Posted on January 19th, 2012 by iwaller
For the past few decades, Republicans have used social issues to divide the country, demonize minorities and women while simultaneously ignoring all the ills created by many who are married. Inciting anti-gay sentiment was once considered a viable and effective strategy within the Republican mainstream. They say same-sex marriage will destroy the family, they will destroy America; yet they cannot provide any factual proof of their ridiculous, bigoted claims. Sadly many of their sheep simply eat at their trough of hate without investing a single minute in educating themselves on this issue or examining the facts.
Marriage is a civil liberty granted by law; it is not dictated by organized religion. God knows there are hoards of these religious fanatics who ignore the U.S. Constitution but would impose their ‘own’ will over every taxpaying American citizen. The responsibility of the state is to license only. The right of a church is to decide whom to marry, and the state will honor the religious freedom of all faiths.
The greatest Constitutional protection and promise of equality is found in the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868. Section I of the Amendment states:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Read more…
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Filed under: Gay Americans
Posted on December 13th, 2011 by iwaller
Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
Most Americans have not fully grasped the rights and liberties they lost during the past decade. These are the ‘freedoms’ fought for by brave men and women starting with the Revolutionary War. Freedoms that a democratic society created by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights guaranteeing “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.
During the Bush-Cheney regime their ‘Patriot Act’ launched an aggression against the citizens of the United States worse than any foreign could ever accomplish. This single Act initiated an immense buildup of domestic surveillance by the intelligence community used to spy on American citizens eroding essential rights and freedoms once guaranteed to all individuals. Not only is the U. S. Government’s intelligence community targeting Americans, so are the major telecommunications’’ companies such as AT&T and Verizon, which collect data secretly and pass it on to the government.
In 2008 the Bush-Cheney regime enacted the FISA Act (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) which allows the government to secretly eavesdrop on Americans in their own country in intelligence investigations without a court order. Read more…
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Filed under: U S Constitution
Posted on December 2nd, 2011 by iwaller
It has been long appropriately stated that children are our future and they need to be protected from those who would do them harm. Ironically, this idea has become more of a political, right-wing, religious right talking point when politically advantageous than actually protecting the sacred trust of our children.
Sexual abuse of children by those claiming to be ‘christians’ and many of those institutions claiming to support children have become nothing more than rhetoric when several facts prove this claim.
The sexual and physical abuse of the innocent take a back seat in America by Christian conservatives, religious leaders and Republicans who ignore this plague yet propagate the claim that same sex marriage will destroy the family. No one is standing up for the children for these most heinous offenses.
Religious leaders, scout leaders, the clergy, politicians, universities, educators, camp counselors and local authorities attempt to cover-up, hide or protect the perpetrators of our kids. Religious institutions, non-profits and priests have for decade’s systematically concealed sexual abuse to avoid disclosure and scandal. It is no wonder that in the recent Penn State scandal where coach Jerry Sandusky has been charged with 40 criminal accounts of alleged sexual abuse, that football coach Joe Paterno and others did not report the crime to law enforcement; similarly alleged sexual abuse by coach Bernie Fine at Syracuse University. Read more…
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Filed under: American Injustice
Posted on August 20th, 2011 by iwaller
Would be secessionist Texas Governor Rick Perry has stood against hardworking Texan families for the past 10 years. From the murder of an innocent man, to extremely high homeowner and health care insurance rates; skyrocketing college tuition, fiscal mismanagement and forcing eminent domain to grab Texans’ land, puts Perry as the worst Republican to lead this country. His hard-fisted, overbearing arrogance can be seen in what Perry has actually DONE, not in the political hyperbolic words he speaks. Think Rick’s actions won’t impact you, your family, your children, and your parents; think again, Rick Perry’s record speaks volumes in what taxpaying American families can look forward to.
Military:
- Rick Perry, in May 2011, signed legislation restricting military veterans from voting. Perry’s Voter ID law prohibits veterans from using their ID card from the Department of Veterans Affairs to vote, even though it is a government-issued photo ID. As a result, veterans are showing up to the polls and being turned away. (Source: Vet Voice)
Insurance and Home Ownership:
- Perry permitted the insurance industry to double overnight the premiums paid by Texas homeowners and refused to rein in exorbitant rates from his biggest campaign contributors. (Source: Mcblogger.com) Texans now pay the highest homeowner insurance rates in the nation, an average annual premium of $1,409 per year, and nearly twice the national average of $804. (Source: Lubbock Avalanche-Journal)
- A February 2009 survey showed that 85% of Texans supported regulation of the insurance industry, Rick Perry and Texas Republicans fought insurance reform efforts during the 2009 legislative session. (Source: Hill Research Consultants)
- The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, run by Perry’s hand-picked political appointees, has still, four years after Hurricane Rita, only distributed one-third of the reimbursements that Texas homeowners along the coast are due. (Source: Houston Chronicle)
- March 2009 Rick Perry rejected $555 million in federal stimulus money that would have expanded unemployment benefits for Texans during Bush’s financial collapse. Perry secretly reversed his decision and asked the federal government for a $170 million loan with interest, so that benefits could get paid. (Source: Think Progress)
- Texas ranks near the bottom in the rate of home ownership, a fact that is exacerbated by our low personal credit scores, and high rate of subprime mortgages. (Source: CFED, CreditReport.com, Federal Reserve Bank of New York)
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Filed under: Republicans
Posted on August 3rd, 2011 by iwaller
How the Billionaires Broke the System – By George Monbiot (Reposted with permission)
The US deficit reduction plan makes no sense – until you remember who’s behind the Tea Party movement. [By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 1st August 2011]
There are two ways of cutting a deficit: raising taxes or reducing spending. Raising taxes means taking money from the rich. Cutting spending means taking money from the poor. Not in all cases of course: some taxation is regressive; some state spending takes money from ordinary citizens and gives it to banks, arms companies, oil barons and farmers. But in most cases the state transfers wealth from rich to poor, while tax cuts shift it from poor to rich.
