Please my republican friends pay attention. We have just spent many dollars and ten years fighting the Taliban of Afghanistan. Don’t pick a Christian fundamentalist for your choice as leader. Fundamentalist Christianity is just as repressive as any other religious fundamentalism.

I heard Governor Perry is proud of Texas’s job creation yet near the end of 2010 a report came out that said:

In the larger universe of Texas families below 200 percent of the poverty line, work participation is even higher. Of 1.4 million poor and “near poor” Texas families with children, 77 percent—or 1 million—are working. These families include almost 4.8 million Texans, 2.4 million of whom are children. Low wages in many of the state economy’s growth sectors contribute to Texas’ large working but low-income population, as do limited public assistance benefits. Compared to the U.S. average, Texas workers are slightly more likely to have low-wage jobs. Texas workers also rank near the bottom in terms of access to job-sponsored health insurance, pensions, workers’ compensation coverage, and unemployment benefit

In other words a job in Texas doesn’t mean you also can have a roof and food at the same time. Companies also offering health benefits are at a lower percentage than the rest of the country (understandable if you don’t have leper colonies how can Christ return and visit them?)

Please keep up your rhetoric about Medicare and Medicaid going. Your party has really missed the reason the country sent you to power this time. I will explain it to you The country wants jobs. It felt that the Democrats weren’t doing the things they promised during the election, like removing the tax benefits for companies sending jobs overseas. They felt that they tried to push their extreme agenda while they were in control. Your group has created the fear about the deficit even if China who just by its size will pass us eventually.

Every argument the Republicans give starts out with the people sent us here to take care of the most important thing to them, Jobs! Could you explain to me where the jobs are in all the anti abortion actions. All I can see is eventually this road will only lead to more people to be unemployed.

I love this one “We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.” We can’t afford food medicine or education. We can however afford an extra engine for the b30,oil subsidies,tax deductions for private jets. If we give these things up how many jobs would be lost? Lets go back to Reagan era taxes and fix this mess. We could also reinstate the draft and fire the outside contractors doing the jobs our servicemen and women did for a couple of  hundred years.

Eric Cantor did you do as bad when you were on the debating team. Did you make something up and then keep repeating it hoping someone would believe it? The average family not only controls their spending( what is the credit card debt in America, what protion of the collapse was caused by continual remortgaging, In many households the wife is working to increase revenues, your party allowed the housing to get out of control because it made it look like the economy was ok even though no job growth was a tell it wasn’t. You want to stop kicking the can down the road and put it back in the same sewer it just escaped.

While were sitting around the table. (If you live in a 1950′s setting TV sitcom) When we bought our house and we borrowed the money what was the amount of every dollar spent that was borrowed?

To s0lve my cravings a little web searching was necessary. To save others time I thought I would share some of my findings.  The first places of interest can be found for a Senator or Representative just by using their last name . which house . gov (example Senator Bob Casey is http://casey.senate.gov/ )or Nancy Pelosi is( http://pelosi.house.gov ). The nice thing about visiting here is that if you don’t ask for them to send you updates they don’t ask for money every time.

If you want to find the progressive blogs or websites your best bet is to start with one and see who the are connected with. Lets star with Oil Change Iinternational. When I go to this website using Internet Explorer it freezes but if visited with FireFox it works well. Oil Prices  and energy for all and clean energy. This site has a blog roll (connections to other websites.) The first one is Amazon Watch and deals with energy and pollution in the Amazon. This is logical but one subject and distant. They are also linked with The center for responsible politics(Opensecrets) This is a sunshine site tring to follow the money on both sides, The Understory all the dirt that’s fit to post (as long as it helps liberals), Truthdig is a news website with a progressive point of view. When you visit Oil Change International there are many more links.

Here’s one that is a Fox alike and one that Fox actually does dislike
You can’t be a Christain and a Republican was just a couple of posts but Faithful America is a full time website with this in mind yet still not that faith based one we need. Don’t be discouraged there is Sojourners with daily posts in sections like Verse and Voice. How about a Catholic group that realizes abortion isn’t the only topic Vote The Common Good is just such a place. The National council of  Churches doesn’t endorse anyone but many of it’s principles to look for will be found in a progressive agenda

Courage Campaign  is an online organizing network that empowers more than 700,000 grassroots and netroots activists to push for progressive change and full equality in California and across the country. Since 1971 there has been Public Citizen Corporations have their lobbyists in Washington, D.C. The people need advocates too. Get Equal and Task Force are gay rights groups Progressive United formed byRuss Feingold aims to build a massive grassroots effort dedicated to mitigating the effects of, and eventually overturning, the Citizens United decision.Progressive in States Network is a multi progressive subject site. Brave New Foundation champians social justice issues

I’ll have more for you next post

Today the Republicans offered their health plan. Waiting until the Labor Day break was over so there wouldn’t be the same uproar at their town hall meetings.(At least some of the Republicans had town hall meetings like Senator Grassley of Utah who allowed his to be televised while others took cover of with one sided statements and questions for the participants like representative Gerhart from Pa). They have been telling the American public that we shouldn’t rush this that we have to get it right. This study was presented in 2001 and has been going on since. Tonight the Republicans accused the Democrats of play politics while not looking at the future. After reading this whole report and some of its references  I would like to say they are right about not looking forward and playing politics but they have the wrong party.

I would like to also clear up a few things about their accusations. The post office and the railroads are not failures. For that matter neither is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack. In the private sector many businesses run at a loss while still earning money. Those losses are a result of fluctuations in the economy or even fluctuations by season. When these companies need money they either borrow it or the sell stock. The Government sponsored companies have to go to congress for money not the banks. These companies are not free to raise prices and in some cases they can’t change products or services without approval. Their wages for management are controlled and rarely do they get the best talent. These entities would be ok if the Republicans would try and make them work instead of under funding them while they are in power. Even worse is the fact that the Board of Directors (which is congress) haven’t done their job of overseeing for over eight years. These were also not set up as businesses having to show a profit or even break even. President Obama wanted the Government option to pay for itself therefore being set up very different from the others. The conservatives would have you believe that because these entities need an influx of money from time to time that they run different from other types of business. Let me pose this question. How much do you think Brown would charge to deliver your mail? Here is another If we cut off the subsidies to Amtrak Which helps the East Coast should we do the same for the farmers of the Midwest?

The first thing I believe the conservatives get wrong is the premise of choice when it pertains to insurance. The basic is that the well pay for the sick so that when the well become sick they are covered are covered by the ever changing group. In a sense you are saving for the future buy buying it when you are fit. The first problem is for profit health insurance because the pool of money is lessened buy the removal of profit. If you eliminate the profit motive you automatically can either reduce cost or expand coverage. They try and use auto insurance as an example. Most state require auto insurance as a prerequisite to being able to drive. Your choice then is to buy insurance or use other methods of transportation. Using this logic the choice becomes simple for anyone who is not rich, buy health insurance and live. Don’t buy the insurance and die.
The next misconception is that of choice under the present system. You get to choose your insurance if you own the company or are an officer of a company otherwise your choice is made by your employer. The (terrible) unions negotiated health benefits and forced other employers to offer insurance to compete. At one time in our history labor was the scarce resource in our country and benefits(non taxable income) were the drawing card. The excess of these benefits in the long run made our products less competitive in the world market. Corporations do not care about anything but profit  so they move their production to areas where they don’t have to offer benefits and can keep the money to themselves not sharing it with workers.
So protecting the free market someday will mean protecting no market but that is another topic. The fact is that companies will for the most part purchase what is best for them not necessarily what is best for you.
The next post will break down the republican program showing its strong points and weaknesses.