Remember Solyndra?

Do you remember Solyndra?  This is the solar panel manufacturer that went bankrupt after receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in government money.  The Obama administration was blamed for the program.  Loosing and wasting your tax dollars on left wing liberal projects that were supposed to help lower our carbon foot print.  So, was it really as bad as you remember?

This is a short post in reply to a FB post where I'm talking about how peoples views are often distorted by misreporting and out right lying by not only Fox News but most media outlets.  To often people latch on to this stuff and don't let go.  I still hear people make comments about Solyndra and frankly most people have no real clue what happened or even what "Solyndra" was.  They just use it as a "buzz word".  When people bag Obama there are a few "go to" terms.  Solyndra! Benghazi! Obama Death Panels!

The reality is most often very different from the shit that is in people's heads.  Yes "shit".  It is a very apt word to describe the "information" it is largely all the stuff that wasn't useful and probably just out right fake.  Much like what you flush down the toilet every day from your previous days meals.

Did you know that the program that gave Solyndra money was supposed to loose hundreds of millions of dollars.  $780 million dollars has been lost by 4 companies including Solyndra.  The Department of energy factored into the loan program these types of losses.  The whole program was supposed to loose money over all.  The costs was deemed acceptable because of the innovation it was expected to spur.  So Solyndra lost about 528 million dollars.  Three other companies folding lost the program another 150 million dollars.

Before I go on let me talk a bit about the DOE's renewable-energy loan program.  Normally we would hope that private equity providers, like Mitt Romney has made so much money off of, would be the source of funding for programs like this but people like Mitt Romney don't like these "risky" investments do they.  He doesn't actually like investments full stop when you talk about building up companies.  He's more for going in, transferring debt then dumping or dismantling the companies.  So the government had to step in.  The government has been doing this type of stuff for a long time.  Obama's administration isn't the first and it certainly won't be the last to issue loans like these.  Hell the banks get loans like these all the time from the government and they loose hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars.

Anyway what is the state of the renewable-energy loan program that was budgeted to actually loose money.  Well turns out that the program is going to make any were between 5 and 6 billion dollars.   Not bad aye.  Have you heard Fox News or any other news organization talk about that?  Did they explain that the program was supposed to loose money but ended up being a bit of a cash cow?  Probably not.  Doesn't work well with the view that the vocal right wing want to push that Obama wants to destroy America.

Mitch McConnell, GOP Hypocrite Grand Wizard and Senate Minority Leader.

Mitch McConnell, Republican leader in the Senate is complaining that Alison Grimes who is running against him in Kentucky has received some funding from out of state, notably from some Hollywood people like Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Ben Affleck, J.J. Abrams, Steven Spielberg, Danny DeVito, Jack Black, Jennifer Garner, Mike Myers, James Cameron, Jon Hamm and Nicolas Cage to name just a few.  She raise $250,000 from these people.  Now you can ask why they care if they aren't from Kentucky she is taking their money.  But then you'd have to realize that Mitch McConnell got about $16,000,000.00 from out of state.  That is 80% of the money he has raised.  So apparently  to the leading GOP Senator  raising $250,000 from individual citizens is worse then him raising $16,000,000.00 from bank executives that he does everything he can to keep them from getting in trouble when they break the law.
Who are you more worried about having an adverse influence on politicians.  Cameron Diaz or someone like Winfried Bischoff, CEO of Citigroup in 2008, who thought it was a good idea to use federal bail out money to give over $3,500,000,000.00 in bonuses to executives.  Bonuses ... to executives that played a major role in the banking collapse.
This is just one reason I say Fuck the GOP.  This is like Ted Bundy criticizing me for bumping into someone on the street.  As Jon Stuart says these GOP members just live on Bullshit mountain and not in the real world.
This old white man needs to be booted out of office.  I would love to see some new faces take their place.

How about this ... let us get fucking big money out of politics all together.  http://www.wolf-pac.com/ is an organisation not funding politicians but funding the fight to reclaim real citizens rights.  Almost all Americans agree that the federal government is being destroyed and control by corporate and big money donors.  We need 33 states to call for an amendments convention of the states.  We have 1 state down 32 to go.  Because corporations are not people.  Unfortunately they are treated better then people.  They don't get in trouble when they break the law like we do.  If I steal a few hundred dollars I'll be arrested and serve some time in jail.  If a national bank defrauds millions of Americans for hundreds of millions of dollars no one goes to jail and at worst they are hit with a fine of just a small portion of the money that they've stolen.