So the rich, in a nominal democracy, have a struggle on their hands. Somehow they must persuade the other 99% to vote against their own interests: to shrink the state, supporting spending cuts rather than tax rises. In the US they appear to be succeeding.
Partly as a result of the Bush tax cuts of 2001, 2003 and 2005 (shamefully extended by Barack Obama), taxation of the wealthy, in Obama’s words, “is at its lowest level in half a century” (1). The consequence of such regressive policies is a level of inequality unknown in other developed nations. As the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz points out, in the past 10 years the income of the top 1% has risen by 18%, while that of blue collar male workers has fallen by 12%(2). Read more…
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Filed under: American Injustice
Posted on July 29th, 2011 by iwaller
“Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.” ~ Mark Twain ~
There are 240 Republicans in the current 112th Congress House of Representatives who have continued the onslaught against American family livelihoods which they began in earnest a decade ago with out- of-control spending following one of their leader’s advice “Reagan,” Vice President Dick Cheney famously declared in 2002, “proved deficits don’t matter.”
That is of course, unless there is a half-Caucasian Democrat in the White House Remember it was Ronald Reagan who ushered in the now-standard Republican practice of “spending our children’s inheritance” and it was also Ronald Reagan who tripled the national debt and George W. Bush doubled it again. All of which suggest the Republicans’ born-again disdain for deficits ranks among the greatest, and most successful, political double-standards in recent memory.
Barack Obama inherited two wars, a doubled national debt, and that $1.2 trillion deficit from George W. Bush. Republican Orrin Hatch described the Bush years, “it was standard practice not to pay for things.”) In fact George W Bush never vetoed a single spending bill and Republicans for 8 years, kept spending tax payer dollars while giving massive tax breaks to the wealthy and to corporations. Read more…
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Filed under: American Injustice
Posted on July 26th, 2011 by iwaller
A Pivotal Moment in American History – Senator Bernie Sanders (Reposted)
“With one week to go before an Aug. 2 deadline for raising the nation’s debt limit, the stakes are enormous. Some in Congress continue to press for steep cuts in programs for working families. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid remain in jeopardy. Funds for education, child care, nutrition, affordable housing, environmental protection and energy independence also are at stake. When Republican leaders talk about $3 trillion or $4 trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years, with no new taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, please understand what they mean. Read more…
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Filed under: U S Economy
Posted on July 12th, 2011 by iwaller
Republicans do want shared sacrifice; they simply want to share in spoils of the sacrifice of the American people. The current deficit was caused by Wall Street greed; tax breaks for the rich, two wars, and a prescription drug program written by the drug and insurance companies all under the careful orchestration of Republicans. In yet another unprecedented effort by Republicans, they are holding hostage the national budget that will impact the lives of virtually every American family.
While the Middle Class is collapsing (Republicans for Obama agree) and poverty increasing (1 in 7 Americans are now poor), Wall Street, Hedge Fund Managers, Oil Companies and Wall Street are setting historic records in both profits and revenue, which are the businesses Republicans represent. Sadly they have proven over and over, they do not support, nor do they represent the people who elected them.
The five biggest oil companies raked in $32 BILLION in profits in just the 1st quarter of 2011 alone! I call it a bribe against the American people because as American Progress reports:
”During the 2010 election cycle alone, the oil and gas industry pumped more than $21 MILLION into congressional campaign accounts, more than three-quarters of which went to Republicans. These same Republicans have voted repeatedly, and nearly unanimously, in favor of keeping oil subsidies over the past several months. In addition to lavish spending on direct campaign contributions, the oil and gas industry also spent a whopping $145 MILLION last year to lobby Congress.” Read more…
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Filed under: U S Economy
Posted on July 11th, 2011 by iwaller
There is a host of far-right wing politicians in Washington and State Houses across this country leading a charge with an all out assault on taxpaying American families as they target teachers, women, firefighters, police officers, park rangers, health care workers, gays, Hispanics and the Middle Class who are simply seeking a fair shake in the vanishing far-off American dream and to take care of their families.
