What we should have said about "tort reform"

What we should have said about "tort reform" The President of the Unites States thinks you are stupid. He thinks you are incapable of knowing right from wrong and judging fairly and accordingly. That is why he wants to take the ability of Juries, made up of people just like you and your neighbors and decide it in the Congress. These cases where victims are awarded large sums of money, are at the expense of some poor innocent corporation. Its not like these attorneys sit around and get to decide with the jurors how much to take the corporations for and everyone gets a cut. These cases involve innocent people harmed by callous and careless multinational corporations. Involves people like yourself who decided these people deserved compensation for their wrongs. Because had they been in that chair asking for help, they to would want the same. What the President is saying, is that all those fellow Americans who decided that those corporations and doctors' actions were so egregious the victims needed compensation, and then said, this is how much we would want for those wrongs. THOSE AMERICAN THOSE JURORS GOT NOTHING FOR THE CASE, they don't get a cut, they just get the satisfaction of knowing they did the right thing. THAT IS WHAT THE PRESIDENT IS LIMITING. The ability to do right by the victim. And then victims decided to pay their attorney's for helping them recover some dignity for their injuries. Something if you were in their position you would do the same.

Ethics and Tom Delay

Once again we learn why the Corporate Media is so sad. Tom Delay is embroilled in Ethics problems because he managed to violate only the few rules there are regarding ethics. First his PAC took money from corporations. The only campaign financing law in Texas is a regulation against Corporate money THAT IS IT. Then he used Homeland Security to track down Texas Democratic Legislators fleeing to stop his redistricting plan. Finally he broke the only house rule regulating lobbists. Lobbiests cannot buy plan trips for Represenatives... OOPS. So what does Tom Delay do, he gets rid of conservative Republicans on the Ethics committee who wanted to investigate these allegations and replaced them with people who GAVE MONEY TO HIS DEFENSE TEAM. THAT IS RIGHT THE ETHICS COMMITTTEE HAS 5 REPUBLICANS WHO GAVE MONEY TO OR GOT MONEY FROM TOM DELAY. Then he changed the rules for the ethics committee (came to a floor vote on partisan lines) so that it took a majority (committee is made up of 5 and 5) to launch an investigation. (HAVING STACKED THE COMMITTEE OF HIS CRONIES) Today Repubs agreed to change the rules back so that an investigation can be launched, but DELAY HAS ALREADY STACKED THE COMMITTEE SO THEY WILL NEVER SIDE AGAINST HIM. What does the Media report, (ie NBC, NPR, and CNN) that Dems still want to obstruct the committee over "other objections." THE OBJECTION IS THAT HE STACKING THE COMMITTEE... THAT IS THE OBJECTION... Lets See what Delay has to say about it "The time has come that the American people know exactly what their Representatives are doing here in Washington. Are they feeding at the public trough, taking lobbyist-paid vacations, getting wined and dined by special interest groups? Or are they working hard to represent their constituents? The people, the American people, have a right to know...I say the best disinfectant is full disclosure, not isolation." - U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, 11/16/95

No Giving in on Judges

Today there was word that Dems were "looking for a comprimise on Judges" conceiding a vote on 2 of the Judges if they can fillibuster one. THATS YOUR DEMOCRATIC PARTY AT WORK, WILLING TO GIVE UP JUST TO MAYBE LOOK BAD TO 26% of the population According to the Washington Post poll today (admitedly their polling is horrible and should be taken with the grain of salt) 68% of Americans oppose the "Nuclear Option" to end the fillibuster, only 26% are for it. 26% and the Dems are like pack it in, we can't win. GET SOME BALLS, IT WON'T EVEN TAKE BIG ONES 70% of the Country agrees with you. AND FIGHT THEM ON 10 NOMINEES FOR GOODNESS SAKE. If they try it, shut the place down. Pathetict, trully pathetic. We are not fillibustering 200 middle of the road conservatives willing to keep their decisions within the bounds of the law. We are fillibustering 10 wackos who seek the judiciary as a means to push their ridiculous ideas. "My grandparents’ generation thought being on the government dole was disgraceful, a blight on the family’s honor. Today’s senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much “free” stuff as the political system will permit them to extract...Big government is...[t]he drug of choice for multinational corporations and single moms, for regulated industries and rugged Midwestern farmers, and militant senior citizens. [IFJ speech at 2,3] - Janice Rogers Brown" "The United States Supreme Court, however, began in the 1940s to incorporate the Bill of Rights into the 14th Amendment…The historical evidence supporting what the Supreme Court did here is pretty sketchy…The argument on the other side is pretty overwhelming that it’s probably not incorporated." - Janice Rogers Brown, Speech to Pepperdine Bible Lectureship entitled “Beyond the Abyss: Restoring Religion on the Public Square,” in 1999 Yeah thats right, the Supreme Court using the 14th Amendment to say interepret the constitution so that states have to provide you with an equal education, overstepping their boundries. Republicans without any shame, will use this Black woman as the puppet for their little anti-American move. A black woman, who thinks the Supreme Court overstepped its bounds by ending Jim Crow. If the dems can't stand up against that. I am voting Republican cause that is just pathetic.

