Saturday, March 28, 2015

‘You’re Crashing My Party!’ Congresswoman’s Facebook Page Gets Surprise Guests!

                                    Good Day World!

What if you had a party and the “wrong” people showed up?

You might ask Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers what to do.

She recently posted an attack on the Affordable Health Care Act’s 5th Anniversary and invited viewers to join her in slamming it.

The problem was, it was an open invite. Instead of getting horror stories about the ACA, she was deluged with positive comments about Obama’s signature healthcare act.

Can you imagine what she felt like?

As a rabid anti-ACA warrior, she must have been frothing at the mouth when confronted with the reality that millions of Americans really like it. A dose of reality is never easy to swallow for haters or Conservatives.

Below are a small sample of the comments constituents left on her page:

  • My story is that I once knew 7 people who couldn't get health insurance. Now they all have it, thanks to the ACA and President Obama, and their plans are as good as the one my employer provides--and they pay less for them. Now, that's not the kind of story you want to hear. You want to hear made-up horror stories. I don't know anyone with one of those stories.

  • I work for cancer care northwest. We actually have more patients with insurance and fewer having to choose treatment over bankruptcy. Cathy, I'm a die hard conservative and I'm asking you to stop just slamming Obamacare. Fix it, change it or come up with a better idea! Thanks

  • With Obamacare, I saved 300 bucks a month premium.. I have more coverage.. I like ObamaCare and can't wait til we go to the next step... Medicare for ALL.

  • And now my daughter, diagnosed with MS at age 22, can have insurance. What do you plan to do with her?

  • My daughter is fighting for her life with stage 3 breast cancer! We are about to enter a second go round of diagnostic procedures and possibly more treatment after two full years of treatment! So yah! The ACA is more than helping! I resent that our rep thinks the only problems involve her personal story!

  • My whole family now has coverage. The ACA is the cause for this, I work in health care, I have seen the increase in covered patients first hand. The next step is universal coverage, this will truly lower costs and provide the best care. Cathy, you barely work, spend most of your time catering to special interests so you can be re-elected.. All while receiving a large wage and the best health insurance and care. Stop telling us how it doesn't work while enjoying your tax payer funded care and life.

Jump below the fold to continue reading these heartfelt messages.

  • And now my daughter, diagnosed with MS at age 22, can have insurance. What do you plan to do with her?

  • My daughter is fighting for her life with stage 3 breast cancer! We are about to enter a second go round of diagnostic procedures and possibly more treatment after two full years of treatment! So yah! The ACA is more than helping! I resent that our rep thinks the only problems involve her personal story!

  • My whole family now has coverage. The ACA is the cause for this, I work in health care, I have seen the increase in covered patients first hand. The next step is universal coverage, this will truly lower costs and provide the best care. Cathy, you barely work, spend most of your time catering to special interests so you can be re-elected.. All while receiving a large wage and the best health insurance and care. Stop telling us how it doesn't work while enjoying your tax payer funded care and life.

  • Instead of trying to repeal it why don't you improve it? Our local rural clinics are packed daily with people who have needed healthcare for years!! it is a godsend. It is pitiful this nation does not have healthcare for all and that doesn't mean the EMERGENCY room!!

  • Thanks to the ACA, my cousin was able to get affordable insurance despite her preexisting condition. So grateful.

  • I think we should repeal Obamacare, and replace it … with universal socialized medicine - like the rest of the industrialized nations of the world.

  • My plans are intact, premiums have increased as always, but what seems to be a lesser rate, my plan was not cancelled, I did not lose my doctor, I have not experienced reduced work hours, and it's actually freed me from the chains of employer based being the ONLY path to coverage. #FEARMONGER

Those are just a small sample of the hundreds or even thousands of comments left on her Facebook page.

It is damn clear that her constituents are loving the Affordable Care Act. Will she take their comments to heart and abandon attempts to take insurance coverage away from her constituents? (condensed version – article first appeared in the Daily Kos)

Stay tuned.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

Friday, March 27, 2015

Where Tobacco is Still King and 6-Year Olds Get as Addicted to Smoking as Adults

Good Day World!

I know where you can still get a pack of cigarettes for about a dollar.

Visit Indonesia.

While you’re there, don’t be surprised if you see six-year old boys chain-smoking cigarettes. In the past 20 years, 6-9 year-old smokers have tripled, according to the World Health Organization.