Go and see how you can help

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End Corporate Welfare!

So every time you complain about some family getting a few hundred dollars in government assistance please don't be a hypocrite, complain a few hundred thousand times when some, very profitable, multi-national corporation gets hundreds of millions of dollars from that same government.  Me personally I'd rather help hundreds of thousands of families in need rather then just one corporation that is already profitable and we do this for tons of corporations.  But they control the mainstream media and have most Americans thinking it is low-income families that are the cause of all of America's problems.

Paul Ryan wants every American to have to pull themselves up by their own boot straps.  The public schools he went to he wants destroyed and privatized.  Look how that has worked for Universities where it is obvious that only the rich or ultra gifted may hope to attend such expensive schools.  He wants to destroy social security and funnel those funds towards lowering taxes for the rich.  A program he used to help pay for his tuition for Miami University.  He will vote for unfunded programs like Medicare part D when a republican puts them forward but fully funded programs like the Affordable Healthcare Act he'll appose because a democratic president puts it forward, even though "Obamacare" is a republican idea.

Like most GOP politicians, and sadly to many democratic ones too, he has no problem rewarding the rich with extra prizes while making it harder and harder for lower and middle class Americans to actually make it in America.  An attitude that if you inherit millions or, even better, billions, that you are some how better and more deserving then those born into poverty.  That for this privileged birth you should be given orders of magnitude more assistance from the government despite the fact that you don't actually need it.  The end goal for him is to help the rich get richer.  That the worth of government spending is how much money can you make with the money that the government can give you.  Sure everyone knows a rich person can take millions and makes some profit with it.  But a poor person that will just spend a few dollars you give to them on something useless like food is stupid.  They ignore all the losses that happen when the rich fail multiple times.

Trump has made a career out of filing for corporate bankruptcy.  He has already done it 4 times now, effectively, and sadly legally, stealing from others.  Yet so many in the GOP will support this type of man as ideal candidate for political office.  To many rich people, and those that desire to be rich, are happy to help the rich get richer off the dime of American's those in the middle and lower economic range.

Is it fair that we, the people, bail out banks that are "to big to fail" with trillions of our dollars because they gambled with our money in markets they wanted to fail?  Is it fair that we allow them to simply create off shore shell companies to avoid paying billions of dollars every year in taxes?  Is it fair that we subsidize ventures they engage in where they again make massive profits from knowing that they won't pay taxes on those profits?

So the next time you complain about having to subsidize little johnny's school lunch STFU and bitch about Citigroup, and countless other corporations, reaming you to the order of hundreds of billions of dollars a year!

The only way we'll get this system changed is to get the big money out of politics.  Stop the rich and multi-national corporations from legally bribing politicians into passing more and more laws that only benefit the rich while making every attempt to stop providing little Johnny with, probably, the one decent meal he might even get in a day.  Go to WolfPac and help regain control of your government in the manner the founding fathers provided for us.

http://www.wolf-pac.com/

What do you think about the Keystone pipeline? Is the reality what you think it is?

If you listen to the GOP you'll get a different story on a different day about why the USA needs the Keystone pipeline expansion.

They'll say that the USA needs it for energy independence. They'll say that the USA needs it to develop our resources. They'll say that the USA needs it for the jobs it will create.   Now they say we need it to make Russia weaker.

What is the reality.  The reality is their big donors in the Oil and Gas industry want it so they can make more money.  Plain and simple.
Let us look as some facts that are easily understood that show how much of a lie the GOP is pushing and how many Americans are swallowing it hook line and sinker.

So lets take point 1.  The pipeline doesn't help with energy independence.  The primary purpose of the pipeline is to get product from Canada to refineries in the gulf.  That refined product is then shipped around the world in a globally controlled market. Some of it will stay in the USA but the cost at the pump is the same regardless if the product came from a well half way around the world, from a well a thousand miles away or from a oil well 15 minutes from the refinery and your local petrol station.

On to point 2.  The fact is the pipeline will service mostly product from Canada.  Many people don't realize how much fossil fuel Canada has.  Mostly because up until recently it wasn't cost effective to extract and refine.  The oil isn't what you might think. It isn't like the oil Jed Clampett found while shooting at some food.  This stuff is dirty dirty dirty. The chemicals and processes they use to make it be able to flow through the pipelines makes it even worse.

