More will sometimes be demanded of you than is reasonable. Bear it meekly, and exhaust your time and strength in performing your duties, rather than vindicating your rights.

~ Horace Mann

It's time to end the madness. Tell Congress to pass a clean debt ceiling increase. Now! http://bit.ly/nH8rHb

Norway shooter/bomber says ammo used in attack was bought online legally from U.S

Its Math Not Politics; Debt, Spending, Taxes, House in Order

Getting your house in order is math not politics. Revenue and income versus expenditures. Create a low overhead live below your means and have plenty of cash to spare. It doesn't take a genius to figure this out.

Or you can be a mindless mummy and buy everything you see on TV. How about a Lexus and a Big Screen TV and don't forget the McMansion. Congratulations on being a big fucking deal. You're now a deadbeat and house poor. Ever hear of that phrase before-house poor. Your credit cards are for emergencies not your seventeenth pair of shoes, your thirteenth sweater or a jet ski.

So the Tea Party (corporate) is against tax reforms which can raise more revenue and be fairer that's what the hold up is regarding the current manufactured crisis in Washington. Corporate (Tea Party) doesn't want to give up their tax loopholes and lowest in the land tax rates.

Unfortunately the credit cards are due and we have to pay our debts from the two wars that Bush held off the books. Obama put them back on the books - that jerk and his stupid accountability and transparency.

Other maneuvers by Bush and Cheney historically include the "starve the beast" tax cuts a favorite religious mantra since Regan, and medicare part D. How come republicans never care about this stuff when they are in office and make the democratic party clean it up when they win election? Its a stupid game isn't it and played by stupid people who apparently aren't very good at math.

I agree with comments about pork and congressmen not being able to control themselves, and I would like to see a leaner meaner government. But I realize you can not run a continental sized country from sea to shining sea of 300 million plus people on a Caribbean island sized budget. Drowning the cop in the bathtub is a bad idea for holding the rich, powerful and corruptible accountable.

I would also add that if we are going to let the inner city public schools crumble and only offer low paying, low skill jobs to 80% of the public then we better make sure they have enough to put a roof over their heads and bread on the table for their entire lives. Desperate people do desperate things and crime goes up.

You might say - so what lock them in jail - but its far more expensive to keep a person in jail (50k a year) and train them to be even more violent and deviant than it is to provide them with an education and upward mobility. In that scenario the productivity of the whole country goes up the demand for goods and services go up and health care costs go down. Who would want that?

Apparently the status quo wants a third world country with a small segment of privileged rich white people calling the shots (think South Africa) or do we want a vibrant democracy firing on all cylinders?

Racism in all its many forms across the board religious racism, racism against skin color, cultural racism, gender racism is counter productive, has been and will continue to be so. Something the ruthless right hasn't figured out yet. But its time to grow up not only in America but throughout the world, and do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Then and only then will we have our house in order. The clock is ticking, and the whistle is screaming.

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
Benjamin Franklin

"When we drink, we get drunk. When we get drunk, we fall asleep. When we fall asleep, we commit no sin. When we commit no sin, we go to heaven. So, let's all get drunk and go to heaven!"
George Bernard Shaw

If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then giving Fido only two of them.

~ Phil Pastoret

Sixty-two percent of Americans want a balanced approach to the deficit — consisting of both spending cuts and tax increases. That includes 54% of Republicans.

"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself." Mark Twain

Businesses hire more people ONLY when they have more customers than they can handle with their current work force.

only one thing really creates jobs and that is when
people who are NOT wealthy, which is the majority and the rest of us, have more money to spend on goods and services.

There was a certain demagogue in the last century who said the key to a "big lie" was to keep repeating it until people no longer questioned it. The big lie of our era is that tax cuts for wealthy
people creates jobs.

Petition @CareerBuilder & @MonsterCareers to refuse ads that discriminate against unemployed workers http://act.ly/415 #p2 #jobs RT to sign

Is your town suffering from covert consolidation? Go here to find out what I’m talking about: http://bit.ly/mb8hXi

Tell Congress: a carbon tax is a budget and #climate solution http://bit.ly/qM22Sa via @foe_us

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.

