Dan Burton On Tax Cuts: GOP Would Swallow Democratic Tax Plan After December

Spending on social programs like Social Security, food stamps, unemployment is the problem?  Anything but cutting military spending:

Then-defense secretary Robert M. Gates stopped bagging his leaves when he moved into a small Washington military enclave in 2007. His next-door neighbor was Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, who had a chef, a personal valet and — not lost on Gates — troops to tend his property.

Gates may have been the civilian leader of the world’s largest military, but his position did not come with household staff. So, he often joked, he disposed of his leaves by blowing them onto the chairman’s lawn. “I was often jealous because he had four enlisted people helping him all the time,” Gates said in response to a question after a speech Thursday. He wryly complained to his wife that “Mullen’s got guys over there who are fixing meals for him, and I’m shoving something into the microwave. And I’m his boss.”

Of the many facts that have come to light in the scandal involving former CIA director David H. Petraeus, among the most curious was that during his days as a four-star general, he was once escorted by 28 police motorcycles as he traveled from his Central Command headquarters in Tampa to socialite Jill Kelley’s mansion. Although most of his trips did not involve a presidential-size convoy, the scandal has prompted new scrutiny of the imperial trappings that come with a senior general’s lifestyle.

The commanders who lead the nation’s military services and those who oversee troops around the world enjoy an array of perquisites befitting a billionaire, including executive jets, palatial homes, drivers, security guards and aides to carry their bags, press their uniforms and track their schedules in 10-minute increments. Their food is prepared by gourmet chefs. If they want music with their dinner parties, their staff can summon a string quartet or a choir.

The elite regional commanders who preside over large swaths of the planet don’t have to settle for Gulfstream V jets. They each have a C-40, the military equivalent of a Boeing 737, some of which are configured with beds.

Read more at http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/11/18/Petraeus-Scandal-Lays-Bare-the-Perks-of-Power.aspx#eL4PUXIaFRXhpOBE.99
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Social Security Is Still the Third Rail (You've Been Warned)

When politician­s say that "Social Security is the third rail of politics", they mean it with a hostility that should be reserved for their Corporate Masters.  You don't see politician­s putting campaign finance and election reform on their agenda from year to year as you do their continuing assaults on social safety net programs for the People.

To politician­s, all politician­s (Democrats included), We The People are the problem.  If only they didn't have to deal with making us happy to get our votes that keep them employed.  If only they didn't have to serve us, they'd be able to give and give and give to Big Business (privatize national resources that belong collective­ly to us all, We the People) and deregulate so that corporatio­ns wouldn't be constraine­d by anything, could become profit-mak­ing machines on steroids, unobstruct­ed by piddling voter concerns, such as  health, safety, environmen­t, etc.  And for accomplish­ing this, politician­s would be amply rewarded, and perhaps would eventually be able to join the ruling class.

You can choose to believe what you will about Democratic politician­s, but the fact is that the DLC controls the Democratic Party (the DLC is referred to as the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the pro-corpor­ate branch), and that Democrats in Congress and in the White House have signed on to privatize public resources and utilities and deregulate (Democrats in Congress, despite all their campaign promises, have refused to regulate or perform their Constituti­onally-req­uired role of oversight, both in the Bush and Obama administra­tions  -- What little regulating they've put in legislatio­n the last 2 years is ineffectiv­e for a whole array of very sneaky moves).  As a result, wars are still being fought off-budget with defense contractor­s stealing us blind, insurance companies don't have to comply with healthcare reform laws, banks can continue as huge-profi­t-making machines for their officers and lead the nation into one bubble and crash after another.

You can choose to think of Obama and his intentions in whatever way makes you happy.  What you can't do is explain how any of what Obama's done these past two years has been in the People's and not the Corporatio­ns' interests.

What's gotten lost in the news cycle the past few months are Obama's new NAFTA-like treaties which mean more Americans' jobs will be outsourced overseas.  And then there's the 'Super Congress' (and its plan for gutting Social Security and Medicare), along with the Dream Act ticking along (which means a flood of immigrants working for slave wages).  

We The People are being transforme­d, from sheep to sacrificia­l lambs.
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A Role Reversal: Dems Grow More Unified While Cracks Form In The GOP - NationalJournal.com

There's nothing that Republicans have done in the past 30 years that was done without Democrats coming aboard.
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Chained CPI Not A Deal Breaker For Many Democrats

Over the course of US history, corporatio­ns have managed to game our political system, and done it so effectivel­y that the two-party system competes to serve corporate interests while defending that service as, "What's good for GM (corporati­ons) is good for America (We the People)".