Point 3.The jobs the pipeline will create are 2 kinds.  Short term construction jobs that go away and don't actually contribute in the grand picture.  The 2nd is the jobs created by the inevitable spills that will occur.  Some how I'd rather not have to employ people to clean up these environmental disasters.  First off our tax dollars goes into that clean up.  It isn't like Exxon flips the bill for the entire clean up.  Fuck the "clean up" is often a joke.  Many of them have the offending companies shrugging their shoulders how it could even be done leaving a natural disaster not only for you but your children when they are all grown up.

Point 4.  It won't make Russia weaker.  The global market for oil is controlled in ways you wouldn't even dream of.  Production is controlled to control prices.  No one in the gas and oil industry want to really compete.  They don't produce to capacity because that just drives down the price.  They keep the demand high so they can maximize their log term profits.  Russia will still drill, refine and sell the same amount of oil at the same price regardless of the situation with Keystone.

Lets move on to safety.  How many pipeline incidents do you think happen in the USA?  You might be able to think of a handful you've seen on the news if you are lucky.  But the reality is that there about 300 every year amounting to about 250 million dollars a year in property damage and around 20 deaths a year and almost 100 injuries directly attributed to the pipeline incidents.

Currently our refineries aren't laying dormant.  They are receiving enough product from existing pipelines and other transportation methods.

The fact is that this just reduces the cost for the oil and gas manufactures.  You might think this would drive down prices but this isn't a capitalistic market.  Free market principals do not apply here and any savings gained goes straight to the share holders, executives.  The consumer sees none of that.

You can be for or against the pipeline.  That is your choice.  But the GOP and their lies about why it should go ahead?  You should only swallow that if you like the taste of shit.

Sarah Palin will have you think environmentalist are complaining about nothing that "That earthworm can take one for the team" Note Sarah Palin doesn't care about the environment because she believes that the rapture is right around the corner.  Fuck why should she want an Earth where her children can raise their children when she thinks they'll all be brought up to heaven ahead of us heathens, that want to protect and preserve our environment, who will sit under judgement of Jesus for 1,000 years before getting our souls completely destroyed. That is going to happen any day now according to people like her.  How anyone could want a politician that actively promotes the idea that the world needs to come to an end is beyond me.  Up to that point she thinks she might as well get as rich and powerful as she can.

My German heritage makes me proud.

While much of the rest of the world says it is to hard, to expensive or not even possible Germany is doing it.  What are they doing you ask?  Converting over to renewable energy sources like wind and solar.  They are doing it at a very nice pace to.  They are putting the change ahead of corporate greed.  They are giving control back to the people.

  For those of you that don't know Germany has a big push and big incentives for people to do things like install solar panels.  There are many people that take out loans to install solar systems that end up not only providing all the power needs for those people but also produces enough excess power to actually pay for the loans and maintenance of the solar power systems.

  This makes me think about the Berkeley professor that redid his house to use more efficient lights and appliances and at the same time install a solar panel system.  The professor paid for the entire conversion by adding on to his existing home loan.  The money the professor saved by going off the grid was more then the increase in his mortgage payment.  It can be done if people want to make the effort.

  Back in July Germany produced over 5.1TWh of power via solar. This broke the record of renewable energy generation previously held by wind turbines of 5TWh.  Germany is looking to get 80% of its energy needs from renewables by 2050 and at this rate Germany will have no trouble not only meeting that goal but exceeding it.

  So successful is the German model that corporations that own old fossil fuel power plants are trying to threaten to leave Germany.  To me that is a bit like a bully threatening a little kid that they'll to go to another school and beat up someone else.  The fact that these corporations are having a hard headed approach to changing to the markets is very telling.

  This is all something that the USA should have been doing back in the late 70s and early 80s but oil corporations lobbied the Reagan administration hard and not only put a stop to changes President Carter put in place but even had solar panels removed from the White House.  Carter said the following "a generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people; harnessing the power of the Sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil."  Well a generation and a half later we are basically at the same point.  Obama had panels put back into the White House in 2010.  30 years have gone by.  30 years not completely wasted but not even close to being even partially realised.

  This revolution can either be one that the USA can be spear heading and profiting from or one that the USA can watch from the side lines and resort to being just another consumer dependent on other countries for the market and innovations.

