To Fight Terrorism The US Senate Has Declared The Military Can Detain Americans Without Trial or Legal Representation

To Fight Terrorism The US Senate Has Declared The Military Can Detain Americans Without Trial or Legal Representation

Three years ago, former Guantánamo Bay detainee Mustafa Ait Idr cautiously sat with me in a Sarajevo café, spilling hot coffee as he brought the cup to his lips. Though it was seven months after his release, he was still nursing a broken finger – punishment, he said, for refusing to strip naked in his cell – and was unable to fully grasp the cup due to his loss of dexterity. His face was also partially paralysed from beatings, and he told me how his head was held in a toilet for prolonged periods of time.

Upon his release, he met his youngest son for the first time. Ait Idr was one of "the Algerian Six", a group of European (mainly Bosnian) citizens unlawfully detained at Guantánamo Bay for seven years. In 2008, a US federal judge ordered the release of five of the six men during the first-ever Guantánamo Bay habeas corpus trial. Just to obtain that trial, the men had to prevail in a 5-4 decision from the US supreme court. No charges were ever filed against them.

If the new National Defence Authorisation Act is enacted into law as it is currently written, many believe that American citizens would be in danger of enduring similar indefinite military detention without cause. Last week, the US Senate passed the NDAA, a massive $662bn defense bill with provisions that would amplify the role of the military in the seizure and detention of terror suspects, including US citizens. The act, a lovechild of Senators Carl Levin (Democrat) and John McCain (Republican), would permit the indefinite military detention of US citizens without charges or a trial. While the confusing bill is still a work in progress (the Senate and the House have yet to settle upon a final bill that will go to the president), it is already drawing fierce controversy across the country.

The NDAA holds that the military has the authority to detain "a person who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaida, the Taliban, or associated forces […] without trial" and authorises "transfer to the custody or control of the person's country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity". This implies that a naturalised American citizen could be exiled to their country of origin, even if it endangers their life. It also implies that an American citizen born in the US could be transferred to another "foreign entity".

So, what exactly does "other foreign entity" include? No one is quite sure, but an "entity" akin to the new mercenary company in Abu Dhabi run by Erik Prince, former CEO of Blackwater, cannot be ruled out.

There is confusion as to whether the NDAA applies to US citizens; but Section 1031 of the bill does indeed authorise indefinite military detention, without trial, of US citizens accused – not yet proven guilty, just accused – of terrorist acts. This was clarified in the following exchange on the floor of the Senate:

    Senator Rand Paul (Republican): "Under the provisions, would it be possible that an American citizen then could be declared an enemy combatant and sent to Guantánamo Bay and detained indefinitely?"

    Senator John McCain (Republican): "I think that as long as that individual, no matter who they are, if they pose a threat to the security of the United States of America, should not be allowed to continue that threat."

Section 1032 of the bill would require mandatory military custody of someone accused of being affiliated with al-Qaida or plotting attacks against the US; American citizens would be exempt from this specific measure. Aside from the unabashed disregard for civil liberties, placing the burden of detention and trial upon the military, rather than civilian law enforcement, diminishes and delegitimises the FBI's role in counter-terrorism efforts. This could make it challenging to collaboratively gather intelligence on domestic terror cells.

The proposed changes would require the military to act as police, wardens and judges – jobs for which it is not equipped. Highly-decorated General Paul Eaton (US Army, retired), has affirmed this, saying:

    "After serving for more than 30 years in the military, I can attest to its ability to conduct warfare brilliantly. We prefer not, however, to serve as policemen. The armed forces are not staffed, trained or equipped […] Our police, FBI and prison system are designed to keep America safe."

Senator Mark Udall (Democrat) sponsored an unsuccessful pitch to omit the controversial detainee portions, but his motion was defeated. The Senate also rejected a measure by Senator Dianne Feinstein (Democrat) to limit mandatory military custody to those captured outside the US. It failed (by a 45-55 vote), with only three Republicans voting in favor. Senator Feinstein did, however, succeed in pushing through a measure that ensures that the bill does not affect "existing law".

It it some though thin solace that President Obama has promised to veto the bill as written. Any adult reading this has very likely been falsely accused of doing wrong during their life. False accusations are cheap by the dozen. If the new National Defense Authorization Act is passed a as written it is not just your reputation that might take a beating, you can be hauled off to a military prison and never given the chance to defend yourself. A nice gift to any personal enemies you have made in life, but not much justice as guaranteed under the 4th Amendment, for you.

