Of course there is not a civil war brewing in the Republican Party. Someone just made it up. But a leading conservative has recently called the non-civil non-war an impending bloodbath.
After the havoc the Republican Party and its newly formed teabagger faction have wreaked on this country from Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush and culminating with the horror of George W. Bush and his neocon policies, a bloodbath sounds just fine by me. Indeed, one is long overdue.
According to yesterday's Houston Chronicle, the teabaggers in Texas are fed up and want to throw all of the bums out. In Texas, the bums happen to be Republicans.
Even Rick Perry is a target of this group because he apparently is not conservative enough.
While it's too early to determine if the Tea Party movement will prove to be a durable political force, its candidates could prove a costly and unwanted distraction for establishment Republicans who would rather be aiming their fire at Democrats. Case in point: the GOP race for governor, where Tea Party ally Debra Medina of Wharton has announced her candidacy for the Republican nomination against incumbent Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, whom she dismisses derisively as "get-along-style politicians."
Texas cannot keep up with the demand of those in need of food stamps. According to Lisa Falkenberg of the Houston Chronicle it is taking months to obtain benefits. Folks are growing more desperate by the day.
Meanwhile, Texas isn't coming close to meeting federal requirements to process food stamp applications within a month. Last month, about 38,000 new applicants were left awaiting approval even though the federal deadline had passed. About one in six applications is processed incorrectly.
Food Stamps are 100% funded by the Federal Government. All Texas has to do is distribute the funds. Unfortunately due to either incompetence, stinginess or cold-hearted contempt for the state's struggling jobless, Texas is not doing its job.
Gee whiz. I sure hope, for their own sorry sakes, right wing Republicans have decent health care coverage. I mean, at the rate at which they are blowing fuses and blood vessels over literally everything proposed by President Obama, good health care coverage sure is necessary for one's survival in avoiding and overcoming strokes and heart attacks.
OK, so the latest hysteria emanating from the right has to do with a speech President Obama will make to school children about staying in school, working hard to achieve good grades and taking personal responsibility for one's actions. This should be music to a parent's ears, especially in Texas where we have the highest number of school dropouts and our schools rank second to last nationwide.
But oh no, au contraire and God forbid, should a child work hard to stay in school, earn top notch grades, graduate with honors and gain acceptance in a top tier university.
It seems that the right has plenty of problems with staying in school, at least according to comments posted by on-line readers of the The Houston Chronicle.
Some object to Obama speech to students
According to the right President Obama will "indoctrinate" and "brain wash" students.
About?
Getting good grades? Taking responsibility?
No one howled when President G.W. Bush read to school children on the day our nation was horribly and ruthlessly attacked.
Nick Anderson, the Houston Chronicle, 9/3/09.
And where were these very same wingnuts when President George H.W. Bush spoke to school children at the eve of his campaign in 1992?
I guess a little ol' indoctrination and spin is harmless when it comes from a really rich white guy.
Lisa Falkenberg of the Houston Chroncle attended a medical support group with a family member in Katy outside Houston recently. The group's leader handed out a flyer that was supposedly distributed to share information on the U.S. House healthcare proposals. The flyer was anything but credible. It contained nothing but pants-on-fire whoppers and frightening misinformation surrounding healthcare reform.
The first order of business was for the group's leader to pass around a handout that supposedly offered a page-by-page translation of the House health care reform bill from an alien bureaucratic dialect to everyday English.
"A U.S. Army translator has been found who speaks 'Washington Doublespeak' and he was kind enough to decode the bill and post his plain-language findings," read an introductory paragraph.
As one who also has a family member who attends medical support group meetings I must say the group's leader did the unspeakable and unforgivable. Folks attend these meetings for support, empathy and encouragement. They are there to learn ways in which they and their families can cope with the diseases that plague them. They are there to learn how to fight the depression and fear that accompanies so many diseases. For a leader to introduce a new level of fear and anxiety to people in this state is criminal.
Obviously the GOP and HCR opponents know no shame.
Below are a few of the despicable whoppers used to foment fear among the ill.
Among the supposed findings: "Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed! ... Page 42: The 'Health Choices Commissioner' will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None. ... Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with fee healthcare services. ... Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer."
Just when you think the Republicans and their love mates in big insurance and pharma have sunk to the lowest hole in a snake pit, they manage to creep into an even deeper one. Their latest stunt goes beyond the pale in much the same fashion as the GOP did in the Terri Schiavo case. But the Schiavo incident was child's play when compared to the cruel and sinister stuff Republicans and their love mates are up to today.