  All this is ignoring the benefits of renewable.  All I'm saying is that the conversion can be done.  It isn't beyond our ability.  When people say it is then they are being VERY short sighted and even more ignorant of the reality of the situation.

  Do you think it can and should be done or are you one of the above?
Which of these do you want near your home?

This?

Or this?

Class Warfare?!?!?

  For the past few years you'll hear many on the right complain about the "Class Warfare" against the "rich","upper class","the job creators".  All because most middle and lower class people think that those that are in the top 2% of earners should pay more in taxes. Instead they often pay a lower effective rate then the average middle class family and sometimes do not even pay any taxes at all.  Some of them even get tax credits even after earning billions. Now don't get me wrong I don't think that just raising the tax rate on the wealthiest 2% is going to do much.  This is because you have so many in that bracket that use loop holes designed for the wealthy to lower their tax burden.  So raising their rates alone would do very little.  Tax rate changes would still need to be coupled with tax reforms that prevent the abusive tax loopholes while still allowing certain large tax exemptions through.

  What do I mean about that?  Well charitable deductions for one.  If we removed or even capped charitable deductions this would have a devastating flow on effect to many organisations like the Red Cross,  Salvation Army, Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, the Foundation Beyond Belief, Harvard University, your local community college and countless other religious and secular organisations established to better our society.  Changing the way the home mortgage deduction can help.  Change it so that it still helps a family buy that home they live in but isn't used by the mega rich to buy another mansion on credit and shift that burden on to middle class Americans. All while using that money they saved on over seas investments that are further shielded by bank accounts in the Cayman islands.

For example  George wants to buy this mansion in Woodstock Vermont for $10,000,000.00.

  George has a personal wealth of over $100,000,000.00 and could buy the property out right but if George mortgages the estate and only pays the interest then effectively he will pay $600,000 a year for that house.  But even then he doesn't pay for that house.  That $600,000 comes right off his taxes so the government pays that $600,000.  George gets to live in that $50,000 a month home for free, can sit on it a few years while property values go up then sell that house for a profit.  All for what?  Paying a little bit of money up front for the interest payment on the loan which he'll get back at the end of the year.  Net gain for George is a $10,000,000 house which if he works it right he might not even pay much in capital gains on and shifts $600,000 per year of tax burden back on to the economy.  He's free to use the $10,000,000 that he might have spent on that house to make other investments.  George isn't limited to doing this just once.  If he wants he can do a few properties like this as long as the banks are happy with his over all debt.  This is the type of thing that is meant when it is said that the tax code is written to help the rich get richer.  That $600,000 tax deduction has to be made up some where.  Either taxing someone else even more, which is what normally happens that the tax burden is shifted to middle income families that can't afford to benefit from these types of tax loop holes or expenditures have to be cut.  That means less police officers, firemen and teachers.  That means less money for libraries.  Less aid to help the poor survive from day to day.

  So if we cap mortgage home deductions at, lets say, $50,000 then that still allows the average family to get the benefit that is there to help people buy the home they live in and remove the loop hole that the mega rich use to shift tax burdens while still earning a nice profit at the end of the day.

  But this isn't the main point of my rant here.  My main point is were is the actual class warfare being waged?    The actual class warfare in America is being waged against the poor and minorities.  It really isn't only class warfare but race warfare.  Look at the drug laws.  If I was caught with 5 grams of crack and went to court I have a 16% better chance of getting off simply because I am white.  If I am convicted and sentenced to 5 years in prison I've got almost 3-5 times greater chance of getting parole then a black man depending on where I'm in prison.  It gets worse too.  If I'm from a well to do family my chance of conviction drops dramatically and not just because mummy and daddy can buy the best lawyers in town for me.  The juries, even with public defenders, let rich kids get away with more then poor kids. Besides if I was rich I wouldn't be using that crack cocaine. I'd be using the old fashion powdered cocaine.  You might be thinking to yourself "So what?" well how much powdered cocaine do you think I could get caught with to earn the same 5 year sentence, if found guilty?  You might be wondering is powdered cocaine a lot less potent then crack per gram and the answer is no.  Chemically they are similar. The high from crack can kick start in a matter of seconds after smoking where powdered cocaine can take a few minutes tho injecting powdered cocaine produces a faster effect.  The highs are slightly different to.  Crack's "high" lasts for 5-10 minutes and  is more intense then powdered cocaine but powdered cocaine's "high" can last up to 60 minutes.   So there are differences there.  But back to the amount I'd have to get convicted with to earn that same 5 year sentence.  Is it 5 grams? Is it 10 grams? Is it 20 or even 40 grams?  To give you perspective 1 gram of cocaine can be cut up into 10 lines and gram of crack is about 3-4 bowls.  Do you give up? Do you know?  The answer is I can be caught with 500grams, 1/2kilogram, ~1 pound or in terms of lines 5,000 lines of powdered cocaine for the same sentence.  And because a rich white guy is more likely to use powdered cocaine combined with all the other factors the punishment for a black man is well over 100 times worse.  If that doesn't convince you the class warfare isn't really against the  poor lets look a other convictions.