Republicans Claim The Stimulus Did Not Create Jobs and Government Cannot Create Jobs

Republicans Claim The Stimulus Did Not Create Jobs and Government Cannot Create Jobs

I have to admit, I never tire of stories like these.

    …Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH) kicked it old school on Thursday by cutting the ribbon on a new road that received millions from the same spending bill he opposed.

    Guinta spoke at the opening ceremony for Raymond Wieczorek Drive, a new access road connecting various towns to the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport. Later he posted a picture of the event on his official Facebook page. Other attendees included Gov. John Lynch (D) and New Hampshire House Speaker William O’Brien.

    “It’s going to help us with our tourism, our economy, and it’s going to provide us greater flexibility for our residents, our business commuters, and those visiting our state,” Guinta said at the event. “It’s a real example of how when we put our mind to it we can accomplish anything we want to accomplish.”

These examples are a lot less common now, not because GOP officials have become more responsible, but because Recovery Act funding has just about been exhausted. But when the instances come along, they tend to be doozies.

In this case, Guinta absolutely loathes stimulus spending — his hatred for these public investments was a central part of his 2010 campaign platform — but that didn’t stop him from trying to take credit for the infrastructure project that was financed by stimulus spending. That this new project wouldn’t exist if Guinta had his way didn’t interfere with his smiles at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Now, every time these examples come up, I get some pushback. As the argument goes, these Republican lawmakers who hate stimulus spending and want stimulus spending at the same time aren’t really doing anything wrong, because once the funds are available, members of Congress have a responsibility to look out for their districts’ interests.

There’s certainly some truth to this, and I can fully appreciate the importance of fighting for a slice of a pie. After all, their taxpaying constituents are paying for these investments whether they like it or not.

The problem, though, is the ways in which this practice pokes holes in the larger Republican ideology. GOP lawmakers like Guinta run around telling the public that public investments can’t create jobs and are bad for the economy. GOP lawmakers like Guinta then also tell the public investments can create jobs and are good for the economy.

Look again at those remarks the conservative Republican lawmaker made at the ribbon-cutting ceremony: because Congress agreed to spend this money, over his objections, Guinta’s community will get a larger economic boost. But if that’s true, why has Guinta fought so hard to kill this and related investments? Isn’t boosting the economy a worthwhile goal?

If there’s money on the table, and Republicans want to fight for some of it, fine. But what gets me are the ideological arguments that are as wrong as they are cynical — public spending will undermine the economy, unless it’s in my area, in which case it will be good for the economy.

One way to explain how conservatives look at the world is whatever benefits them is good - there s no real underlying system of beliefs. They're like children who want a piece of candy are are going to stomp their feet and cry until they get. Everything else they say or do is just so much noise. Some conservatives still try to get away with calling themselves the party of Lincoln. That was around the last time the Republican party stood for any principles.

Over The Last Forty Years America Has Often Followed The Path of Conservative Economic Policy - That Path Has Come Back to Haunt The Middle-Class

Over The Last Forty Years America Has Often Followed The Path of Conservative Economic Policy - That Path Has Come Back to Haunt The Middle-Class

A few weeks ago, as the Occupy Wall Street protests were first spreading, something amazing happened: For 10 whole seconds, the local reporter on my TV screen actually talked about the realities of the recession. He even uttered the phrase “economic inequality.”

My guess is that you’ve seen something similar on your local affiliate — and that’s no minor event. When even the most local of television journalists are compelled to acknowledge this crushing emergency in a country whose media aggressively promotes American dream agitprop, it means the Occupy protesters have scored a monumental victory. You can almost imagine a Wall Street CEO turning to an aide and muttering a slightly altered riff off LBJ: “If we’ve lost Ron Burgundy, we’ve lost Middle America.”

In response to this stunning turn of events, conservative politicians are retreating to non sequiturs. They seem to think that if they shout the phrase “class warfare” enough, the nation will go back to not caring about the divide between the rich and poor.

But something has changed.

For most of the post-World War II era, we tolerated relatively high inequality because we envisioned it as a necessary side effect of an exceptional economy that (supposedly) guaranteed opportunities for advancement. As the Wall Street Journal put it, we believed that “it is OK to have ever-greater differences between rich and poor … as long as (our) children have a good chance of grasping the brass ring.”

However, the last three decades have invalidated our standing hypothesis. After the conservatives’ successful assault on the New Deal, America has lived a different reality — one perfectly summarized by a new Federal Reserve study revealing that today’s increasing inequality accompanies comparatively low social mobility.

“U.S. family income mobility has decreased over the 1969-2006 time span, and especially since the 1980s,” notes the Fed paper, adding that “a family’s position at (the) end of (the) 2000s was … more correlated with its start position than was the case 20 years earlier.”

