Become a Friend of the Indy

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Let no man put asunder...

Oops, nevermind.

Rove: Champion of "traditional" divorce

Move Your Money

Obviously there isn't a bus around that the Big Bank whores in Washington won't throw the American tax payer under. If you do any business with JP Morgan/Chase, Citibank, Bank of America or Wells Fargo I challenge you to move to another bank that isn't a bankrupt ward of the state. We have a rewards card with one of these and will discontinue it's use. Please share this with your friends and family. We the People will do what Washington wouldn't.

Move Your Money: A New Year's Resolution

Greed is God

A philosophical schism has occured in our nation. Many Christians, also happen to be Republicans. In recent years, Republican dogma has been dominated by men like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, and Sean Hannity. The basis of their thoughts, or the Limbaugh doctrine (as I will call it) can be found largely in the works of writer Ayn Rand. Rand suggests there are certain individuals in our society, who because of their independant spirit, hard working attitude, and vision, are more valuable than others. Many in our society, for numerous reasons, find Rand's notion of individuality to be appealing. This group, mostly Republican, imagine they are the men Rand speaks of, when in fact this is usually (as in almost always) not the case, as these men are neither harder working nor do they have greater vision than any other average individual. The type of man Rand referred to in her books is rare indeed, while the Limbaugh Doctrine would have us believe these types of men are plentiful. In fact, according to the Limbaugh Doctrine one need only be a business owner or other non-government employee to be one of these uber-men. Such teaching satifies a basic flaw in human nature, which is, the desire to believe one's self to be superior to most other men.

As the Limbaugh Doctrine gained popularity, the need to compromise such self centered thinking with the selfless philosophy found in the bible became necessary for many Christians. Thus the rise of the Evangelical movement, and the Prosperity Doctrine.

Prosperity Doctrine is an attempt to compromise the selflessness of biblical doctrine with the selfish "man love" philosophy propounded by the Limbaugh Doctrine. Greedy and giving at the same time. This battle of opposing philosophical ideas has created a great schism in our society as an entire political movement has arisen around this hybrid, Greed is God, movement. We now have a huge portion of our society dominated by men who believe concurrently that they are superior to others because of their hard working and visionary personalities, and secondly they are superior because of their moral selflessnes.

Any attempt to point out that adherants to the Limbaugh Doctrine are no harder working or morally superior than the average man is greeted with scoffing and disdainful suggestions of weakness. The question is, I suppose, if God exists, can one combine the idea of selfishness with the selfless doctrine taught in the New Testement. The combo Limbaugh/Prosperity doctrine seems to suggest that for many, just such a combination is not only possible, but rapidly gaining in popularity.

Amarillo A-hole of the Week, Eddie McMurray

Eddie McMurray, popping up with weedlike predictability, has done it again. In today's Globe News Letter Eddie takes aim at overpaid government employees. According to Eddie, a school adminstrator managing dozens of employees, accountable to hundreds of parents, knowledgeable of reams of bereauracratic regulations, and responsible for millions in tax funds, shouldn't earn as much as the average mid-level insurance salesman. As for retirement money, in Eddie's world, government employees that have spent decades paying into retirement funds, shouldn't have even a slight raise, despite the ever rising costs of food, medical care, and other necessities. In Eddie's world, working for anything other than a "for profit" business, renders your existance of lesser quality and importance.

You see Eddie is worth much more than any policeman, teacher, judge, or soldier. He works at and perhaps even owns the local francise of Bolner's Fiesta Products. We all know the gigantic contributions to society that Bolner's makes every day. The contributions of a teacher that influences the lives of hundreds of kids over the years, or a policeman that provides public safety, or a soldier that protects our national interests all pale in comparisons to the important work done by men like Eddie McMurray at Bolner's Fiesta Products.

Eddie has other opinions that sprout on a near monthly basis. For example read his tacky treatise on "Limousine Liberals" from February of 2005. While Dubyah was diligently blowing trillions of dollars finding WMDs in Iraq, Eddie was concerned about Clinton riding in a limousine five years earlier.

Or how about this racist rant in response to a Leonard Pitt's column that dared to suggest Rush Limbaugh has partisan tendencies.