A few years back, a video of an Indonesian toddler smoking 40 cigarettes a day went viral worldwide, and prompted heartfelt official declarations in the country.

But not much has changed.

In fact, things are getting worse. Lisda Sundari, deputy director for education and advocacy at the local children NGO Lentera Anak, said the number of children aged 10 to 14 who smoke has doubled over the past 20 years.

Sixty-seven percent of Indonesian men and 41 percent of 13 to 15 year-old boys smoke. Indonesia is one of the few countries in the world that hasn’t signed the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

The ads are on Television, in newspapers and magazines, and plastered on trees lining the roads. Indonesian cities are choked with giant billboards promising “pleasure, style and confidence.”

Cigarette companies sponsor almost all of the country’s concerts and sports events, not to mention refugee camps.

While selling cigarettes to minors is officially forbidden, it’s never enforced.

About 240,000 people died in Indonesia in 2013 because of tobacco, meaning that 660 people died every day, or 27 people per hour.

Indonesia is one of the biggest tobacco markets in the word, cigarette companies are powerful, and politicians easily corruptible.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has launched a campaign against narcotics, and made the execution of drug dealers a priority.Since he arrived in power in October, Widodo has tirelessly repeated the claim that 40 to 50 people die every day because of drugs.

Compare that with 27 people dying every hour and you’ll understand why activists find the double standard hard to take.

As far as I know, no other country in the world allows children to smoke cigarettes so openly. Indonesia is a good example of government corruption endangering it’s people and future generations for the love of money.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Opps! Jeb Bush ‘unaware’ that he had secret email address

Good Day World!

Anyone that doesn’t think Jeb Bush is cut from the same cloth as his Dad and brother are either kidding themselves, are incredibly misinformed – or completely uninformed.

Take the recent email controversy over Hillary Clinton’s email server while she was in office. During the height of the contrived controversy she was was attacked by rabid Republicans demanding some sort of an accounting.

Jeb Bush was right their with the hounds, and at one point declared he’d shared all of his emails from the time he was in office. Like Daddy Bush and brother Bush, Jeb is a hypocrite and liar. 

When Bush released thousands of emails from his tenure as Florida's governor as part of his preparations to run for president next year, he did so from the email account he shared openly, jeb@jeb.org.

But those emails also include references to another secretive email address, jeb@gencom.net.

Bush said through a spokeswoman that he was unaware of the account, although records showed that people wrote to him there more than 400 times between 1999 and 2004.

Busted.

If Hillary did something wrong by having her own email server – and that hasn’t been determined yet – then how about Jeb’s gaffe? Not only did he have a “secret” email address, he claimed he didn’t even know it?

Related Stories

  1. Jeb Bush Emails Detail Relationships With Top Donors Huffington Post
  2. Jeb Bush used private email on sensitive issues AFP
  3. Jeb Bush rejects Democratic claims he has Clinton-like email problem Reuters
  4. Jeb Bush calls Clinton's State Department email storage 'baffling' Reuters
  5. Hillary Not The Only 2016 Hopeful Ducking Scrutiny With Emails Huffington

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Research Shows Monsanto’s ‘Roundup’ Linked to Cancer

                                     Good Day World!

How can anybody trust Monsanto, the company that brought us Agent Orange (defoliant used in Vietnam)? Millions have died from the effects of that devil’s brew.

When I was in Vietnam (1970) I remember talking to two guys in the Air Force whose jobs were to spray Agent Orange all over the countryside. One vouched for it’s safe use, the other suspected it may present a problem someday.

As we all know, thanks to history, Agent Orange did become a problem. Monsanto lied through their teeth for years, claiming the toxic brew was safe to use.

One would think that a company as disgraced as Monsanto would have folded by now. Sadly enough, that’s hardly the case. As a matter of fact, Monsanto is back in the news with another lethal product.

The world's most widely used weed killer – Roundup - can "probably" cause cancer, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) in a recent press release.

The WHO's cancer arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, said glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, was "classified as probably carcinogenic to humans."

It also said there was "limited evidence" that glyphosate was carcinogenic in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

In 2009, a French court found Monsanto guilty of lying; falsely advertising its Roundup herbicide as "biodegradable," "environmentally friendly" and claiming it "left the soil clean."

Mounting evidence now tells us just how false such statements are.

I don't believe that Monsanto is one of the most evil companies on the planet for nothing. The company has done absolutely nothing to improve their worldwide influence on human and environmental health.