  HSBC, Britain's largest bank, was found to be dealing with the top drug dealers in the world.  When say "dealing with" I'm not talking about the dealers having accounts with them and the bank having no knowledge of the clients but actual involvement in helping to launder billions of dollars.  Not only that but the bank new about and dealt with "known terrorists" such as al-Qaeda and helped them also shift and launder money.  The executives that had direct involvement, what happened to them?  Did they get long prison terms for aiding terrorists and drug cartels?  Nope.  The bank itself got a 1.9 billion dollar fine, which amounts to less then 1 months profit for the bank.  What happened to the executives directly involved?  Well they will defer part of their bonuses for the five year period   Wow.  What did they do to get off?  Well in a statement from the US Justice Department Announcement this was said "HSBC, Britain's biggest bank, said it was 'profoundly sorry' for what it called 'past mistakes' that allowed terrorists and narcotics traffickers to move billions around the financial system and circumvent US banking laws".  So in effect they said they were sorry and got off with a fine.

  Meanwhile Stephanie George was sentenced to life in prison 15 years ago for minor drug offences that the actual judge said this to Stephanie: 'Even though you have been involved in drugs and drug dealing,' Judge Vinson told Ms. George, 'your role has basically been as a girlfriend and bag holder and money holder but not actively involved in the drug dealing, so certainly in my judgment it does not warrant a life sentence.'  So she gets life in prison for being the girl friend of a low level drug dealer but the bank executives that directly knew and aided large drug cartels shift billions of dollars have to "defer part of their bonuses"

  Let me ask you now...who the fuck do you think is suffering from class warfare more?  I'll be a rich white guy any day over a poor black man.

Who do you blame for the government spending to much? Democrats or Republicans?

Spending Increase Per Term

Obama's administration has the lowest increase of spending since President Eisenhower. That is over 50 years you have to go back.
How does Obama stack up to other presidents?

Regan's 1st term    - 8.7%
Regan's 2nd term    - 4.9%
Bush Snr            - 5.4%
Clinton's 1st term  - 3.2%
Clinton's 2nd term  - 3.9%
Bush Jr's 1st term  - 7.3%
Bush Jr's 2nd term  - 8.1%
Obama 1st term      - 1.4%

Do you really trust that The GOP will make the cuts needed?  Oh they'll make cuts.
They'll make cuts that will cost seniors $6,500 more a year in out of pocket expendatures do to allowing insurers to refuse coverage which increases the strain on Medicare forcing out many seniors from even recieving benefits.
They'll shift medicare onto the states that isn't designed to keep up with actual health care costs.
They'll repeal the Affordable Care Act and let the insurance companies go back to business as usual where they can deny you coverage when ever they want which would effect tens of millions of Americans not to meantion the more than 30,000,000 Americans who would loose their coverage right away.
They'll slash education.  Ryan and Romney won't tell you where exactly they'll make the cuts within education but the reduction is there...they just don't want to be pin down to so they can claim make claims like "Pell grants don't have to change". But the truth of the matter is that cuts would have to be made some where.
They'll slash programs for the very poor and disadvantage.  Programs like food stamps.  Programs that help poor children get the nutrician they need.

They'll also make the rich get richer.  3 Trillion dollars in tax cuts that will benifit only the top 2%.  Mitt Romney would end up paying less then 1% in taxes under the Romney-Ryan plan.  Ironically 1% might be more then Romney has paid in some years in the last decade.  But until he releases his tax returns we'll not know.

Are you for all of America or just top 2%?

Congress has gone on  recess with the Senate not voting on the tax cut bill because republicans refuse to act on it unless the richest 2%, not only get the tax cut everyone gets for the first $250,000.00 of income but, get further cuts on any income above $250,000.00.