~ Joseph Wood Krutch

From the Wall Street Journal - "The idea seems to be that if the House GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a default crisis or shutdown will ensue, and the public will turn en masse against . . . Barack Obama. The Republican House that failed to raise the debt ceiling would somehow escape all blame. Then Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced-budget amendment and reform entitlements, and the tea-party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor."

A sketch has charm because of its truth -- not because it is unfinished.

~ Charles Hawthorne

The world consumes 1 million plastic shopping bags every minute – and the industry is fighting hard to keep it that way. http://ping.fm/xY8sE

In his speech last night, President Obama called on Americans to contact Congress demanding an approach to the deficit that makes millionaires and corporations pay their share. So many did that they crashed the House's servers.

Tell #Congress & @BarackObama: no cuts 2 basic programs n #debtceiling fix, tax wealthiest instead:

The biggest assault ever on our air, water, lands & wildlife. Take action: http://bit.ly/n9JFBp #green #environment @LCVoters

With eight days until the country officially defaults on its debts, sparking a worldwide credit crisis, the House of Representatives is busy with legislation aimed at repealing environmental regulations and stymieing conservation efforts -

If you can't draw something, just draw it.

~ Dieter Rot

It is important to love the world, and to regard it, ourselves, and all beings with love, admiration, and respect.

~ Hermann Hesse

Folks will know how large your soul is by the way you treat a dog.

Charles F. Duran

Each moment of the year has its own beauty... a picture which was never seen before and which shall never be seen again.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

May you live all the days of your life.

~ Jonathon Swift

#CaptainCantor would rather watch the economy sink than ask his friends to help save it. http://bit.ly/ph640q #p2 #debt via @foe_us

Tell your representative: Stop the Extinction Rider! http://bit.ly/nDseYn @CREDOMobile

It’s long past time for the Justice Department to #InvestigateNewsCorp – RT if you agree. http://bit.ly/invstgte

Protect our national forests from the ills of fracking! http://bit.ly/pbuF9T Pls rt @foodandwater #frack #banfrackingnow

8 days until #default. Tell #congress to pass a clean #debtceiling vote NOW http://bit.ly/pHNcJ3 via @usaction #p2 #topprog

"Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit." Henry David Thoreau

When the bird and the book disagree, always believe the bird.

~ John James Audobon

Peaceful activists in #Burma are being detained in lice-infested dog kennels. Take action to help free them: http://bit.ly/qQ2AMg #p2

"Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success." Oscar Wilde

Of the 40 bills Eric Cantor (R-Va) has sponsored in his congressional career only two have successfully passed: one renamed a post office and the other re-designed the nickel.

Senate Republicans are ready to consider a nomination to the consumer bureau just as soon as it's abolished

Animals are such agreeable friends. They ask no questions, they pass no judgments.

~ Unknown

Life finds its purpose and fulfillment in the expansion of happiness.

~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

It is impossible to keep a straight face in the presence of one or more kittens.

- Cynthia E. Varnado

Music is a means of rapid transportation.

~ John Cage

If you count payroll taxes, the richest 400 Americans, pocketing over $354 million a year, are paying a lower tax rate than a hospital orderly working for $29,000 a year.

Corporate taxes which brought in over 6% of GDP in 1950 are now near historic lows of barely 1%.

Americans are paying the lowest percentage of their income in taxes since 1958

The point is "your voice" has power - not that we wasted time on this silly backwards looking bill- those idiots have to live with themselves.

Even co-sponsors of the bill changed direction and voted to move our country forward in the quest to save energy and promote innovation.

Your voice has power. Dozens of lawmakers that you contacted, from both sides of the aisle, changed their votes and pulled their support for HR 2417.

After thousands of letters and phone calls to Congress, the BULB Act was voted down: 233 to 193.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has a serious conflict of interest in the debt ceiling debate. Cantor makes money if America defaults.