The Type of People They Are

One of the misconceptioons about Civil Trials is that it is means to make skeeming low-lifes and Trial attorneys rich. But Civil trials are a means to do the job the government no longer does of protecting its citizens. All over America people are being hurt by cheaply made goods, environmental hazards, and crooked CEO's looking for a quick buck at the expense of our safety. And what does the Bush Administration and his cronies think about it, well his number one contributor says: "What you have today is business on one side, and you've got the trial lawyers on the other side. You've got deep pockets colliding with shallow principles." – Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli, 12/16/04 VERSUS "There are hazards in Home Depot stores that the company doesn't address. There is nothing in place to protect the customer." – Richard Silverman, Industrial Engineer, 2/21/03 FURTHER: But if you ask scores of ordinary American shoppers and workers killed or maimed at Home Depot – or hurt by poisonous Home Depot products - they might not think bashing people's legal rights and refusing to protect innocent victims is so funny. As the Atlanta Business Chronicle has reported, Home Depot reported 185 customer injuries a week in 1998 and has since refused media inquiries into its safety record. The company also uses its vast legal team to bully victims into signing confidentiality agreements about their injuries. The federal government "has recorded nine worker deaths in the past four years at Home Depot stores" and, in 2002, recorded a "45 percent jump" in workplace safety violations. In one high-profile accident, NASA astronaut Jean-Loup Chretien's shoulder was crushed when a 68-pound drill press fell on him from more than 10 feet up – ending his career. Because Home Depot refuses to take adequate safety precautions, "They are creating canyons of death and injury and inviting customers to walk down them," said one attorney representing families of victims. According to that attorney, the company has made a management decision that it is cheaper to pay claims to injured customers than pay for the necessary safety changes. Read the full expose in the Atlanta Business Journal.

