Congressional Reform Act

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests”.

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure. I'm asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise. Most of all, get the message to your Congressman. In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.
Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security
3. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose
4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do
5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%
6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people
7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people
8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12
9. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work. 
10. No attaching of a balanced budget amendment to this act that ties the governments hands during a crisis. Federal governments run deficits for a reason.

If each person who reads this, copies it and sends it to a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Maybe it is time.

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS.

Christine ("I am not a witch") O'Donnell walks out of interview

Christine ("I am not a witch") O'Donnell walked out of an interview with Piers Morgan on CNN when he asked her about her views on gay marriage - which appear in the book she was there to promote (apparently). Isn't it wonderful when bigots get called out, then prove that the questioner is correct in asking the question. Clearly she believes her religious beliefs give her the right to bash gay marriage, but the interviewer does not have the right to ask. How deeply strange and confused are religious people like her. Seriously, if you have a view, why are you afraid to talk about it? Could it be that your view is bigoted and wrong? Yes, I suppose it is hard to talk about your own bigotry honestly. Perhaps Christine, that means you should change you view eh? Ever thought of that? Probably not, as for the religiously enslaved, that would be "against god". Sadly, I know lots of people like this well, having grown up in evangelical Texas.

Strategy vs Reality

You know you are watching a strategic meltdown when voices within the GOP start questioning the strategy and start sounding like Progressives.

Remember, the GOP strategy clearly is:

1. Oppose anything Obama supports, even GOP ideas (e.g. individual mandate, tax reform, etc)
2. Say with complete confidence that any tax increases are job-killing, despite the complete lack of evidence
3. Talk endlessly about the deficit, even though cuts will slow an already slow economy
4. Blame Obama then for the lack of new jobs, even though the GOP won't allow any bill to stimulate jobs
5. Blame Obama for creating "an atmosphere of business uncertainty", but completely ignore GOP efforts that undermine business certainty to a much greater degree (invented debt ceiling crisis)
6. If anything bad happens in the economy because of GOP actions, remember it's "Obama's fault"
7. Ignore any pangs of guilt from your extreme hypocrisy and lack of intellectual integrity
8. Put party power over the good of the country, as GOP power is more important than 8 million unemployed people, most of whom won't vote GOP anyway
9. And finally, never answer the question, "What's the opposite of country first?"

But today there are voices in the GOP questioning the strategy...uh oh...

Many right-leaning policy voices think the economy needs more short-term stimulus, reports Jackie Calmes: "The boasts of Congressional Republicans about their cost-cutting victories are ringing hollow to some well-known economists, financial analysts and corporate leaders, including some Republicans, who are expressing increasing alarm over Washington’s new austerity and antitax orthodoxy...Among those calling for a mix of cuts and revenue are onetime standard-bearers of Republican economic philosophy like Martin Feldstein, an adviser to President Ronald Reagan, and Henry M. Paulson Jr., Treasury secretary to President George W. Bush, underscoring the deepening divide between party establishment figures and the Tea Party-inspired Republicans in Congress and running for the White House."

S&P: Debt default skeptics (in other words the Tea Party) fueled ratings downgrade

In the recent GOP debate, Michelle Bachmann insisted that the Standard and Poors downgrade proved that she was right to oppose raising the debt ceiling, saying:

“I think we just heard from Standard & Poor’s. When they dropped — when they dropped our credit rating, what they said is, we don’t have an ability to repay our debt. That’s what the final word was from them.

“I was proved right in my position: We should not have raised the debt ceiling. And instead, we should have cut government spending, which was not done. And then we needed to get — get our spending priorities in order.”

Unfortunately for this mental midget, S&P clarified this point, saying that one reason the United States lost its triple-A credit rating was that several lawmakers expressed skepticism about the serious consequences of a credit default — a position put forth by some Republicans, the most vocal among them, Bachmann.


Either Bachmann is delusional, or unashamed to lie to the people. Either way, she is done.

Can you imagine this woman as our President?

Can you imagine this woman winning the Presidency? I don't see how that can be anything but terrifying.

My answer is please, no.

Post Partum Compassion?

Hilarious Jon Stewart nails Fox News Megyn Kelly.

Fox News' Megyn Kelly returns from maternity leave with a more liberal perspective on mandated benefits and entitlement programs.