The company will continue to stall and lie about the product’s safety until they are pinned down and forced to stop making it. With articles like the following, it won’t be long:

Monsanto’s Roundup Poison 125 Times More Dangerous than Regulators Admit

Monsanto Roundup: The Impacts of Glyphosate Herbicide on Human Health

Concerns about glyphosate on food have been a hot topic of debate in the United States recently, and contributed to the passage in Vermont last year of the country's first mandatory labeling law for foods that are genetically modified.

Why it took so long start taking action about the dangers of Roundup baffles me.

I can only attribute it to glib salesmen, greedy corporate drones, a good PR department, and a slew of lawyers turning back any challenges to the product.

The bottom line is going to be a growing amount of cancers directly attributed to Roundup.

At some point, a worldwide outcry will stop it’s production. But, just as in the case of Agent Orange, it’ll come too late, for too many people.

Time for me to walk on down the line…

 

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Birthers unite! There’s a new fight…

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NEWS UPDATE: 2:49 PST

“Famously anti-Obamacare Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is now signing up for health insurance on an Obamacare exchange, he confirmed Today.

“We will presumably go on the exchange and sign up for health care and we’re in the process of transitioning over to do that,” Cruz told the Des Moines Register.

Cruz, a vociferous opponent of Obamacare, led a filibuster against funding the health care law in 2013.”

How’s that for some raw meat Birthers and Conservatives everywhere?

OPEN LETTER TO BIRTHERS

Where have all the birthers gone?

Birthers unite! There’s a new fight…

Some Canadian-born rascal is running for president. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has announced he’s running for the presidency.

I just hope you “Birthers” are up to this challenge. You deviled Barrack Obama throughout his presidency, so I know you have the stubborn stamina it takes.

Most conservative officials, operatives, leaders and pundits don't take Cruz seriously. But he’s taking the evangelical/social conservative path where truth gives way to religious dogma – a popular route for extremists.

WHAT”S CRUZ KNOWN FOR?

Cruz is best known for his role in shutting down the federal government in October 2013, when he devised and executed a strategy of blocking any spending bill that included funds that would be used toward implementing the president’s health care law.

He talked House and Senate conservatives into keeping the government shuttered for more than two weeks. That stupid move cost the economy billions of dollars, according to the Office of Management of Budget, and angered fellow Republicans who saw no endgame in the strategy other than a dip in the party’s approval rating.

BORN IN CANADA

Meanwhile, the media is hardly talking about Cruz’s foreign birthplace and the fact that a US president must be a “natural born citizen.”

So, it’s up to you dedicated “Birthers” to take up your torches and light up Cruz’s life for as long as he’s in public office.

Obama is old news. Cruz is trying to pull a fast one, and it’s up to you guys to call him on it!

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Monday, March 23, 2015

Jerry Brown Would Make a Great President

Edmund G Brown Jr.jpg

Good Day World!

I’ve been thinking about the current Democratic darling for president, Hillary Clinton, and have come to the conclusion she might not be the best bet in 2016.

She’s carrying a lot of baggage – most recently the “email” controversy, and the Benghazi never-ending story.

I recall that she lost the 2008 race to a then practically unknown Obama – and there were questions about her memories (anyone remember the Tarmac story?)

I could go on, but you have the idea. There has to be another Democrat out there with the “chops” to run for the presidency. Yes, Elizabeth Warren comes to mind, but I don’t think she has a strong enough base yet to make the move.

I’ll tell you who should run – Gov. Jerry Brown.

Forget the fact that political pundits haven’t been fawning over Brown when the conversation turns to candidates for the presidency. All you have to do is look at Jerry Brown’s record.

Balancing California’s budget is just one of the reasons Brown looks good. He knows how to get things done. He’s also outspoken and mostly right-on when it comes to major topics like Global Warming.

California Governor Jerry Brown says Ted Cruz 'Unfit to Be Running' for President and gives a good example why.

Governor Jerry Brown calls Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's efforts to get governors to ignore EPA regulations "a disgrace."

BROWN RAN AGAINST BILL CLINTON IN 1992

Jerry Brown was a major threat to Boll Clinton when he eked out a narrow win in the bitterly fought Connecticut primary.

As the press focused on the primaries in New York and Wisconsin, which were both to be held on the same day, Brown, who had taken the lead in polls in both states, made a gaffe: he announced to an audience of various leaders of New York City's Jewish community that, if nominated, he would consider the Reverend Jesse Jackson as a vice-presidential candidate.