In a recent multi-million dollar PR campaign to kill off health care reform, insurance companies, special interest groups and Republicans are lying to and scaring the daylights out of senior citizens in the most appalling manner. The self-serving, unconscionable and greedy ghouls are telling older folks that health care reform will literally kill them. They will be euthanized, or they will be required to have five- year medical reviews that could result in death sentences.
I am not making this up or telling a really sick and inappropriate joke. This ruthless fear and smear campaign is happening while I type. And, as I mentioned in a diary posted below, Republicans in Congress are completely on board with this beyond the pale campaign of terror against senior citizens.
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has revealed much about the despicable "deather" movement.
In yesterday's Houston Chronicle readers learned much about Rick Perry's fancy globe trotting extravaganzas, golfing, hunting trips and lavish gifts, much of it donated by the governor's sugar daddy supporters. The Chronicle's R.G. Ratcliffe revealed that thanks to taxpayers and generous supporters, Perry, a modest cotton farmer from West Texas, now leads the life of the rich and famous.
We taxpayers take care of the basic needs: housing, cooks, housekeepers, stewards and gardeners.
The taxpayers shell out $108,000 a year to rent him an estate west of Austin, and spend another $168,000 on chefs, stewards and housekeepers for the Perrys' creature comforts.
The governor's donors and supporters take care of the really fun stuff like overseas travel to wonderful places, concerts, basketball games and hunting trips.
Throughout the years, from the Reagan Administration through 2008, we've heard a lot of talk about compassionate conservatism. According to conservative conventional wisdom, it is entirely possible for a state and/or federal government to be fiscally conservative without, at the same time, disenfranchising those who are economically disadvantaged and others who are vulnerable, like the children of the poor.
The reality? When conservatives talk about compassion they are reading GOP talking point memos. The real GOP imperative:
Kiss up to special and corporate interests. Kick down the everyday constituents.
I guess Ronald Reagan thought he embodied compassionate conservatism when his administration deemed ketchup a vegetable in the public schools' federal lunch programs. What's wrong with poor kids eating a paste comprised mostly of salt and sugar with nil nutritional value? It has a vegetable kind of product added to it. Let them eat a salt/sugar paste with artificial coloring.
Reagan's budget cuts, especially those involving social programs, effectively dismantled all safety nets for the nation's poor.
When George W. Bush ran for the Presidential office in 2000 he promoted himself as a compassionate conservative. His tax cuts would produce more jobs. Life would be good for all.
According to an article written in the Houston Chronicle this morning, John Cornyn, John McCain and Mitch McConnell met with a group of doctors at the Texas Medical Center in Houston. John Cornyn is apparently on a mission to destroy health care reform by misleading and scaring doctors and patients, alike.
According to Cornyn, the evil doer is a non-existent single payer option.
"This is where the government option is a competitor but the government's not exactly a fair competitor," said Cornyn, of Texas, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which is considering health care reform proposals. "It's an 800-pound gorilla that has the capacity to undermine other competitors. We want to make sure we don't do anything to crush the kind of innovation that has led to cures and happier and healthier lives in Texas and around the world."
Dude, the only thing destroying innovation and cures are the crippling costs imposed by for-profit driven health care insurance companies.
The federal government agencies (i.e. the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health etc.) and private foundations provide grants that fuel much of the innovation and cures. Is John Cornyn suggesting the public option will automatically become single-payer and federal grants will no longer be awarded to research faculty and doctors? The public option means no more federal funding for research?
If he is suggesting this he is both a fool and a liar.
I definitely have to stop sipping coffee when reading the Houston Chronicle in the morning. Too many times my freshly brewed favorite morning beverage is spat out because I am appalled and/or disgusted by something I read.
This morning happened to be one of those days when my morning joe ended up on the front page of the Houston Chronicle.
The headline that captured my attention:
A case of mistaken identity?
Environmentalists surprised that A&M scientist named to board has sided with industry
By MATTHEW TRESAUGUE
Apparently a Texas A&M educated scientist who holds two advanced degrees and a doctorate in agricultural engineering to boot, is skeptical of the proven science supporting the rather inconvenient fact that human activity is largely responsible for pollution.
Governor Rick Perry the Secessionist ought to take notice. Federal stimulus funding will provide thousands of Houston's teenagers and unemployed young adults with summer jobs. This is obviously wonderful news in a market in which jobs, especially part-time and summer jobs, are hard to find.
This program is an outreach initiative that will provide jobs for at risk youth who may have dropped out of school. Students and young adults will be assigned to various city projects in Houston and Harris County. They will work under the guidance of mentors and role models. In a nutshell, the hope is that unemployed young folks will have the opportunity to develop solid working skills, learn about team building, responsibility, the rewards of hard work and the long term value of higher education.
Sounds like a potential a win-win for Houston's at-risk youth, right?