Or this Teabagger tirade that spews venom on any government program that dares to help the elderly or needy, but makes no mention of the trillions spent on the war in Iraq, or the other trillions in tax cuts given to the wealthiest 1% of Americans during Dubyah's reign of idiocy.

I could go on. Like that bit of crabgrass that cannot be excised from your flowerbed, McMurray appears again and again with predictably hateful opinions aimed at any and all that dare to exist outside of his "for profit" morally superior universe. So, he has earned, with all congruent honors, this weeks title of Amarillo A-hole of the week.

Falling Sky Alert: Full Squawk Needed

Health Care Reform is on its way... Chicken Little Commandos... Curious Texan... Celtic Texan, and recent Chicken Little Lieutenant... Liberal Masterbator... report for full squawk...the sky is falling...the sky is falling...the sky is falling.

Seriously though...the victory isn't all I hoped, but we must ...and I mean must ...remain united if we hope to move forward. I will not stop supporting the people I believe in, just because I didn't get exactly what I felt was needed. To do so would be to grant tacit support to the opposition. If we're going to be the big umbrella party, we have to learn to accept compromise. Otherwise, we're just like the lockstep monsters on the Right.

Recant Amarillo

Is it time to bring back the Recant Amarillo map. Seems like devilish goings on these days. My self righteous zeal is percolating... lets condemn some sinners.

URGENT! Consumer Reports: Senate health bill has sneaky medical underwriting

This is also why I sent the following letter to Kay Bailey Hutchison's office:

December 18, 2009

James Christoferson Deputy Chief of Staff - Hutchison 284 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510

Dear Mr. Christoferson:

Earlier this week, I sent an e-mail to Ms Hutchison through your Web site. The next day, I got a “Dear Friend” e-mail — obviously from you mailbot.

My message to Ms Hutchison was that she represented the right wing of the Republican Party and was a captive of those lobbyists who bribed her. Further, I told her I wished, in the theological sense, she be damned to Hell for her political record.

As an Episcopalian, Ms Hutchison should know the magnitude of that wish. As I am an Episcopalian, I know the significance of that wish and did not make the statement lightly. The Episcopalians I know in Amarillo are far kinder and far more compassionate than Ms Hutchison. They understand that the Jesus we follow as part of a Triune God would disapprove of the coddling of the moneyed and corporate classes so obviously being done by your boss. Jesus would want people in power to take care of the least of us. None of the GOP cronies are doing that. Clearly, it is ludicrous to refer to me as “Dear Friend.”

I recognize Ms. Hutchison has millions of constituents and some may bother to contact Ms Hutchison’s office. But a one-size fits all response sent back under the illusion that we all agree with her politics fails to realize that Texas is becoming a purple state. Even worse, the “Dear Friend” letter is loaded with more bullshit than you’d ever find in the Texas Panhandle and you know how much cattle we have here. The response is a cud-like regurgitation of the talking points from the GOP masters that Ms Hutchison, Mr. Cornyn and Mr. Thornberry repeat interminably. They are following the “Big Lie” theory of propaganda: Keep repeating something long enough and it becomes perceived as truth. Do you know who last successfully used this technique to take over a country?

Ms. Hutchison’s claim that her proposals are fiscally responsible and the right approach to a market-based health care system shows an ignorance of basic health care economics. I would think someone who could get through the University of Texas Law School might have the intelligence to understand the basics of supply and demand theory — unless, of course, she got a pass and it’s her staff feeding her information. It’s clear that neither Ms Hutchison nor any of the Republicans spouting this kind of drivel know anything about supply and demand in health care.

The call for national medical malpractice reform is also a cipher. Texas implemented medical malpractice reform and it’s not yet clear that it has help make things better. The fact is that a national medical so-called reform would protect incompetent doctors and place the public at risk. As long as the National Practitioner Database is exempt from the public disclosures and other peer review and medical credentialing are protected from disclosure, so-called malpractice reform is useless.

