World News Korner

So Senator Sanders remembered that David Koch ran for Vice President on the Libertarian party ticket. This was the party platform under which he ran:

Here are just a few excerpts of the Libertarian Party platform that David Koch ran on in 1980:

“We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.”

“We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”

“We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.”

“We also favor the deregulation of the medical insurance industry.”

“We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”

“We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service. The present system, in addition to being inefficient, encourages governmental surveillance of private correspondence. Pending abolition, we call for an end to the monopoly system and for allowing free competition in all aspects of postal service.”

“We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”

“We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”

“As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.”

“We support repeal of all law which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.”

“We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”

“We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.”

“We support the repeal of all taxes on the income or property of private schools, whether profit or non-profit.”

“We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.”

“We support abolition of the Department of Energy.”

“We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.”

“We demand the return of America's railroad system to private ownership. We call for the privatization of the public roads and national highway system.”

“We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called "self-protection" equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.”

“We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.”

“We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.”

“We support an end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children.”

“We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.”

“We call for the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households.”

“We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”

“We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”

“We support the repeal of all state usury laws.”

Just for a second imagine if the Koch brothers were able to implement even a handful of these changes.

No taxes whatsoever would make retaining a military impossible.

Abolishing Medicaid and Medicare would leave millions without health care. Not exactly a problem for billionaires but a substantial one for many of us.

No FEC, no U.S. Post Office, no public education, no Department of Transportation, no FAA, no FDA, essentially no government oversight of business whatsoever.

In other words a country that does not have any checks and balances on businesses, collects no taxes, does not educate its children, and has no military to protect it.

Somehow none of that sounds like a particularly attractive place to live.

And just take a moment to remind yourselves of how closely that parallels the same things being advocated by the Tea Party, by Rand Paul, and by Joe Miller.

This is clearly the ideal that drives the Koch brother's political agenda, and it is what they are spending their money to achieve.

Some conservatives have come to their defense asking "What harm have they done." I think the answer is that they have done substantial harm, but not nearly as much as they intend.

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Courtesy of the Tundra Twattle's Facebook page:

You just can't make this stuff up.

President Obama just appointed Sylvia Burwell to take over Obamacare, the disastrous beast under which our entire health care system and 1/6 of our nation's economy is forever fundamentally transformed. (Yeah, let's not bother to mention the millions of people who now have access to health care.)

Remember last year when America's war memorials, national parks, patriotic amenities, student White House tours, etc. were shut down because the Obama administration's spending priorities are so out of whack? (Okay is she talking about when Ted Cruz and the Republicans refused to vote to raise the debt ceiling and forced a government shutdown?) Americans were told the Federal government didn't have enough of our tax dollars to allow WWII vets to walk across a public sidewalk to visit a statue honoring these heroes. This, during the "shutdown" when crony capitalism, earmarks, and waste and fraud continued to fill the swamp. This, while the first family continued to live elaborately large and some in Congress had the gall to whine that they aren't paid enough. This, while the people's will continued to be arrogantly ignored.

What a cold and callous bureaucrat it was who'd direct that quite revealing fiasco, an episode over which the Obama Administration never recovered in the court of public opinion. (Actually this is only true in Palin-world, in the real world the administration suffered virtually no backlash, and the blame was laid squarely where it belongs. At the feet of Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, and the Right Wing agitators.)

Who would do such a thing? Who would punish patriotic Americans? (Oooh, ooh, I know, I know. The Teabaggers.) Who sent the email initiating all this?

The political operative Sylvia Burwell.

It's Sylvia's stain on the ash heap of history. And along with Sylvia's stain comes her disturbing, punitive priorities as she takes over our health care coverage. Yeah, nothing can go wrong with that.

You can't make this stuff up.

- Sarah Palin

I like how she says, "you just can't make this stuff up" right before she essentially makes this stuff up.

Salon referred to this attack as "The dumbest thing the right is saying about Sebelius’ replacement," which kind of makes sense considering who it taking point on this.