The debt ceiling was an absolute non-issue during George W. Bush White House tenure. It was raised ten times in those years with barely a peep

Tell Congress: Investigate News Corporation! http://bit.ly/n969Xi @CREDOMobile

Debt was also incurred by Bush's two behemoth tax cut giveaways to the rich, a relentless gut of regulations that made banks' and corporations' tax liability fall to historic low levels, and then capped by a taxpayer giveaway to Wall Street banks and financial houses.

The debt ceiling was an absolute non-issue during George W. Bush White House tenure. It was raised ten times in those years with barely a peep that the U.S. was in mortal danger of a fiscal crash and burn under its great weight of debt. This debt was incurred almost exclusively by Bush's two wasteful wars

The GOP's war over America's debt ceiling is not about America's debt, it's about President Obama.

Yesterday, in part because of activists like you, all the real Democrats in the Democratic recall primary to unseat Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's right-wing allies in the State Senate won.

State of the Union - Small Government Wet Dream

You can't fund a government that is responsible for the infrastructure of a massively huge continental United States with over 300 million people based on the size of an island in the Caribbean.

It’s all very nice to have the romantic notion of small government. But if you want a civilized society with safe roads, food, water, air and a thriving, diversified economy - you gotta pay for it - the problem is everyone is trying to subvert the system (avoid taxes for their own personal gain and squeeze out the competition) those taxes actually provide for the civilized part of society, fire and safety, education, safety nets instead of anarchy.

We have got a lot of self interested crooks and ego maniacs seeing how much they can steal and get away with, but from a continent wide macro-economic point of view they are cutting our nose off to spite our face.

We need a strong middle class to support our consumer driven economy. We are not all capitalist living solely off stock market returns. Most of us are just entrepreneurs who own shops and depend on foot traffic. Two different economies operating under one system and right now Wall Street is getting all the benefits while Main Street is getting squeezed.

We have to take into account those people who have now moved on to retirement age. It’s our duty and responsibility to take care of them in their retirement because they were the ones who made the engine go (the cogs in the wheel) while we were coming up. That's how generations work. That's how the economy transitions successfully.

This idea that people receiving assistance, or social security is sucking government tit is not only crass but conveniently forgets the individual’s contribution to the very existence and functioning of our economy before we got here.

Those who came before use laid the groundwork as we lay the ground work for the next generation. After a lifetime of working, purchasing, and procreating they have earned their social security and health-care. Kicking them to the curb (literally) only creates a drain on the whole system. That's not in the best interest of the Country.

So no CEO's don't deserve special status, aren't the only ones who make the economy go, and quite frankly haven't created any jobs after decades of tax breaks.

Calling it one thing but really just starving the government because of greed sold as the romantic notion of small government and frontier justice as an equivalent of actual justice is unrealistic and not very smart.

Vilifying our seniors, war veterans, sick and poor solves nothing and creates bigger problems. Instead of the new generation coming in trying to game the system to accumulate as much individual wealth as possible, and then hoarding it off shore they should and if they understood reinvest in what takes care of and sustains them - America.

We need to think about the whole of society and what serves our country the best. If you want to go it alone move to Somalia. Good luck getting an appliance repair man over there or finding a safe bank to deposit your money.

No ones talking about handouts to freeloaders, but if you don't want drug dealers, violence, con-artists and crooks you better damn well make sure the educational system is accessible and equitable for all who wish to participate.

The Declaration of Independence starts off "WE" the people - not ME who says screw everybody else I got mine and most of yours. WE have laws to prevent that-WE should enforce them. WE don't to our own demise. Dust off the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (too big to fail goes away) and close the tax loopholes - problem solved.

Take action here

A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.

~ Elton Trueblood

Tell your senator: Send a message to @barackobama to take #Medicare and #SocialSecurity cuts off the table #p2 http://bit.ly/nsPmnE

But climate change is a reality. And big polluters -- drawing from the playbook used by the big tobacco companies years ago -- are trying to fool citizens and consumers around the globe by denying proven science

Every day, millions of dollars are spent trying to convince you that climate change isn't real. Or that humans don't cause it. Or that the biggest polluters are trying to solve the problem.