To close her letter with the bashing of “bureaucrats” and “government” is so beyond being crassly disingenuous that it is a flat-out lie. Yes, I am calling Ms. Hutchison, your boss, a liar — to your face and to her face. Why? Who is that government? She is. She has been on the public payroll a long time and now is employed by me, but she really doesn’t work for me because I’ve not made a big enough campaign contribution to get her attention. The Republicans ran the government for eight years while the Democrats have held their majority for less than a year. The first stimulus package was at the behest of Bush and the GOP. Don’t tell me it’s anyone else’s fault but her and her cronies.

If the GOP part of the Texas delegation continues to blindly goose-step behind George W. Bush, who I hope at least you have noticed, is no longer president, they will find themselves loosing out more and more. By the way, is Ms Hutchison aware of that fact? The public isn’t as stupid as Ms Hutchison thinks they are and will realize Ms Hutchison can only be bought for so long.

You and your health staff might do well to look at history. P:L. 89-749 did more to control costs and rationalize health care than any other legislation ever passed in this country. I may not agree with some of the things in the health reform measure before the Senate now. In fact, I think it is so watered down that I agree with Dr. Howard Dean that it should be killed and started over. I also agree with Sen. Franken, who said we have a right to our opinions, but not our own facts.

I am writing this letter as a personal one, as a constituent. And you’ll notice that throughout I’ve not referred to Ms. Hutchison as a senator because she isn’t my senator. I have no senators from Texas representing my interests in Babylon-on-the-Potomac just as I have no representative from Texas-13 representing me in the house. In fact, most of the people elected to the Senate aren’t worthy of being called senators. They, like Ms Hutchison, are career politicians only interested in aggrandizing themselves and their cronies.

I hope this takes care of the illusion that Ms Hutchison has broad support in the Panhandle.

Very truly yours,

Swinger’s club loses peace bond fight - exclusive

Swinger’s club loses peace bond fight - exclusive

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Indy Exclusive: Interview with Texas Dem party chairman

Indy Exclusive: Interview with Texas Dem party chairman

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I am thankful.

I am thankful I have a job in a time of tremendous economic uncertainty.

I am thankful for my family, who are the only reason I put up with the b.s. I put up with (see above).

I am thankful there is cold food in my refrigerator, clean water flowing from the faucets and warm air blowing from the vents.

I am thankful McCain/Palin did not win last year (that goes twice for Miss Alaska).

I am thankful that America, despite it's many deep flaws, is still greatest country on earth.

I hope this day finds you with family and friends and reflections on the things in life that really matter.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Much Ado about Nothing On - A Midsummer Night

Much Ado about Nothing On - A Midsummer Night’s Nude continues tonight and next weekend

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Smoke and Mirrors Economics Part: 3658

Average incomes have been declining for the last 30 years. Let me sum up the economic boolsheet we were fed that turned out to be smoke:

1. Rising tide lifts all boats
2. Decreasing taxes on the top 1% brings in more tax revenue
3. Trickle down?
4. Moral Hazard will keep CEO's and corporation in line, no need for regulatory enforcement.

Quick summation here:

60's-70's:
pensions are a staple of retirement, health care inexpensive, and growing wages even in recession. Couples begin to realize in late 70's that two incomes are necessary.

80's:
Raygun elected, rethugs control senate.
Union busting and 'personal responsibility' for healthcare and retirement through 401k's and IRA's become mainstream.
Minimum wage stripped from inflation indexing.
Corps let go of pensions, and begin to underfund existing programs.
Bankruptcy or private equity takeover deals allows corps to steal your pension.
Massive healthcare corps go public and begin to merge.

90's: Wall Street gets lesser scrutiny, derivatives and other exotics become more available, hedge funds gain in popularity.
RIGHT TO WORK laws pass every state.
LTCM fails, and S&L's that fail give us a warning.
Massive inflows to Wall Street from people's IRA, etc.
Glass-Steagall repealed.
Healthcare costs and medicare fraud skyrockets.
Pension underfunding becomes pronounced.

Late 1990's-early 2000's: First "jobless" recovery after recession.
Commodities Futures Modernization Act passes
Faced with shrinking wages, higher costs of living, newer tech costs, and a housing bubble, people assume that real estate will continue up and tap their home/atm.
Wages are shrinking, more money is funneled to the top through default swaps which grow to $500 trillion in 2007.