Of course the Republicans are not even close to unified on this scurrilous and desperate attack. Here is what John McCain tweeted after Burwell was selected.

Sylvia Burwell is an excellent choice to be the next #HHS Secretary
— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) April 11, 2014

At this point the attacks from the rabid Right Wing have become so infantile and immature that you almost think that they would all benefit from a diaper change and a good nap.

Of course Sarah Palin's immaturity is part of her brand, so I don't expect that to change any time soon.

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Now that is an enjoyable way to start the day.

P.S. You can visit the artist's Facebook page here.

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Courtesy of The Progressive:

Parents whose children attend the public schools in Wisconsin have been getting a barrage of phone calls lately offering "free tuition to send your child to a private or religious school."

"We at School Choice Wisconsin are proud to pay for this call, because we want the very best for you and your child," a woman's voice intones.

The friendly voice directs parents to a website: chooseyourschoolwi.org.

A little online digging reveals that the School Choice Wisconsin website address is registered to the American Education Reform Council -- a group funded by John Walton, of Walmart, to the tune of $1 million between 1999 and 2000, and also funded in part by grants worth hundreds of millions from the rightwing Bradley Foundation.

The American Education Reform Council's political arm has been heavily involved in pushing voucher legislation in Colorado and Michigan; "paycheck protection" (to limit unions' ability to spend money in elections) in California; and a failed Washington, D.C., voucher initiative designed by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

Why is this group calling parents in Wisconsin now?

The calls happen to coincide with the application process for the statewide voucher program created in the last budget, also known as the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program. The application period runs through April 21. Even if school vouchers are not available in a particular district, if enough people respond to these robocalls, voucher advocates can use the responses to demonstrate demand.

Ginning up demand for vouchers helps the people who want to expand the program -- which is why the Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity is holding pro-voucher events around the state during application season.

As if that were not troubling enough, it is only one strategy being used to undermine public education in Wisconsin.

Right on the heels of those school-choice robocalls, Wisconsin parents are now receiving postcards in the mail from "eAchieve Academy," "Wisconsin's Leading Online Middle and High School."

This is one of many virtual school programs that offer online classes and will be paid for with school vouchers. Of course with no need to maintain class sizes for each teacher, and no need of janitors to clean non-existing hallways or cafeterias, there is plenty of money left over for the owners of these websites to pocket.

And this is happening, not just in Wisconsin, but all over the country.

K12, Inc., the huge, nationwide virtual school operator that runs the McFarland online academy, raked in $848.2 million in profits in 2013 as a publicly traded company, almost entirely out of the public trough.

These schools are often NOT performing at anywhere near the standard set for public schools, and their test scores are often far from impressive.

Make no mistake, this has NOTHING to do with improving education, and EVERYTHING to do with undermining public education and sucking tax dollars away and putting into the private sector.

And we are losing this battle every day.

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Courtesy of Politicususa:

Truth is there has never been a better time to quit government, and go into the lucrative business of b*tching about government. It worked for Joe Scarborough, Mike Huckabee, and most famously, of course, Sarah Palin. The one night stand of Alaska governors. When Sarah announced she was resigning as governor, she said, “It may be tempting to keep your head down and just plod along, but that’s a quitter’s way out.” Yes, only by quitting was she not quitting. You see, Sarah realized she could have a greater affect on influencing stupidity from outside of government, and pledged to work to elect people just like her, just not her.

The fact is today’s Republicans aren’t built to govern. They don’t want to go to the moon. They want to howl at it. That’s why just the fact of getting elected means you’re already damaged goods. Unless you go to Washington and act like the single biggest prick in the room every time, you’re suspect, which is why there’s really only one man current in government who the base completely trusts. I’m talking, of course, about Ted Cruz.

He’s the guy who best understands that high office is just a higher form of talk radio. Rick Perry told them that they should have a heart. Mitch McConnell holds a gun like a girl, and Marco Rubio is pretty soft on Mexicans for an Italian. John McCain is against torture, and he was tortured. Flip-flopper. Chris Christie actually touched Obama during Hurricane Sandy when he should have lured him to the Pine Barrens and hit him with a shovel, and Michele Bachmann compromised on gays by marrying her husband.