The Daily Mirror reports that NOTW editors approached a former New York City police officer about hacking the phones of 9/11 family members.

"I've been hearing from my Republican friends for quite some time that it is a moral imperative to tackle our debt and our deficit," he said. "What I've said to them is, 'let's go.'" President Obama

"The debt ceiling is a phony crisis that won't have consequences...There are enough assets in Social Security and Medicare to pay the benefits of those programs for several years," Jim DeMint (R-SC)

Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering.

Arthur C. Clarke

Tell @ArchCoal not to mine for #coal under a West Virginia high school http://bit.ly/mUhdDE via @CREDOmobile

Tell your representative to OPPOSE legislation repealing light bulb efficiency standards: http://bit.ly/n2ai9j #energy @LCVoters

Andrew Cuomo can bring the hammer down on the Koch Brothers – RT if you want him to do so. http://bit.ly/CmoKch #CuomoVsKoch

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has a serious conflict of interest in the debt ceiling debate. Cantor makes money if America defaults.

Paths cannot be taught, they can only be taken.

~ Zen Saying

“Wilderness, above all its definitions and uses, is sacred space,with sacred powers, the heart of a moral world.” -- Michael Frome

Tell #Congress how to fix the deficit: #tax the rich, end the #war, leave the #americandream alone http://bit.ly/qPXU04 via @usaction

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

- Albert Einstein (thanks rainbow)

Monday is #WorldPopulationDay. Did you know global population will hit #7billion in October this year? http://ow.ly/5z9Zb

Kill All The Wolves Now Say the Citizens of Wyoming

The gun yahoos make me sick - with one hand grabbing federal tax payer dollars including grazing on tax payer public land, but with the other hand fighting the will of the tax payers. If they don't want wolves in their state then they shouldn't get any federal dollars for anything.

The Country belongs to all of the tax payers not just their puny, individual commercial concerns. I'm sick of bending over backwards for them because why - they're ranchers- who cares? Go out of business already if you can't afford it - its called the cost of doing business. Or are these guys members of the pampered too big to fail set? I thought they were rugged individualist - then give them their guns, their ammo, and let them run their state on the profits of the hunting industry they are whoring out for.

Let the big tough guys with their drunken weekend dress up in camouflage playing Jeremiah Johnson go it alone. You want to subvert the majority agreed upon laws in a democracy - then you don't get any federal dollars for anything-tough guys.

What a joke. They are obviously not team players when it comes to America. All federal money should be pulled from the state if they so blatantly, and arrogantly think they are above the will of the majority and the negotiated federal laws.

I'm sick of weak politicians trying to keep everyone happy and not taking a stand. This is just like oil companies taking tax dollars in one hand (subsidies) and refusing to clean up their oil disasters in the other - same deal. Not team players? You don't get team dollars. End of story.

Paul Burke
Author-Journey Home

Here's the News Article if you want to comment

Never, for the sake of peace and quiet, deny your own experience or convictions.

~ Dag Hammarskjold

* Close tax loopholes instead of giving tax holidays to corporations. Urge your member to cosponsor the Stop Tax Havens Abuse Act when it is reintroduced and oppose proposals to give a tax holiday to corporations on overseas profits.

* Increase tax rates for millionaires and billionaires. Support the Fairness in Taxation Act (HR 1124).

A Thriving Environment = A Thriving Economy

As big agriculture continues to consolidate in an effort for one faction to corner the market (like Monsanto) and following the successful lead of other industries, big oil, telecoms, and finance, they will become harder and harder to bring action against because of the overwhelming cost involved.

It’s imperative not to put off any actionable issues in lieu of the unfortunate fact of consolidation equaling power and deeper than deep pockets. The guy with the gold makes the rules - an old saying but true and it’s meant to underscore that in order for tax payers to hold industry accountable for its downstream waste we need to consolidate and grow our financial resources exponentially through the non-profits representing our health.