Bush's Legacy: Economic Failure

Bush's greatest legacy may be the complete dismantling of the infrastructure creating America's Middle Class. Its actual quite amazing, that Bush can have any support beyond the ridiculously wealthy. Tax incentives to move jobs oversees, cutting education at all levels, ending seniors economic security, ending middle class protection for permanent debt through bankruptcy, doing nothing to stem the rising cost of health care, cutting oversight to consumer protection, cutting ability of people to pay for medical bills incurred do to others causing them injuries, across the board cuts to programs designed to foster a growing middle class, and ending all protections of the environment we live in. The United States greatest achievement may be being the first nation ON EARTH to have more people out of poverty and ending the extreme income distributions that have plagued world history. It is that dream that we should not have to struggle day-to-day just to live and provide for our families, that has seemed so promising to so many people around the world. That is what we are fighting against. The interests of the super-rich winning against those of the people. In truth, it was the convergence of government initiatives and corporate interests that helped create the middle class. Ford, and the likes wanted people to have enough money to buy their goods, and government actually worked to make that happen. Now we have another convergence. Bush's policies assaulting the middle class, corporations more interested in their own bottom line than America's well being, and a media owned by those same corporations and selfish interests. The worst part about it, is that WE HAVE THE POWER. "There is nothing wrong in Washington, a good election can't fix." Al Franken likes to say. And if you don't want your jobs to go to India, DON'T SHOP AT CORPORATIONS THAT SEND YOUR JOBS TO INDIA Bush is trying to line his pockets, and in the process he is ending our protections. And we need to speak up. Prices and unemployment are up, wages are down, and Americans are struggling to break even with more households than ever declaring bankruptcy. For more on the president's economic summit, read American Progress's, "What the Cheerleaders Won't Tell You." PROPERTY TAXES ARE UP: With the federal government cutting funding for programs, states are stuck with the tab. Across the country, that means higher property taxes. And according to the Christian Science Monitor, "the levies are squeezing the middle class and senior citizens - leaving them less to spend on everything from restaurants to roof repair." Lehigh County in eastern Pennsylvania, for example, is considering a 70 percent hike in property taxes. In New York, "Mayor Michael Bloomberg is proposing a 25 percent hike, which he says is needed to bridge a projected $6.5 billion budget gap next year. In Westwood Hills, an upscale suburb of Kansas City, residents are facing a 19.2 percent property-tax hike. And in Philadelphia, hundreds of homeowners are appealing recent recent property tax increases as high as 100 percent." PRESCRIPTION DRUGS COST MORE: According to a new study by the AARP, drug prices over the past year rose an average of 7.4 percent, "or more than three times the 2.3 percent rate of general inflation in that period." The reason? The AARP "didn't examine the reason for the price trends, but noted that the Medicare drug-discount cards came out in June." To get ready for the discount cards created by the White House's industry-backed Medicare bill, many companies decided to protect their profits by jacking up the price of their most popular medications. COLLEGE TUITION ON THE RISE, PELL GRANTS CUT: It's getting more expensive to go to college and, thanks to the White House, harder to pay for it. The average tuition for a four-year public university "jumped 10.5 percent this year." In the omnibus spending bill President Bush signed last week, the formula used to calculate financial aid in the form of Pell grants has been adjusted to to "adjust" its formulas for calculating financial aid, a move which will "reduce grants for 1.2 million students and cut off aid completely to about 90,000." MAKING LESS MONEY: The growth in wages fell dramatically over the past four years. In 2000, median weekly wages grew by 4.9 percent. This fell to a mere 2.0 percent in 2003. Adjusted for inflation that means "that wages fell slightly in real terms in 2003 for the first time since 1996." This trend continued in 2004. After taking account of inflation, earnings in October 2004 were below those in December 2003. JOB TRAINING FUNDS SLASHED: Twenty-five years ago, the federal government spent $27.3 billion on the federal job training program. Today, that's been cut by over 84 percent, to about $4.4 billion. Federal job training budgets have dropped $597 million since 2000 alone, making it that much harder for Americans trapped in poverty to find work and get off government assistance. BIG DEFICITS MEAN LESS MONEY FOR EVERYONE: President Bush and his friends in Congress have been on a four year spending spree with tax cuts for the wealthy and preemptive war charged to the national credit card. When the nation reached its $7.38 trillion credit limit last month, reckless conservatives simply gave themselves a $650 billion increase in their credit limit. Why this matters: Large-scale borrowing by the federal government means less money is available for average Americans to borrow when they want to buy a house or a car, or pay for college tuition. That smaller pool of money available for loans leads to higher interest rates – which not only puts a squeeze on individual consumers but also slows the rate of economic growth. That means, in the long run, fewer jobs, low wage growth and less money coming into the federal Treasury. Also, interest payments on the mounting debt, which exceeded $321 billion in fiscal year 2004, means less money for other priorities like education and health care. PBU16

Rest in Piece: Marla Ruzicka

picture from This wonderful woman died yesterday in Iraq. As she would probably tell you, every life lost is a tragedy, as every person has a mother, a father, friends, loved ones that are touched by their loss. But Ms. Marla Ruzicka was very special. This woman was the ONLY person working on a count of civilian casualties in Iraq. And before that Afghanistan. She pushed congress to make available funding for civilians injured or killed on accident during the war. Because of her sole efforts and constant calls, congress appropriated money to that end. SAN FRANCISCO — Marla Ruzicka dedicated her life to helping others. At 28, she had traveled to Africa to work on AIDS issues, to Cuba to protest the U.S. embargo and to Afghanistan after the U.S.-led war there. The blond-haired activist with a cherubic face and infectious smile was a one-woman campaign against human suffering who was instrumental in securing millions of dollars in aid for distribution in Iraq. In truth her death brought to light another horror of the Bush Administration. While they spend millions protecting oil, and getting their businesses funded. THERE WAS ONE PERSON dedicated to finding out the Iraqi cost of the War. What could be a great humanitarian effort to actively help the people and show that we are commited to helping the citizens WAS left to one person running her own NGO. "she was a one woman humanitiarian aid agency." it is said of her. Hopefully her committment will not die with her. She was killed by the terrorists in a car-bombing. It was all of our loss. More of the Article here: http://www.dhonline.com/articles/2005/04/18/news/nation/nat09.txt

Economic Week

SUMMING UP THE BUSH ECONOMIC PLAN

John Bolton, SERIOUSLY?