I actually thought the first part of New Rules had a couple of real groaners in it, but when Maher got to the Tea Party, Ted Cruz, and Sarah Palin he really hit it out of the park.

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Courtesy of TPM:

A medical clinic in Mena, Ark. announced that it would be closing, citing a large drop in need for the clinic as people have signed up for health insurance under Obamacare.

"Because people are qualifying for insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, our free medical clinic will not be needed anymore," Stacey Bowser, the director of the 9th Street Ministries Clinic, told the Mena Star.

"We’ve gone from seeing around 300 people a month on a regular basis, but as people were enrolling in Obamacare, the numbers we were seeing have dropped. We were down to 80 people that came through the medical clinic in February, all the way down to three people at the medical clinic in March. Our services won’t be needed anymore, and this will conclude our mission," she continued.

Bowser said that because the clinic was established to provide care to those without insurance, there are far fewer people who qualify for the missions's services, linking the drop in visitors to the health care law.

"This complete dropoff of numbers of people coming to the clinic is a result of all those who have successfully enrolled in an insurance policy now," she said.

Interestingly enough Arkansas, being a red state, did NOT expand Medicaid exactly.

What they did instead was a kind of work around.

Here is more from PBS:

The Arkansas experiment to use federal Medicaid dollars to help low-income people buy private health insurance plans will survive another year.

This “private option” of Medicaid expansion — which narrowly passed in the state’s House of Representatives on Tuesday after being rejected in four previous votes – allows those below 138 percent of the poverty level to enroll in plans like Blue Cross and Blue Shield through the state’s insurance exchange.

Many conservatives in the Republican-controlled legislature found that to be a much more palatable option than enrolling more people in the traditional Medicaid program, which they see as a broken and inefficient system that offers poor-quality care. Offering this alternative allowed Arkansas to bring billions of federal dollars into the state economy, while expanding coverage to some of the state’s sickest individuals and saving hospitals millions in uncompensated care costs.

Well whatever they have to call it, or how they have to spend the money, to help conservatives sleep at night, the bottom line is that previously uninsured people in Arkansas are now being covered to such an extent that the free clinic is no longer deemed necessary.

No matter how conservatives attempt to muddy the waters, THAT is the direct result of President Obama and the Democrats.

Which is something the people of Arkansas might want to keep in mind.

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Bolling starts off by asking how conservatives can fight back against the fact that their "freedom and liberty are under siege." Which I assume to mean that they are finally being called out on their bullshit, and pissed off about it.

"You know on the national level we make sure that we're electing candidates who will promise to pay whatever price it's going to take to protect our Constitution, Then on a state level I think it's very important that we find candidates, and elect them, who would be willing to call for a convention of states if need be, because that is the way, that is the tool, that the people have to rein in government, is a convention of states. (A "convention of states" by the way is something apparently outlined in Article V of the Constitution, which would allow a convention of states to amend the Constitution. This is the newest conservative brainchild, to be used as an effort to obstruct the Obama administration agenda. Is anybody else hearing Dixie playing in the background?)

Bolling then asks Palin which amendment she thought was most under attack.

"You know I would agree with Rand, he said that that first amendment, it..it..starts there, If we're not able to express the will of the people then government will take over, will grow, will continue to do what it is doing today. The problems that we see today start at the top. We have a President who doesn't understand, or chooses to disrespect, our Constitution, those rights, the rule of law, the separation of powers, all those things that we learned in elementary school about how our nation was formed, and why it is the most exceptional nation on the earth because of that Constitution. Our President has set a tone in this nation that kind of says 'Eh, you know it is going to be a select, elitist crew of guys that are gonna run the show instead of we the people.'"

The Bolling asked Palin about her remark that Hillary Clinton should run in 2016.