The republicans are the party who is putting forward a presidential candidate who refuses to release more then 2 years of his tax returns, in contradiction to the standard that his own father set back in 1968 and which every other candidate since then has followed.

Do you want a president that knows what it is like to be an average American who finally paid off his university bills just over a decade ago or do you want a president that has never known what it is like to struggle and for the last 2 years still paid a lower effective tax rate then you have and may not even have paid taxes at all, for some years, in the last decade?

Do you want a president that is for helping 98% of American's in need or do you want a president that is for helping 2% of American's and hoping that 2% lets some of that aid trickle down to the rest of us even though we've seen that policy fail miserably already.

Do you think a small business is a Mom & Pop shop, that hires a few local people to staff the store, needs some help with their taxes or do you think 2 Brothers that are hedge fund managers, making millions of dollars a year working on Wall street that employs 1 or 2 secretaries, needs help from the government more?

Do you think the government should help keep further education beyond high school affordable for all Americans or do you think that only the rich should get the chance for a proper education?

Do you think the government should aid low income earners get health insurance is the right thing to do or do you think it is "free stuff" and more important to keep the tax laws that let a multi-millionaire's wife have the government flip the bill for their horse to the tune of over $70,000 in just one year?

Do you believe that Americans deserve to know who is paying to get a candidate into the highest office of the nation or do you believe it is ok for millionaires and billionaires to secretly bank roll a candidate and produce false advertisements with out any accountability?

Do you believe that women have a right to proper preventative health care or do you think that an employer should be able to stop a woman from getting that health care?

Do you want a president that has been open about his economic plan or do you want a president that basically says that he'll implement tax cuts but never tells you how the country will pay for those tax cuts?

You decide. You can vote for someone that supports the average American or you can side with the party that acts like a rich spoiled little brat that isn't happy unless they can push their way through a line just because they are rich and think they are better then every body else.

Are you part of the 2% that thinks that 98% of people just shit out of luck?  Are you part of the 98% that wants to screw over the rest of the 98% in the vain hope that you will some day be part of the 2%?   Or are you that part of America, regardless of your income, that believes America was built on the ideal that all Americans deserve a country in which they can succeed!

You should know who the major supporters of your candidate are!

One of the biggest problems with a super pac is that it allows millions upon millions of dollars to be funnelled into the political process, which is bad enough on it's own, without a requirement of identifying where that money comes from.  This means a candidate can have "supporters" that have a HUGE amount of financial influence on the candidate and the American public will have no idea what type of people are influencing a candidates position.

It doesn't matter if you are pro-life or pro-choice, anti-gay or a LGBT supporter, pro-big business or pro-middle America, a corporation or a real life flesh and blood person.  If a candidate has supporters donating millions upon millions of dollars to a candidate or a super pac supporting that candidate then you have a right to know about that support because you would have to have a hole in the head the size of a base ball to think that those people don't have a unbelievably large amount of influence over the candidate's political stance.  If you are against gay marriage I'm sure you'd want to know if your "family values candidate" received large amounts of money from prominent gay activists.  If you say to yourself "No, I don't need to know about that because it won't influence my candidates position!" then please immediately proceed to a mirror and check your forehead for that hole right now.

Obama has led the way.  Picking what I would call the lesser of 2 evils which is accepting fund from super pac but requiring them to reveal their major donors.  In effect the super pac becomes less of a super pac and more of a normal political fund raising tool.  Obama gets funding to compete with the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent by the top 1% for the GOP candidates and still the American people get to see what type of "company" the candidate, running for the top political position of the USA, keeps.

It amazes me that right wing media like Fox News will use Obama accepting super pac donations as a negative position but have no problem with all of the GOP candidates using funds from super pacs.  It is just one more, in a long line of, tools that apparently the GOP candidates are allowed to use freely but if Obama uses them then it is some how Un-American.

I'm always torn because I want both parties to put forth a candidate that, at the end of the day, I could accept as president.  This time I'm really torn because, while I like some of the things that done under Mitt Romney's term as governor of MA, his stance on corporations and capital gains disgusts me along with his seeming disconnect from the average American.  He seems to be a stereo typical politician that will say anything, no matter how stupid, and isn't afraid to repeat said stupid comments.  How he can pander to the people of Michigan about how he loves American cars while he still defends his "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" stance is beyond me.