2008:
The bottom falls out.

Just interesting to look back. . . .

-Prodigal Son

Defense of Entitlement

Can I just start out by saying, I hate that Gods-damn Joe Lieberman piece of shit?

Ya know, the whole "entitlement" phrase regarding universal healthcare is a lazy catch all for the right. A poll tested, FAUX news talking point deliberately designed to invoke a gut reaction of, "Hey, he/she ain't pullin' their weight, unlike me!"

It's dishonest. It's typical of the Frank Luntzification of the Greed Oil Pollution party, which dumbs down our national discussions. Remember that cadillac driving welfare queen Ronald Raygun talked about? Never existed. Same with the f***ing death panels boolsheet.

Same thing again, and again, and again. . .

This healthcare discussion seems insane to me. "We should be responsible for our own healthcare choices!" screams the right, while accepting Medicare assistance.

Really? Mentally challenged individuals should be able to sort out the maze of PPO, PPP, supplemental, catastrophic, etc?

Shit! I can barely figure that stuff out, and who has the 100 hours necessary to get a basic cursory knowledge of our crappy overpriced health insurance industrial complex?

Or,"It was that 4 year-old child's parents fault they were not successful enough to have insurance when she got leukemia. They must have a character flaws! Or lazy!"

Let me expand on what I said in the comments a couple of posts below:
Are we entitled to police? firemen? Entitled to national defense? Entitled to credentialed doctors? How about good roads? Safe food supply? Safe drinking water? Safe (Hmmmm) drugs? All of these are supported by the taxpayers together for the betterment of each other.

At one time we were not "entitled" to free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion.

Let's ask the REAL question here . . .

How many people should die because of no healthcare a year? How many people every year should lose everything because of cancer? Give me a number that would be acceptable to you righties;
100?
10,000?
100,000?
A million?

Huh? Tell me righties, how many dead and/or financially devastated FELLOW AMERICANS are acceptable to you?

I hear all the time that this country was founded on the tenets of Christianity (It wasn't), well, how many people would Jesus approve for recission?

Did Jesus give a s**t about deficits or helping the poor and sick? Did he cheer on wars paid for by off the book funds or ask us to look out for each other?

I pity your non-humanity righties, and damn you to hell for your short sightedness. I guess I am going to have to accept that you will hate us "San Francisco liberals", and "Socialists" as we fight for affordable healthcare coverage so you don't lose it all.

F**k you very much.

-Prodigal Son

Sign of decency hard to find at Dumas business

Sign of decency hard to find at Dumas business

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Time To get All FDR and Sh*t!

PTS'ers. . .

The past 5 months, I have called the white house comment line every Monday morning with a simple, but polite message.

" My name is . . . and I live in . . . I am out of work. No savings to speak of. One accident or illness with my kids or spouse would destroy everything that is left.

I would like to ask the President to support medicare for all, and let us buy into an existing program OR a public option EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY with no 'trigger' or 'opt-out' malarky."

Now? A new message:

"I would like to say that I am a supporter and contributor to President Obama. My message is this: if no simple, AFFORDABLE, IMMEDAITE, public option is signed into law . . . NO money, NO time, NO vote from me for Obama in 2012."

I know it is drastic, but I am not f***ing around here. There are lives at stake, futures being destroyed everyday. And I f***ing mean it. No immediate affordable public option, and President Olympia Snowe can freeze her Maine ass off. . .

Won't you join me?

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414

-Prodigal Son

"Sick Around the World" Documentary Screening, 10/28/09

Free, and open to the public, a screening of the PBS FRONTLINE documentary Sick Around the World, sponsored by the West Texas A&M University (WTAMU) Democrats .

"In Sick Around the World, FRONTLINE teams up with veteran Washington Post foreign correspondent T.R. Reid to find out how five other capitalist democracies - - the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland - - deliver health care, and what the United States might learn from their successes and their failures."

Time: 6:00 p.m.
Day, Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Location: WTAMU Campus, Jack B. Kelley (JBK) Student Center, Legends Club
Map: Building #2 - http://www.wtamu.edu/about/campus_map.aspx

For more information, please contact 806-584-1801.