“I said it’s fine if she ran, I didn’t say it’s fine if she won. I tell ya we don’t need, you know, more of the blue blood you know..uh..no. We need new energy! We need new people in there, who again will understand what the Constitution has done to create this great country. Not those who would choose to seek constitutional changes, amendments that are NOT the will of the people. That they would amend themselves by just seizing power from the people. So no, we need new people in there.”

Okay I am confused. On the one hand Palin is endorsing this "convention of states" whose purpose is to amend the Constitution, yet she then claims that it is Hillary who would seek constitutional changes by "seizing power," when one would assume she would have then been elected to the White House by "we the people."

And exactly when has Hillary EVER talked about amending the Constitution?

Palin then goes on to take a shot at Al Sharpton over his activism, but since she is appearing in that PSA with Jon Stewart, avoids any criticism of him and instead pimps the cause that they joined forces to work on.

As Palin interviews goes this was mostly just the same old shit, different day.

However that convention of states is a whole new wrinkle, and one that we better keep an eye on.

I have said before that I would not put it past these Right Wing lunatics to start another civil war, and this feels very much like one more step closer to that terrible eventuality.

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Courtesy of MSNBC:

“I was lucky I beat cancer, but the insurance companies still denied me health insurance just because of a pre-existing condition,” Keller says in the ad. “I now have health insurance again because of Mark Begich. Because he fought the insurance companies, so that we no longer have to.”

For those who believe the conventional wisdom, an ad like this is simply madness. Why would Begich’s allies remind red-state voters about his role in bringing affordable health care and consumer protections to Alaskans?

Maybe because the broader conversation is undergoing a long-overdue shift. As an electoral matter, Democrats will own the increasingly successful health care law whether they brag or hide, so they might as well start reminding the public about why this was a good idea – and why they’re proud to have championed reforms that benefit Americans like Alaska’s Lisa Keller.

Is it weird that watching this ad made my nipples erect?

I actually did a little dance of joy around my office after seeing it.

For those of you who are consistent visitors here at IM, you know I have been suggesting that the Democrats do something like this for months.

Instead of running from the Affordable Care Act they need to pimp their participation in getting it passed in every campaign ad, interview, and debate between now and November.

And right after that, they need to call out their Republican opponents for advocating against the law, or actively trying to stop or repeal it as well.

In Alaska Mark Begich should have campaign commercials that list the number of Alaskans that have been helped by the ACA and then a list of the number of Alaskans still without insurance due to Governor Parnell not expanding Medicaid in our state.

If I were Begich I would be slapping the shit out of the Republicans for attempting to kill Alaskans by denying them coverage at every opportunity.

He needs to go big and shut these Republicans down hard. And I think he can.

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Courtesy of Salon:

As Thursday drew to a close, many could be forgiven for assuming that the right wing’s biggest freakouts over CBS’s hiring of Stephen Colbert had already occurred, and that essentially no one was going to be able to top Rush Limbaugh when it came to wild hyperbole on the matter. But then Breitbart editor Ben Shapiro posted a new article about Colbert at his media watchdog website Truth Revolt, and all that changed — forever.

Shapiro has long distinguished himself for writing unhinged, idiotic and hateful things. He tried to smear Chuck Hagel by saying the former senator had a relationship with a group called Friends of Hamas, for example. Such a group did not, does not and likely will not exist. He’s urged Israel to engage in ethnic cleansing. He’s argued that there’s no discrimination against LGBT people in America today. The list goes on.

Yes Colbert's dead on characterization of a dimwitted, and overly ideological conservative, who have wielded power and influence power in this country for centuries, is JUST like a white person smearing shoe polish on their face in order to mock or denigrate a consistently oppressed minority in this country.

Of course this should not be surprising to anybody who has been watching the news, as the Right Wing is downright apoplectic over learning that Colbert will replace Letterman as the late night host.

You would literally think that they had named Richard Dawkins as the new Pope for how over the top this reaction has been.

In my opinion this can only bode well for Colbert, as he has clearly angered the idiots, and that is always a good sign the more rational among us.

Speaking of morons, this Ben Shapiro guy is also a favorite of Sarah Palin.

I know, least surprising part of this post, right?

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