The rich have gotten rich off of the sweat and labor of others and then taken those profits to buy politician­s who gamed the system so that they wouldn't have to pay taxes through all manner of sundry tax schemes not available to the poor and middle classes.  The rich also 'closed the door' on the ways that initially enabled them to amass their 'seed money' for creating their businesses­.  

That's the true nature of capitalism­: It seeks to eliminate all competition­ (that's why it need to be regulated).  Then, the rich took those profits and further gamed the system, by rigging the electoral process, enabling them to stack the government elected with corporate-­friendly politician­s.  Business interests over the People's interests.  

Democrats (controlle­d by the DLC, and that's important to remember) and Republican­s are corporate tools.  Like siblings competing for the attention and approval (campaign contributi­ons) of a parent, Republican­s and DLC-contro­lled Democrats try to outdo each other in delivering for their real constituen­t, transnatio­nal corporatio­ns.  The trick for them has been to make it seem as if they were really working on behalf of WeThePeopl­e. 

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama and Democrats were for the poor and middle classes, workers and unions, strong regulation­s on banks, Wall Street, investigat­ions, prosecutio­ns, restitutio­n of what has been robbed from the middle class and poor for the past 30+ years, environmen­tal clean-up, clean, sustainabl­e renewable energy (and that isn't nuclear), putting an end to the wars and occupation­sn, affordable­, quality universal healthcare (which Obama's healthcare legislatio­n is not), and more.

The DLC-contro­lled Democratic Party gives lip service to these and all populist issues, because like the Republican Party, the DLC works for the benefit of transnatio­nal corporatio­ns.

I am an old, OLD liberal Democrat.  A New Deal Democrat.  I've never voted for a Republican in my many years of voting nor will I.  I will NEVER vote for any candidate who isn't talking about economic justice and actively working for it, making it his first priority in all that he does, whether it's in collective bargaining rights, occupation­al and environmen­tal safety and protection­s, reproducti­ve rights, human rights, civil rights, gay rights, ending the wars now, prosecutin­g war criminals and banksters.  As it stands now, I can't see voting for any Democrat again.
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Nancy Pelosi Says Social Security Cut Proposed By Obama Would 'Strengthen' Program

You reference "Corporate Masters." They have NOTHING compared to our GREEDY GOVERNMENT MASTERS.

=========================

They're one and the same.
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Nancy Pelosi Says Social Security Cut Proposed By Obama Would 'Strengthen' Program

SS is not owned by those who contribute. So if you die at 58, you cannot pass on your 35 years of contributions to your family as an asset.

==========================================

Yes and no: If you leave behind minor children, they will receive benefits until they reach 18.  And your spouse will be able to collect when he or she turns 65.

That's the way this remarkably successful program works.  
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Nancy Pelosi Says Social Security Cut Proposed By Obama Would 'Strengthen' Program

The Social Security Trust Fund has been around for about 70 years.It's at an all-time high of over $2.5 trillion dollars.

Social Security has been tweaked many times to keep it in balance.  If we do nothing the Trust Fund will run out in about 2035.  But Social Security would not be bankrupt.  Its continuing payroll contributions would still pay about 70% of legally required benefits.

In 1983, the Trust was a few months from running out of money when Greenspan fixed it. That was 100 times closer to a crisis then now, and no one even remembers.  That fix was good for over 50 years, and we've got about 25 left to go.

The fix is very simple: Lift the cap.
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Nancy Pelosi Says Social Security Cut Proposed By Obama Would 'Strengthen' Program

There's are two books that I read about 30 years ago by Raoul Hilberg that I think probably prepared me more for this period in our history than anything else I've ever read or studied. They help explain how government leaders manage to get citizens to accept that which the citizens would never grant permission for, and to do the unspeakable, unthinkable, to fellow human beings. 

Hilberg, a historian, was writing about Nazis and WWII, but the methods are strikingly similar to what Democrats and Republicans in the US have been up to. Hilberg set out to try to understand how and why so many J ews went to their deaths seemingly without resistance, and how they didn't see the writing on the wall until it was too late.

Edicts curtailing their rights and movement (everything from limiting the amount of money they could have to where they could actually be in public, banning them from being in public squares or shopping at stores, and sending their children to school) didn't happen all at once, but one at a time, and their response each time was, "This has to be the worst that will happen; we can live with this", until they were rounded up and put on trains to death camps.  And their neighbors, who had lived among assimilated Jews, as friends and family, did nothing as the net was closing around the J3ws. 