What is even more disturbing to me is how one of Mitt's major supporters is so actively, and successfully, killing people freedom of speech via use of a almost bottomless pit of money used to threaten people with legal action over legitimate free speech issues.

It disturbs me that many American's, and honestly many people's around the world, don't really know what "Freedom of Speech" actually means.  It doesn't mean that I can say something about my neighbour like "Joe bloggs likes to perform sexual acts with goats!" when there is no evidence to that fact.  But if you are a public figure the bar is a bit lower.  Not to say I can say things like "Richard Gere likes to use gerbils for personal pleasure".  But if a person makes a public stance against the LGBT community by putting up billboards all over the state it is not defamation to point out that that person is against LGBT rights.

Read a short article here on Frank VanderSloot  or a very good long article here and see how he repeatedly uses very questionable tactics to suppress other peoples 1st Amendment rights and understand that Mitt Romney is VERY close to this man.  I'm not part of the "liberal media". I'll let someone be a bigot if they are one but if you put yourself out there and become a public figure then try to suppress my 1st amendment rights to point out to the world your bigoted views that you've already made known in the public domain then you can take your billions of dollars and see if it gives you pleasure to use in a way that some people say Richard Gere uses gerbils.

Contact your politicians and let them know you support the Disclose Act and over turn the "Citizens United" which should have been named "Corporations United".  Corporations might be considered people but they don't have the rights of a full Citizen yet....tho I'd argue they have stronger rights then real people like you and me.

The slippery slope! What happens when we allow the government and corporations to whittle away our rights.

In the past few years we’ve been seeing a problem with our rights being taken away.  This not only applies to Americans but, because of the arrogance of the US government, it affects the rest of the world too. 

For far too long the politicians in Washington have been the bitch of corporations.  This problem is 2 fold.  First politicians get their funding for campaigns primarily from corporations and second many politicians have too much personally invested in corporations to be able to stay objective and work for the common citizen.  Even with the laws and regulation forcing them to remove themselves from conflicts of interests it is obvious that while there may not be an immediate conflict of interest that many of the legislation they pass will benefit them later.  IE While Senator A may not currently have any financial interest in industry Y some legislation that sets up Y to be more profitable years down the track can benefit them after they are free from conflict of interest regulations.

 

So one of the things we see going on is more and more rights being taken away from real people and more rights being given to fake people, IE corporations.  For example it is far too easy for a corporation to make an IP claim on a real person and instead of due process the common person has their rights restricted.  False IP claims by corporations have no down side for the said corporation and it is on the real person to fight to get their rights back.  Each legislation passed makes it more and more easy for fake people to take away more and more of the rights of real people.

Take the situation with MegaUpload.com.  The site has been shut down.  Millions of users are denied a service they’ve subscribed to because of these anti-piracy laws that have been passed.  UMG last month force YouTube to take down the “MegaUpload Mega Song” video.  This despite the fact that every artist in the video signed an agreement to do this video.  UMG, a fake person, seems to be having a multiple personality disorder episode.  When brought to court, by MegaUpload, UMG claims that the wrong UMG is being brought to court.  MegaUpload it being forced to jump through hoops to find out on what grounds UMG was able to remove the Video from YouTube.

This is akin to McDonald’s coming to your house and taking your dinner away from you because they believe you stole it but you were eating macaroni and cheese with a glass of milk.  Then McDonald’s just shrugging their shoulders when you ask why they took your dinner.

Legislation like PIPA and SOPA make these powers by fake people even stronger.  Much like NDAA gives you no recourse when being wrongly accused.  These “anti-piracy” legislations just open the door wider for corporations to step on anything they believe is not in their best interest.  It doesn't matter whether or not they have any actual grounds for the IP claim being made.  You as a real person can do shit fuck all about it in most cases unless you want to spend our life savings on lawyers which will probably get you no were in the end.

Speak up, make yourselves heard.  Call your congressmen.  Pay attention to what they vote for and against.  Every time they vote against real people’s rights in favour of fake people’s rights hold them accountable.  Honestly fake people don’t serve in the armed service, don’t go to jail, don’t die, don’t get hungry and with much of the legislation, going through Washington, are not accountable for anything they do.  For fuck sake with limited liability legislation fake people can’t even be sued for hurting you or someone you love. 

Is this the type of “conservative America” you want to live in? An America where your rights are slowly taken away making you numb to further changes.