Of course, some class mobility still exists. The trouble is that it’s primarily of the downward kind. As the Pew Charitable Trusts reports, roughly a third of those who grew up in the middle class have now fallen below that station in adulthood.

This is why, for all the right-wing mythology about “Eurosocialism” snuffing out upward mobility, data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that social mobility in uber-capitalist America is actually lower than in most industrialized countries.

This is why almost three-quarters of respondents just told the Hill newspaper’s pollsters that income inequality is a problem.

This is why my local TV news is suddenly airing pieces on economic inequality between sports, weather and all the “you stay classy” small talk.

And this is why, among all the fights over economic policy, the debate about taxes is the most crucial of all.

As the Fed noted in a separate report, the federal tax code — which remains vaguely progressive — has been the one proven way to “mitigate income inequality.” But with congressional Republicans gradually flattening federal income tax rates and with already-regressive state tax rates in GOP bastions like Texas, Wyoming, Tennessee, South Dakota and Mississippi, the tax system has lately been preserving or exacerbating existing inequality.

David Sirota is a best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now."

Conservatives have been hyper shrill lately. Claiming that a return of the tax rates of the prosperous Clinton years will be a return to Marxism or even the end of our civilization. You can't reason with people like that, people who have clearly gone off the deep end. They seemed to have taken the zealotry of some religious cults to and applied it to economics. They believe what they believe and they want no part of being rational adults.

The Conservative Redistribution of Income is Grand Theft for Plutocrats

Here(chart), from the CBO report, are the changes, in percentage points, of the shares of income going to three groups. The top quintile excluding the top 1 percent – which is basically the abode of the well-educated who aren’t among the very lucky few – has only kept pace with the overall growth in incomes. Just about all of the redistribution has taken place from the bottom 80 to the top 1 (and we know that most of that has actually gone to the top 0.1).

 Oligarchy, American Style

Inequality is back in the news, largely thanks to Occupy Wall Street, but with an assist from the Congressional Budget Office. And you know what that means: It’s time to roll out the obfuscators! [Here, from the CBO report, are the changes, in percentage points, of the shares of income going to three groups. The top quintile excluding the top 1 percent – which is basically the abode of the well-educated who aren’t among the very lucky few – has only kept pace with the overall growth in incomes. Just about all of the redistribution has taken place from the bottom 80 to the top 1 (and we know that most of that has actually gone to the top 0.1).]

Anyone who has tracked this issue over time knows what I mean. Whenever growing income disparities threaten to come into focus, a reliable set of defenders tries to bring back the blur. Think tanks put out reports claiming that inequality isn’t really rising, or that it doesn’t matter. Pundits try to put a more benign face on the phenomenon, claiming that it’s not really the wealthy few versus the rest, it’s the educated versus the less educated.

So what you need to know is that all of these claims are basically attempts to obscure the stark reality: We have a society in which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few people, and in which that concentration of income and wealth threatens to make us a democracy in name only.

The budget office laid out some of that stark reality in a recent report, which documented a sharp decline in the share of total income going to lower- and middle-income Americans. We still like to think of ourselves as a middle-class country. But with the bottom 80 percent of households now receiving less than half of total income, that’s a vision increasingly at odds with reality.

In response, the usual suspects have rolled out some familiar arguments: the data are flawed (they aren’t); the rich are an ever-changing group (not so); and so on. The most popular argument right now seems, however, to be the claim that we may not be a middle-class society, but we’re still an upper-middle-class society, in which a broad class of highly educated workers, who have the skills to compete in the modern world, is doing very well.

It’s a nice story, and a lot less disturbing than the picture of a nation in which a much smaller group of rich people is becoming increasingly dominant. But it’s not true.

Workers with college degrees have indeed, on average, done better than workers without, and the gap has generally widened over time. But highly educated Americans have by no means been immune to income stagnation and growing economic insecurity. Wage gains for most college-educated workers have been unimpressive (and nonexistent since 2000), while even the well-educated can no longer count on getting jobs with good benefits. In particular, these days workers with a college degree but no further degrees are less likely to get workplace health coverage than workers with only a high school degree were in 1979.

So who is getting the big gains? A very small, wealthy minority.

The budget office report tells us that essentially all of the upward redistribution of income away from the bottom 80 percent has gone to the highest-income 1 percent of Americans. That is, the protesters who portray themselves as representing the interests of the 99 percent have it basically right, and the pundits solemnly assuring them that it’s really about education, not the gains of a small elite, have it completely wrong.