Capitalism is unable to look at the macro-economic picture. Its drive for its own insulated, industry, and company specific profit margin, doesn't take into account the entirety of our highly integrated, and counter dependent economy. We are living through a time right now where we are witnessing the incestuous, self destructive tendency of unregulated capitalism.

Decimating the middle class the largest segment of the population and largest market segment in a consumer driven economy for one market sectors profit margin, consolidated into two or three firms, employing a few thousand people, is beyond short sighted. It’s blind to its own undoing.

Regulation not only creates jobs expanding the power, reach and capacity of the overall markets, and invigorating “all” the market sectors, but it also prevents the self destructive nature of capitalism and ensures the broader markets sustainability.

A thriving environment = a thriving economy.
Take Action Here

Chesapeake Bay Journal

I have meant what I have done. Or--I have often meant what I have done. Or--I have sometimes meant what I have done. Or--I have tried to mean what I was doing.

~ Jasper Johns

In private, GOP lawmakers have pressed for tens of millions of dollars in federal help for their districts, even while decrying federal spending in front of the national press corps

The Debt Crisis and Default Hysteria- I Call Bullshit

I'm still exhausted from the health-care debate I was in that one deep and still think a medicare buy in for all is the sane way to go. It pumps money back into the system and we can get away from the health for profit insurance scam we have posing as legitimate business in this Country.

Now onto the Debt Crisis and the default trauma, hysteria, fear pumping through our media and into our consciousness. I call bullshit.

They'll be a deal don't fall for the rhetoric. Why, how can I be so sure? Simple:

The screwball politicians are all heavily invested. Crashing the economy might score them political points but it might also blow up in their stupid faces with a huge voter backlash. Believe me the politicians fear that big time despite all the penny ante bravado in their phony faces.

The American people know who the corporate tea party is, and which political party worships more fervently at their corporate, moneyed alter.

One thing is for sure - and this is why there will be an oh so dramatic last second deal (yawn) - The millionaires in Congress, their portfolios, their wealth, the wealth of their backers will be destroyed, decimated, and pulverized with the rest of us. There's no where to hide your money in a global meltdown.

Rest assured our heroic, self serving politicians will protect their "own" self interest. Which is why Wall Street got a bail out and the rest of us got foreclosed on.

The financial backers are taken care of but the voters stiffed and sufficiently angered in order to win an election. It's a beautiful calculation but all too plain to see to veteran followers of politics, and the adults in the room.

Remember for a large segment of our politicians this is a career choice, sometimes a career choice of last resort, a large percentage of our heroic politicians never even earned a college degree. Going into politics for them is "NOT" a call to service.

Politics and politicians appeal to emotion to whip up voters. Take your susceptibility to emotion out of the equation, and politics is as predictable as the sun rising.

The guy with the gold makes the rules.

That is why the poor and sick are being kicked to the curb and uneducated.

We are not a great, righteous or even christian nation unless we do the right thing by caring for and helping each other. You can not justify greed or legitimize inequity. Those on the inside have always just tried to see how much they can steal.

If you want a great country opportunity must be extended to all and the sick and the elderly cared for properly. It will create jobs so its a win, win. Except for the party out of power who needs the voters to be jobless and angry in order to win the next election. They are great, calculating people aren't they? Are they really worth your vote?

Check their resume's, see whose paying them and for god's sake stop voting for used car salesmen, or pest control operators, or failed baseball owners.

This has been a public service announcement - turn off your regularly scheduled brain washing.

Learn More and Take Action Here!

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

~ Ray Bradbury

Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

Gloria Steinem

Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees.

~ Karle Wilson Baker

Beauty is whatever gives joy.

~ Hugh Nibley

To draw, you must close your eyes and sing.

~ Pablo Picasso

Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose.

Eckhart Tolle

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

~ Albert Camus

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does. (George Bernard Shaw) - Thanks Penn!

and $30 million (over ten years) that could be saved by eliminating a withholding provision for those lucky enough to win at horse and dog race tracks

the $162 million in expensing rules for U.S. film and television productions;

Third Way urges lawmakers to highlight: an estimated $40 million in write-offs that owners of motorsports entertainment complexes are given;