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No winners, only losers (US citizens) in GOP debate

The amazing Ezra Klein comments on last night's GOP debacle (ahem..debate I mean).

The losers in tonight’s debate were anyone who wants to see the sort of compromise necessary for the political process to work, and anyone who has been convinced that they can achieve their goals simply by restating their convictions. As for the winners? Well, I didn’t see too many of those.

Ezra Klein, Washington Post 

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is set to enter Presidential race? Yikes!

First of all, Rick Perry is yet another average intelligence (maybe) Texas Governor who wants to be President. I don't know about you, but I have had more than enough of that. As if that weren't enough, he seems to have a strategic plan to leverage a highly radical arm of the Religious Right. (Hmm, is there a moderate arm of the Religious Right? Maybe not)

Scares the crap out of me to think of a deeply religious, minimally intelligent President with the nuclear code keys and a sense that a massive war could bring rapture. For the love of....

Go 4 mins into the first video. If it doesn't scare you, what does?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Supply Side Economics...RIP

There is nothing wrong with Supply Side Economics per se. Both sides of the economic spectrum of Supply and Demand have strategies for stimulus that are legitimate and that work. For supply siders, low taxes, tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, and low business regulation are supposed to drive business confidence and therefore creates jobs. For demand siders, certain kinds of tax breaks or in bad times economic stimulus are supposed to drive consumer demand by increasing their disposable income. These rather simple explanations of supply and demand side economic theory are just that, simple, but cover the basics well.

We have been in a sustained period where supply side thinking wins the day. Yes, there was a good-sized economic stimulus from the Obama administration recently, and most economists agree it stabilized our economy enough to avoid a depression. However, it was not enough to restart the economy after a terrible shock in 2008. But supply side thinking has dominated our policy making for decades, and it's time we took a good hard look at it's effectiveness.

Supply side theory at the expense of any demand side policy is not generally effective. The GOP mantra that the rich are job creators, and therefore must not be taxed overly, is simply and provably false. Don't take my word for it, read the excellent blog DemandSideEconomics.

It's time the Supply Side thinking got a chance to work. It's certainly better than listening to the blather from the right about "job creators" and the dull rote utterances of GOP lawmakers that "everything Obama does is "job killing". Please.

Time for a Jobs Bill Mr President...do it alone because you must

The GOP is not going to allow a jobs bill. Frankly, the reason is they want the economy to suck for the Presidential elections, as they think it gives them the best shot to unseat Obama. Seriously, the GOP is letting millions go unemployed to win political power. It's disgusting, but obviously true. What is the opposite of "country first"? The answer is, the current GOP leadership. I mean you Mitch McConnell, John Boehner.

Katrina vanden Heuvel in the Washington Post today says it like this:

Let’s be clear: There is a limit to what the president can do. To succeed, he must be a joined by a movement. But there is a movement afoot, one that is prepared to take on this fight. The American Dream Movement is mobilizing tens of thousands of people in all 435 congressional districts with a simple message: jobs, not cuts. That is a message the American people support by more than a 2 to 1 margin. On Monday, the organizers released a job-creation plan written by 127,000 Americans.

It's time for the President to mobilize this movement and force the conversation to jobs. It's the right thing for the economy and clearly the right thing for his Presidency. 

I'm back!

After a long hiatus promoting my new book, A Letter to US Middle-Class Christians, and frankly taking some time off and moving, whew, I am back.

And none too soon. While I was away the Tea Baggers threatened to force the US into default on our debts. Imagine that.

EJ Dionne, of the Washington Post puts it like this: "“We weren’t kidding around, either,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told The Post. “Wewould have taken it down.” He said it with pride, yet the “it” involved the American economy and America’s standing around the globe. This is patriotism?"


Indeed.


I saw Jim DeMint calling the "Blaming of the Tea Party for Downgrade, Pitiful", well sorry Mr DeMint, but this is now "THE TEA PARTY DOWNGRADE". You play with fire, you get burned, it's your fault. Congratulations on the latest miscalculation by politicians elected in a mixed government, thinking they have a mandate to blow things up. Sorry, controlling one-half of one branch of government is not a mandate, you don't get to do whatever you want, you must comprimise, and if you don't and especially if you do harm (as you did) you will get booted from the privilege of serving the American people.


I expect the 2012 election will be a repudiation by voters of the Tea Party insanity and we will see the center of American politics move back toward the Left again.


Agree?