a backlog of insight...

it's that time of year...the snow is falling and the state is trying to murder some folks...so I am busy...and without being able to think, I will let some others do the explaining for me...

"liberty loving liberals founded our country and enshrined its freedoms. dedicated, fair-minded liberals ended slavery and brought women the vote. hardworking liberals fought the goon squads and won workers' rights: the eight-hour day, the weekend, health plans, and pensions. courageous liberals risked their lives to win civil rights. caring liberals have made the vulnerable elderly secure with social security and healthy with medicare. forward-looking liberals have extended education to everyone. liberals who love the land have been pressuring our environment so you can enjoy it. nobody loves liberty and life more than a liberal. when conservatives say you're on your own, we liberals know we're all in this together." - G. Lakoff (and yet THEY claim to have "traditional american values")

"in our personal ambitions we are individualists. but in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up, or else we all go down, as one people." - FDR (it's not only good humanity, it's good business to care about your neighbor across the tracks)

"upward redistribution of wealth - transfers of wealth from ordinary tax-payers to wealthy owners, managers and stockholders. these interventions in the market [corporate bailouts, no-bid contracts, subsidies for agribusiness and drug companies] promote what conservatives believe is the vital national interest. but when government intervenes on behalf of working people, consumers, or the environment, conservatives scream foul and invoke the 'free market.'" - G. Lakoff (apparently hypocrisy isn't hypocrisy if it screws the rest of us)

"every time we as black americans stand up for what is right, they say its for greed of money. its a fight for longevity, truth and justice for the betterment of life, the environment...and government is the stairway to upward mobility." - Margie Eugene-Richard (the woman fought Shell and won for poisoning poor black communities)

"the motivation for conservative tort reform is to make the market 'free' from the loss of profit through lawsuits for harming or defrauding the public." - G. Lakoff (because responsibility ends with the rich for conservatives)

"preventive war is committing suicide for fear of death." - Otto von Bismarck (thanks for slitting our collective wrists george)

"we reject absolutely any notion that the United States should justify its actions by the standards of totalitarians [or terrorists]...of course we must defend our democracy. but in defending it, we must resist undermining the very virtures we are defending." - Church Committee (1975) (thank god we conquered the scourge of totalitarianism, fascism and communism so that we could spy on our own citizens in violation of federal law and the constitution, hold folks indefinitely without charge in violation of 800 years of our tradition, and torture folks in violation of the constitution, our laws, and every international law)

"much as we celebrate the exceptional example, americans all too readily condemn its counterpart - the immigrant whose luck and station in life will never correspond to the effort he puts into bettering himself and his family, and who can consider himself to have succeeded only because the circumstances he left behind were so horrific. [that immigrant] provides insurance against our own failings: we will not fall as low as the foreigner, and we will have an outsider to blame." - Michelle Wucker (and so we look to the mexican and know we are better...shame)

"americans had lost confidence in the founding values that made ours the greatest country in the world, and so they betrayed those values." - M. Wucker (and now we again learn that we do not learn from history)

"the first US soldier killed in combat during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Lance Cpl. Jose Antonio Gutierrez, had once been an illegal immigrant." - M. Wucker (wait...you mean they aren't a horrible scourge on our nation?)

"we want the american image in the middle east to be good, and one of the best ways to make that happen is to bring in students." - Lisa Anderson (dean of columbia school of international affairs remembering former libyan students' fondness of the US) (how the fuck are we going to do that by slamming the doors?)

