'm acquainted". :(

Doc says, "hold on and we can fix this really quickly." He grabs a surgical blade, and the receptionist and the doc help anchor my foot so it won't squirm, and he cuts it out. Slap a 3x3 gauze on it, and I'm out the door in 20 minutes, for $30, iirc.

Kaiser did fine with others, I know. Some serious failures, of course, but that was the doctors greed, not Kaiser's. I believe there's a big difference between a Kaiser model of practice, and the model that Obamacare must follow. Of course, I note that our Congress will not be using Obamacare, for their own medical care. I wonder why?? :rolleyes:

**As I was leaving, I found out the receptionist was the doc's daughter, and was studying Podiatry.

What is the big difference that you cite ?
... other than the obvious "nation-wide" vs "area -wide",
and Federal $ vs employer/individual $, etc

If you want to talk about existing incompetent or greedy MD's
and/or MBA Hospital Adminstrators, I think those would be points
in favor of implementing Obamacare.