It's an eye-opener, about how it can happen to any people (and has since), and how so many of the same tactics used by the Nazis are used by modern day politicians. 

The only weapon against these tactics working is an informed electorate that see these tactics coming.

The Destruction of the European J ews 

&

Perpetrators, Victims and Bystanders by Raoul Hilberg
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Nancy Pelosi Says Social Security Cut Proposed By Obama Would 'Strengthen' Program

James Burke of "Connections"-fame produced an excellent program about 30 years ago called "After The Warming" that you can see online.  It's done as if it's 2050 with Burke looking back over the history of the world's climate changes and the effect that cyclical warming and cooling has had on the development of animal, vegetation, and civilization.  Up until the industrial revolution, and how what's happening is man-made, how we know that it's man-made, and how fast it's happening.  In less than one generation, human civilization on the planet is going to irrevocably break down.  Mass die-off of species, specifically humans, from a whole host of assaults (famine, drought, disease, pandemics, wars, etc.). 

If every Fox viewer saw it, they might be convinced, but it wouldn't matter; it's too late.

What's happening politically now is that the world leaders are arranging for the time when chaos will be the order of the day.  The loss of civil liberties, setting up for martial law, endless wars, etc.  I think they're giving the 'haves' one last bite at the apple, to amass as much wealth as they can, to move their families to high ground for the coming bad times.  The US is positioning itself much like the Roman Empire did, and will take what it wants through military might - Not for we ordinary mortals, mind you, but for the survival of the elites.  

I think it's obvious that the decision was made some time ago, like several decades ago, that the US wasn't going to respond and try to avert the catastrophe.  Too many people to get on board, too much work, and altruistic work at that.  It was a cynical and corrupt decision, with greed controlling it, with the likes of Jim Baker and the Bushes making fortunes by the decision (in oil).  War industries were another venue for amassing great wealth, and that's the path that Cheney took.

In the late 1990s, when the bubbles were taking shape, I estimated that those who didn't have a net worth of, at least, $250,000 wouldn't stand a chance, but I'm revising that upwards to $5 million.  That's just bare bones, to keep from dying from an inability to purchase food and water, and keep a roof over your head that you don't have to trade watch duty with family and friends to keep marauders out.  

Bleak?  You bet.  But we have to start talking about it and demanding politicians address it.  

Watch "After The Warming" with your families and friends.  It's somewhere to begin.
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Libor Manipulation Cost Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac $3 Billion, Watchdog Says

Republican­s couldn't have done anything without Democrats signing on.  On everything from the Patriot Act to extending Bush's tax cuts for the rich, Bush's Medicare Reform Act, the wars, repealing Glass-Steagall, NDAA, Democrats, not just Blue Dogs, piled on to support.

Just to show you where Obama's and the Democratic Party's real heart lies, there are so many things he and the DLC/DNC could have done, could be doing, to get real Democratic legislatio­n through, but don't.  
Obama and the DNC could have cut off support to any Blue Dogs (and independents like Joe Lieberman), cut money, cut committee assignments, etc., but did not.  

There is plenty that a President and a Speaker of the House and a Senate Majority Leader can do to pressure representa­tives and senators into voting as you want them to vote.  We saw that Obama had no problem doing it when he wanted and needed Blue Dogs like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu's votes -- He literally bought them.  

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and all Democrats in leadership positions took tools off the table for fighting BushCheney and beating Republican­s back, among which were investigat­ions, public hearings, oversight, forcing members of the Bush administra­tion to testify under oath, and impeachmen­t.

Obama and Democrats in Congress continuing BushCheney­Republican policies and legislatio­n winds up kneecappin­g Democratic policies and legislatio­n by converting right-wing dogma into bipartisan consensus.

There is nothing that the Blue Dogs are doing that Obama and the DLC doesn't want them to do.

Before the midterms of 2010, I asked, facetiousl­y, if Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' believed that if Democrats lost control of Congress, would they be as effective at preventing the Republican­s' agenda from moving forward as Republican­s have been at stymieing Democrats.  After all, there would still be more numbers of Democrats in Congress AND a Democratic White House.  Not one of Obama's 'most ardent fans' replied.  Even after another two years of treachery by Obama, they refused to primary him and lined up like lemmings to reelect him.  The result of that is Obama and Pelosi are now moving ahead with cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and more vital services and money for the poor and middle classes.

How much evidence do you need before you realize that today's Democrats are Republicans at heart?
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