If anything, the protesters are setting the cutoff too low. The recent budget office report doesn’t look inside the top 1 percent, but an earlier report, which only went up to 2005, found that almost two-thirds of the rising share of the top percentile in income actually went to the top 0.1 percent — the richest thousandth of Americans, who saw their real incomes rise more than 400 percent over the period from 1979 to 2005.

Who’s in that top 0.1 percent? Are they heroic entrepreneurs creating jobs? No, for the most part, they’re corporate executives.

 Republicans - who really should be called the Right-wing Elitist Party - tells us that to complain about this redistribution of income from the working class to millionaires is socialism. Don't fall for that old canard. America has become an economy that gives rich people money just for being rich not because they worked for it. They get that wealth from where all wealth starts, from average Americans producing goods and services. The 1% are the leeches and the 99% are the producers.

Banana Republic Democracy In Wisconsin Guns Welcome Cameras Excluded

Banana Republic Democracy In Wisconsin Guns Welcome Cameras Excluded

Eighteen people were arrested Tuesday for using cameras in the Wisconsin Assembly gallery, including the editor of The Progressive magazine, Matt Rothschild.

Rothschild and others had gone to the capitol to protest a series of arrests in recent weeks of individuals who carried signs or took photos or video in defiance of an Assembly ban.

"We ought to have a right to take a picture," Rothschild said.
Guns, Yes. Cameras, No.

The protest was organized through a Facebook event called "Concealed Camera Day at the Capitol!" The event coincided with the implementation of Wisconsin's new concealed carry law, which allows residents to carry a concealed firearm -- including inside the Assembly gallery.

Stephen Colbert said Governor Walker was bringing "a new freedom to America's dairyland" with the concealed carry law, but said people would not see "images of gunfire in the statehouse" because of the camera ban. "Thank God. Cameras are dangerous," he said.

On the agenda in Tuesday's session was a bill to institute the Castle Doctrine, a "shoot first, ask questions later" bill that gives a person immunity from civil and criminal liability if they shoot another in self defense in their home, work, or vehicle. The American Legislative Exchange Council also has a model Castle Doctrine bill -- see the side-by-side here.

Event organizers were clear that the protests were not about the gun laws, but instead about protecting First Amendment rights.
But is it Legal?

The Open Meetings law includes this provision (§19.90):

    "Use of equipment in open session. Whenever a governmental body holds a meeting in open session, the body shall make a reasonable effort to accommodate any person desiring to record, film or photograph the meeting. This section does not permit recording, filming or photographing such a meeting in a manner that interferes with the conduct of the meeting or the rights of the participants."

The statute also contains this provision (§ 19.87(2)):

    "No provision of this subchapter which conflicts with a rule of the senate or assembly or joint rule of the legislature shall apply to a meeting conducted in compliance with such rule."

The legal issue here appears similar to the one that arose in the challenge to Governor Walker's collective bargaining law. In that case, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne alleged that the union-busting law should be struck down because it was passed in violation of another provision of the Open Meetings law requiring notice. In part, Ozanne's challenge failed because the legislature had passed a rule that trumped the Open Meetings law.

Likewise, here the Assembly had a rule banning cameras and video, but under the court's ruling in the Ozanne suit, that rule trumped the Open Meetings law permitting their use.

Despite this, both the Wisconsin and U.S. Constitutions have provisions protecting the right to free speech, free assembly, and a free press. "The gallery is a free speech area," says attorney Jim Mueller, who was ticketed in October for violating the Assembly rule. "Even if there are rules against signs, they're unconstitutional. It is our right to peaceably assemble and petition the government."

If we said how funny it was that Governor Walker and other Rethugicans allowed guns but no sunshine from the free press, we would be mistaken in thinking this is some kind of weird aberration of the the Soviet Union's old Politburo here in the U.S. There is nothing strange here. Republicans know that the greatest threat to their anti-American, anti-Democracy agenda is letting the public know what they're doing. Sunshine, like that brought by cameras and recorders is the kind of disinfectant that conservatives know will shine a light on their shady corrupt style of gov'mint. 

How OWS Has Exposed the Militarization of US Law Enforcement

How OWS Has Exposed the Militarization of US Law Enforcement

As the number of Occupy Wall Street arrests nears 1,000, instances of police brutality continue to pile up. Felix Rivera-Pitre was punched in the face in New York during a march through the city’s financial district; Ryan Hadar was dragged out of the street by his thumbs at Occupy San Francisco; and at Occupy Boston, members of Veterans for Peace were shoved to the ground and dragged away for chanting and peacefully occupying a local park.