"i hope we shall 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." - Thomas Jefferson (1816) (so did we tom...unfortunately, after some 200 years...they used an over-the-top move and have our government all but pinned)

"a couple with two children would have to work 3.3 full time minimum wage jobs to make ends meet. that's 132 hours a week." - Holly Sklar (but really, the conservative schmucks who hate the working man are the one's with "family values"...because there is nothing better for a family than not having parents around)

"we raised the minimum wage by 90 cents for about 9 million workers and inflation remained so low the effect was almost undetectable." - Ross Eisenbrey (and the lies keep coming...and the people keep buying them)

"the US Department of Agriculture issued a comprehensive report in 2000 analyzing what would happen if the minimum wage was increased by 50 cents an hour. The agency found that such a move would raise food prices 'by less than 1/4 of a percentage point.' that's like going to the grocery, spending $100 on food for your family, and having to pay less than a quarter more on the whole bill. for minimum wage workers below the poverty line, the extra $1000 per year from such a raise is sure to cover that." - David Sirota (but really, they care about you...that is why they won't give you a pay raise yet give themselves big raises...and they won't give you government health insurance because "it wouldn't be quality" and then use the same government health insurance...throw the bums out)

"according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, such an endeavor [the government paying for extending private health insurance coverage to the 45 million uninsured americans] would cost about $69 billion a year. by contrast, the wealthiest 5 percent of americans are getting an average $75 billion a year from the Bush tax cuts." - D. Sirota (but seriously...what is more important? 45 million more americans with access to medicine...or the obscenely rich getting another few yachts?)

"over the last five years the amount the major medical malpractice insurers have collected in premiums has more than doubled, while their claims payouts have remained essentially flat." - Jay Angoff (former insurance commissioner of Missouri) (and yet those same obscenely wealthy insurance companies tell us it is the fault of medical malpractice lawsuits that rates are so high and doctors have to raise prices or leave town...so tell us Big Insurance...why exactly are you robbing us? why, in D.C. did you raise premiums on doctors over 50 percent while the total paid in claims dropped 10 percent between 2000 and 2004?)

"the truth is that we can no longer afford not to have [a single payer] system. we now spend more than $5,000 a year on health care for each American - more than twice the average of other advanced countries. but nearly half of that amount is wasted." - Marcia Angell (NE Journal of Medicine, editor) (yup...your "free" market health care is costing us twice as much as guaranteeing it to everyone)

"in 2004, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, one of the world's biggest drug makers, actually sent a memo to its own employees asking them to refrain from using their health insurance to purchase brand-name medicines. the reason? the drug company was having trouble paying the astronomical drug prices in the US." - D. Sirota (and while the government raids buses of seniors trying to get cheaper medicine and they pressure canada to cut off sick folks our tax dollars pay for one third of their R and D...their share of R and D? half of what they spend on marketing)

"americans are dying without appropriate drugs because my industry and congress are more concerned about protecting astronomical profits for conglomerates than they are about protecting the health of americans." - Peter Rost (Pfizer VP)

"i know that in almost every case of strikes, the men have just cause for complaint." - Abraham Lincoln (every time somebody blasts unions - who Big Business outspends in the political arena ten-fold - ask them if they enjoy not having their children work...or their weekend off...or their 40 hour work week...or their pension...or their insurance - if they are lucky enough to have it...and then tell them to fuck themselves)

"corporations are 69 percent more likely to be sanctioned for frivolous cases than individuals represented by trial lawyers." - Public Citizen (10/4/04) (and those same corporations tell us that the lady bringing suit because their product killed her child needs to be stopped...never mind that the average jury award is around $40,000 - down $25,000 from the early 1990's - and punitive damages only are dolled out in 6 percent of all trials - which barely any cases get to - and even then...a whopping $50,000 - hardly punitive for a multi-billion dollar corporation).

and finally...more deceit from the biggest disaster ever to occupy the white house...

"these measures were enacted with broad support in both parties. they reflect a firm resolve to uphold and respect the civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, while dealing swiftly and severely with terrorists. now comes the duty of carrying them out. and i can assure all americans that these important new statutes will be enforced to the full." - GW Bush (commenting on the revisions to FISA as he simultaneously ordered their violation...a federal felony)

"any time you hear the US government talking about wiretap, it requires - a wiretap requires a court order. nothing has changed, by the way. when we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." - GW Bush (4/20/2004) (years after approving a program that violated FISA - punishable by 5 years under federal law - and spied on americans without a court order...but really, you should only be concerned if he is lying about who sucked his dick).

New Whigs. We Are You.

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