Jackson, who had made a pair of anti-semitic comments about Jews in general and New York City's Jews in particular while running for president in 1984, was still despised in Jewish communities. Jackson also had ties to Louis Farrakhan, infamous for his own anti-semitic statements, and with Yasir Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Brown's polling numbers suffered. On April 7, he lost narrowly to Bill Clinton in Wisconsin (37%–34%), and dramatically in New York (41%–26%).

Although overwhelmingly outspent, Brown won upset victories in seven states and his votes won to money raised ratio was by far the best of any candidate in the race.

We’ll never know what would have happened if he would have picked a more popular vice-presidential candidate. Or, will we on a fast-forward?

Brown, who told host Chuck Todd that he would run if he were ten years younger (he is 76), said that the presidential candidates for 2016 must balance the federal budget; confront climate change, and fund science and education as part of a “positive” agenda.

I think they have to–you’ve got to get a budget that lives within its means, and you can’t spend 21 or 22% of the Gross Domestic product and only collect 18%. So you have to find some ways of getting some revenue, particularly on our roads and highways and transportation, trains and bridges. Pretty fundamental. Secondly, I think climate change is very important. And thirdly, we have to invest in science, in technology, in our universities–and that’s building for the future and not stealing from it. So I’d like to see a positive agenda, and not the mythology that somehow government can retract to where it was in 1929 under Calvin Coolidge…under [Herbert] Hoover.

Todd then asked Brown, point-blank: “If you were ten years younger, would you be running this year?” Brown replied, without hesitation: “Yes, I would.”

The NBC News panel raved over his performance in the interview. Former Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) suggested that Brown might not, after all, be too old to run – and that he was better now than in his first term as governor, some four decades ago.

This is Jerry Brown reaching the gold standard,” she told the panel.

I have to agree.

This is one case where age has brought wisdom, and with it, the ability to take positive action. If he ever changes his mind about running, I’ll gladly vote for him!

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Reflections on Religion: East vs West, Disbelievers, and Extremism

Good Day World!

I have a few observations about religion today that may, or my not, surprise you.

For starters, Christians are murdered indiscriminately around the world everyday.

Example: Punjab province is home to the majority of Pakistan's four million Christians. A Christian couple were burned alive in an industrial kiln in Pakistan recently after being accused of setting fire to several verses of the Quran.

According to Mushtaq Gill, chief advocate at the Pakistani minority rights group Legal Evangelical Association Development (LEAD):

"A mob of several dozen attacked the building where they were.They broke their legs so they couldn't run and then threw them in the fire. Only some bones and hair were found at the site."

It’s simply not safe for Christians in Pakistan. The same goes for all the middle east and most Asian countries.

Islam and Christianity have always had problems co-existing.

At one time in history, Christians hunted down Muslims and slaughtered them, conquering their countries in the name of the Cross. The Muslims retuned the favor and conquered Christian countries and strongholds.

THE REALITY OF RELIGION IN THE 21st CENTURY

Islam has been perverted by extremists worldwide.

These extremists murder Christians and other Muslims (who don’t believe exactly like they do) somewhere in the world everyday. They call it Jihad. Jews and Christians are prime targets for these crazy Muslims whose beliefs violate the very Quran they profess to follow.

The world has not seen such brutality and savagery in modern times.

Horrible Stories were told about the Celts, the Aztecs and the Mongols; nevertheless they always remained stories of the remote past.

But what the militants of the so called “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – ISIS” are doing is something else, what they are perpetrating defy any literary power to try and put it into words.

Driven by what they see as divine command and wreaking havoc and devastation only thought possible in Hollywood productions the Islamic militant group ISIS has pushed the definition of terrorism to a new and scary limit.

ARE AMERICANS BECOMING LESS RELIGIOUS?

“According to the Hartford Institute of Religion Research, more than 40 percent of Americans "say" they go to church weekly.

As it turns out, however, less than 20 percent are actually in church. In other words, more than 80 percent of Americans are finding more fulfilling things to do on weekends.

Furthermore, somewhere between 4,000 and 7,000 churches close their doors every year. Southern Baptist researcher, Thom Rainer, in a recent article entitled "13 Issues for Churches in 2013" puts the estimate higher. He says between 8,000 and 10,000 churches will likely close this year.” (Source)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

 

Universal Music Power

In a delightful description of the power of music William Congreve wrote "Music hath charms to sooth a savage beast..." in his 16...