Republicans continue to attack Middle America and the poor as they march in ‘lock-step’ with Wall Street and the Koch Brothers who bribe them to protect Corporations, Oil Companies, Pharmaceutical Companies and the rich. This is the decade’s long battle by the GOP to establish an elite autocracy where the masses work to serve GOP and with the help of teabaggers, these rich entitlement-masters have made tremendous strides in the past 2 years as the income gap between the haves and have-nots has widened to historic levels. Welcome to the 21st century version of slavery. When we hear people like Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and a host of other tea-bagging politicians proclaim American needs to return to the ‘Constitution’, what they are really saying is they want to reintroduce slavery, white supremacy and eliminate equal rights and the vote for women as it was during the time after the Constitution was enacted. Read more…
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Filed under: American Injustice
Posted on April 24th, 2011 by iwaller
“And no longer will this Nation refuse the hand of justice to those who have given a lifetime of service and wisdom and labor to the progress of this progressive country.” “Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, to thy needy, in thy land.” – President Lyndon B Johnson, 1965 upon the signing of Medicare bill.
For decades, American families have counted on LBJ’s basic promise that a secure retirement is the reward for a lifetime of labor. There were no caveats, just people paying into a program that would benefit them when they retired; a program that would not bankrupt seniors, their children or their families.
On April 15, 2011, Republicans and their Koch Brothers Corporate Tea Party power brokers, launched an all out attack on Seniors, women, the poor and children in America, seeking to deprive them of this basic life preserving benefit, as they voted almost unanimously to phase out Medicare and leave seniors entirely at the mercy of the large Wall Street health insurance companies. Republicans also voted on keeping many of the Medicare cuts they once criticized. As aptly written by Forbes, the GOP is launching a multi-pronged attack on Senior Citizens!
This draconian Republican plan authored by Tea Party Republican Paul Ryan, does not “reform” Medicare nor does it provide seniors with the same coverage Members of Congress receive, the Republican plan ends Medicare, period. Read more…
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Filed under: American Injustice
Posted on March 30th, 2011 by iwaller
The New York Times reported March 24, 2011 that the Corporate share of the American tax burden has fallen from 30% of all federal revenue in the 1950’s to only 6.6% in 2009, meaning U.S. corporations only contribute 6.6% to the Federal Treasury. Guess who contributes the other 93.4% – America’s working class!
Republicans scream the 35% corporate tax rate is too high but they fight tooth-n-nail to support corporations shipping workers’ jobs and profits to foreign countries, withholding the fact that nearly two-thirds of U.S. companies and 68% of foreign corporations do not pay any federal income taxes, More astonishing is that 1.3 million U.S companies and 39,000 foreign companies doing business in the United States paid no income taxes despite having a combined $2.5 trillion in revenue!
Many Republicans (like Tim Pawlenty, Louie Gohmert and Newt Gingrich) are fine with corporations paying no tax at all, while they have no objection to workers paying taxes. Tim Pawlenty is so out of touch with working class families he wants to give Bank of America more tax relief even as they posted great profits, yet they paid no taxes. (After all, someone has to pay for congressional salaries and giveaways to the rich and corporate entities) These guys are so far out of touch from the working class they actually want to give corporations a TAX HOLIDAY! Read more…
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Filed under: American Injustice
Posted on March 21st, 2011 by iwaller
The Founders were not big fans of corporations. Thomas Jefferson once wrote: “I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” (Letter to George Logan 11/12/1816
The founding fathers would no doubt be appalled at the reckless actions by Republican tea party governors who seek no less than to give unbridled power to Corporate America and eliminate corporations’ responsibility of paying any taxes which fund the military, educate our children, and provide health care for those growing numbers of Americans whose incomes continue to plummet as massive wealth is being accumulated by a few, whose goal is to completely obliterate the working and middle class.
Corporate tax revenue in the U.S. is at one of its lowest points in history, and the U.S. raises less in corporate tax revenue than many of its main trading partners. The reason for this is simple: there are a myriad of loopholes, credits, and outright giveaways in the tax code that allow many corporations to pay little or no corporate income tax. Major corporations such as Exxon-Mobile, General Electric, Boeing, Bank of America, and General Electric have paid literally nothing into the Treasury in recent years. When one hears corporations are taxes too much, remember their tax rate has been reduced from 77% in 1964 down to 35% 1993. In the past few decades two out of every three corporations paid no taxes! Many corporations hide their profits in foreign, hidden offshore banks to directly avoid paying taxes; yet the working class get no such perks from lawmakers and have to make up for all the unpaid taxes of corporate America. Read more…
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Filed under: Republicans
For the past few decades, Republicans have used social issues to divide the country, demonize minorities and women while simultaneously ignoring all the ills created by many who are married. Inciting anti-gay sentiment was once considered a viable and effective strategy within the Republican mainstream. They say same-sex marriage will destroy the family, they will destroy America; yet they cannot provide any factual proof of their ridiculous, bigoted claims. Sadly many of their sheep simply eat at their trough of hate without investing a single minute in educating themselves on this issue or examining the facts. 