John Bolton on the United Nations and International Cooperation "[M]any Republicans in Congress--and perhaps a majority--not only do not care about losing the General Assembly vote but actually see it as a 'make my day' outcome. Indeed, once the vote is lost… this will simply provide further evidence to why nothing more should be paid to the UN system." The Washington Times, 1998 ''If the UN secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.'' 1994 Global Structures Convocation, New York, NY. "There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world and that is the United States when it suits our interest and we can get others to go along.'' 1994 Global Structures Convocation, New York, NY. General Assembly Resolutions and international conference declarations, (such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Agenda 21, and the Millennium Declaration) are "mind-numbing." Policy Review. Bring Back the Laxalt Doctrine, 2000. "If I were redoing the Security Council today, I'd have one permanent member because that's the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world." National Public Radio with Juan Williams, 2000. Bolton on International Treaties and Justice for Perpetrators of Genocide "The Senate vote [on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty] is also an unmistakable signal that America rejects the illusionary protections of unenforceable treaties." The Jerusalem Post, 1999. Renouncing the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court "was the happiest moment of my government service." The Wall Street Journal, 2002. "Support for the International Criminal Court concept is based largely on emotional appeals to an abstract ideal of an international judicial system." Statement before the House International Relations Committee, 2000. Bolton on Human Rights and Nongovernmental Organizations "We do not support the promotion of international advocacy activity by international or non-governmental organizations, particularly when those political or policy views advocated are not consistent with the views of all member states." Statement to the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects, 9 July 2001. This stands in stark contrast to the official policy of the United States, which is to support and strengthen the involvement of non-governmental organizations in international processes. PBU15

Bill O'Reily Really is an Ass

Proof Once More, Bill O’Reily, is an Ass "Nobody's perfect, but this guy [the pope] was close." – Bill O'Reilly, 4/1/05 VERSUS "I believe ... that John Paul is naive and detached from reality.... Summing up, Jacques Chirac is our enemy, and the pope, well, I don't know what to think." – Bill O'Reilly, 3/12/03

I HAVE MY WEBSITE BACK

AFTER SOME TECHINCAL DIFFICULTIES WITH BLOGGER AND HACKERS, I AM BACK BABY CAN'T STOP THE BLACK JEW

Today I watched the Buena Vista Social Club

I had seen it before, and I think I watched it like I would an Indy Film, I enjoyed it for the unique music and the beautiful stories. But today when I watched, and I really watched it. Maybe it is because I have since been to Cuba, seen its beauty touched some of the people’s wisdom. Maybe it is because I am in a new place, trying to see so much of the subtle beauty the world gives. But I was so touched when I saw it today, something about it really shown, the lines that distinguished the aging Ibrahim Ferrer. The way they enjoy life, the way they play the music. It was amazing. There is a seen when Ibrahim is walking in Manhattan seeing it for the first time and he is exploring, the way he sees the city, it almost brought me to tears. I am glad I experienced that movie again, because its clear I never got it before.

Opening Day

I love Opening Day of Baseball. I love other sporting events, start of football, March Madness. But Opening day seems such a perfect Family event. Opening Day is the reminder of Springs approach emodieing its new beginning for every team. If only the Phils or the Indians could keep my exctiment into the Winter

Cartoon Sunday

This Just Cracks Me Up

These people are so sad, they can't even get their FAKE townhalls to go to right. That is how bad the Privatization plan is. SUPPRESSING TRANSCRIPTS OF CHENEY EVENTS: Vice President Cheney participated in two "townhall" events last Thursday – one in Battle Creek, Michigan, and one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Contrary to its standard practice, the White House has not released the transcripts. Press coverage of the event suggests the reason. In Battle Creek, Cheney was joined on the stage by Rep. Joe Schwarz (R-MI) who said before the event that "he was not convinced that allowing personal retirement accounts will help solve the problem." At the Pittsburgh event, "Cheney pointed to the experience of federal workers who have the option of placing part of their retirement savings in somewhat similar accounts." But Kim Miller, a resident of Mt. Lebanon, PA, "said that she had been a federal employee and invested in the Thrift Savings Plan, 'and I didn't do well at all.'" Cheney's Social Security events from last Monday and Tuesday, which apparently were more under control, are available on the White House website.