Repent Amarillo wants to stifle Avenue 10 -- again

Oh, OK . . . I'll just tell the bank

(Unemployed men vying for jobs at the American Legion Employment Bureau in Los Angeles during the Great Depression.)


Or is it 2009? (25,000 Detroiters converged on Cobo Hall to get one of the 5,000 applications for federal aid to people in poverty.)
________________________

Hear the good news? The recession is over! Everything's looking UP! Or so says, bazzillionaire Larry Summers, (now pulling down a taxpayer-funded six digit income.)


(Part of the daily lineup outside the State Employment Service Office. Memphis, Tennessee. June 1938. Photographer: Dorothea Lange.)

BE HAPPY! Your future job is just around the corn . . .uhh . . . next year or two. Don't worry! After all, employment is a lagging indicator, so I guess I can just tell my mortgage holder and credit cards that payment might be lagging . . .

Look at this unemployment chart from calculated risk blog: Look like improvement to you?



Look, you have a job. You worked hard to get to the spot you are in. You are not seeing anything about this stuff on the TeeVee. Yeah, it's bad out there but people should have planned better . . . LOOK! OVER THERE! Letterman was banging a staffer!

It's time for an adult conversation in this country about the economy. I know it is not uplifting, but we need to face up to the fact that millions of people are losing it all, and are sliding rapidly backwards from the middle class lifestyle they once had, and their spending losses made permanent. Fact is, if you have a job you are going to be OK. Those of us out in the rain? A long hard slog. A lost decade.

The kids getting out of school are getting decimated. NYTimes Bob Herbert.
"Only 65 of every 100 men aged 20 through 24 years old were working on any given day in the first six months of this year. In the age group 25 through 34 years old, traditionally a prime age range for getting married and starting a family, just 81 of 100 men were employed."

_______________________

Myself? Been EIGHT difficult months.

3 months salary in savings. a small severance. GONE. At age 41 I have had to borrow money from my 401k (about 10 years worth of saving and investing with huge penalties), and borrow money from my parents to survive, and I AM LUCKY. Unemployment insurance income represents 9% of what I was making. Do a little math in your head if you had to subsist on 9% of what you are making.

Been busy too. . .

Plan A: Get another gig like I had. Over 150 applications sent regardless of openings. Financial Firms STILL firing business development folks. Career path: GONE

Plan B: acquire existing tax business. SBA needed seller to self finance 30% for a loan. Seller threw up all sorts of requirements. Me and partner had to back away.

Plan C: Start a tax firm from scratch. Partner too reluctant, worried in this economy.

Plan D: Get anything with a paycheck, in or out of sector experience. 300+ applications sent, overqualified, not hiring, job freezes, posted job had internal fill (required to post, not a real opening) A few interviews. Mostly nothing.

Plan E: PLAN F**KING E? Seriously? Going back to school to get the credits I need to sit for the CPA exam. Been at it 1 month already. Old Dogs can learn new CRM systems. LOL

What about income? How long can the family survive on this austerity level? As long as we can. I don't have a date. My wife and I have stopped talking about the future. About kids' college. Kindermusik. Paying off the car early. Future vacations. That ladder rung where we were looks awfully far up . . .
________________________

Last point. A friend in the industry I have known and respected for 10 years called me last week. We used to call him "Mr. Clean", and he was. He was the most ethical guy I know. He did so many hard luck cases, we used to tease him. He told me that he was let go 2 months ago, and asked what was out there. He sighed and broke down.

You see, his wife is disabled. A car wreck. He has three kids. He lives in upper state NY just outside Manhattan. He is going to lie on a mortgage app, get a HELOC on his house, pull all of his equity out and let the bank take it. Integrity be damned.

That was his best option. Parents are dead. He can't afford health care for his wife without an employer plan, Safety net? You kidding?
_________________________

So please congress. . . by all means . . . take your time on health reform. Take your time funding potential job creation. Just wait until the non-existent free market turns things around by itself, so you don't piss off your corporate owners.

After all . . . no one will see us on the TeeVee or Meet The Press . . .

-Prodigal Son

Poor Les is at it again

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