These efforts to intimidate the protesters are symptoms of three decades of policies that have militarized civilian law enforcement. Sgt. Shamar Thomas, a U.S. marine at the Occupy Wall Street protests, was so appalled by the behavior of the NYPD that he loudly confronted a group of 30 officers, shouting at them:

    "This is not a war zone. These are unarmed people. It does not make you tough to hurt these people. If you want to go fight, go to Iraq or Afghanistan. Stop hurting these people, man, why y’all doing this to our people? Why are y’all gearing up like this is war? There are no bullets flying out here."

Police repression in America is hardly new. Low-income neighborhoods, communities of color and political activists have always had to deal with unneccassary shows of force by some police officers. Thanks to a populist uprising threatening a status quo that benefits the top tier of American society to the detriment of the bottom 99 percent, many Americans for the first time are witnessing the U.S. police state in action.

As Occupation Spreads, So Does the Police State

A clear pattern has emerged in the response to occupations throughout the country, from San Francisco to Denver, involving midnight raids by heavily armed paramilitary units of riot police deployed to enforce park curfews.

Protesters at Occupy San Francisco are familiar with the routine. They have endured multiple late-night police raids on their encampment in Justin Herman Plaza, the most brutal of which took place Sunday, Oct. 16. Minutes before midnight and with the approval of Mayor Ed Lee (who is currently running for reelection and claims to be supportive of the movement's overall message), 70 police officers decked out in full riot gear marched into the encampment to enforce a 10pm curfew. They dismantled tents, tarps, the medical station and the kitchen, along with some personal belongings, all of which were loaded onto Department of Public Works trucks.

Some 200 protesters resisted peacefully, locking arms to prevent the police invasion, which was met with a frighteningly violent response. According to the San Francisco Bay Guardian, one protester received a lengthy beat-down for duct-taping his body to a pole inside the camp. The police allegedly "ripped him off the pole, threw him to the ground and struck him in the head and ribs. When he left by ambulance a few hours later, he appeared to be convulsing or seizing," reported the Bay Guardian.

Protesters using their bodies to block the DPW trucks from leaving were dragged out of the street, some by their fingers and thumbs. Those who locked arms to form a human chain were pulled apart and thrown onto the sidewalk. 

America's police departments might want to ask themselves - what are you going to do when they come for you. Most police in the US belong to unions. Who is going to defend your rights to organize. Who is going to defend your right to collective bargaining. Who is going to look out for your right to decent health care insurance. The very same people you're treating like garbage. By all means protect life and garb anyone you see do something like throw a brick threw a window, but otherwise ask yourself why you're acting like the goon enforcers of some despotic regime.

B-I-N-G-Oh Hell No: Judge Rules That Alabama Republicans Acted With Racist Intent to Suppress Voter Turnout

Herman Cain Owned and Operated by the Koch Brothers

Why Herman Cain Is The Koch Brothers’ Favorite Presidential Candidate

Former pizza executive Herman Cain’s rise to the top of the Republican presidential pack will undoubtedly put smiles on the faces of two brothers: Charles and David Koch.

The Koch Brothers are infamous for using their billions to finance the Tea Party and helping to gut business and environmental regulations. They have not been shy about influencing conservative politics, both through large direct contributions – the Kochs have pledged to raise $88 million for the 2012 election – and funding corporate front groups like Americans for Prosperity.

Though the Kochs have not made a public endorsement in the Republican presidential contest, Herman Cain’s rise from niche radio host to presidential frontrunner appears to have been largely fueled by the Koch network. From Cain’s early foray into politics to his presidential campaign speeches to his top staff, the former pizza executive has had close, consistent ties with the Koch Brothers.

Given the extensive connections between Herman Cain and the Koch Brothers, ThinkProgress asked the former pizza executive about his thoughts on David Koch back in March. Cain called David Koch — as well as his brother Charles — a “patriot”:


Here is a rundown of the numerous ways in which Cain and the Kochs have worked hand-in-hand for years to advance corporate-friendly conservative policies:

    - Cain held an official position in the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity: Dating back to 2005, Cain led Americans for Prosperity’s new “Prosperity Expansion Project.” The position allowed Cain to barnstorm the country, giving speeches, holding town halls, and sharpening his skills for an eventual presidential bid.

    - Cain’s campaign manager is the former president of Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity Wisconsin chapter: Prior to becoming Cain’s campaign manager and chief of staff, Mark Block served as the president of Americans for Prosperity’s Wisconsin chapter. At the same time Block was serving in that position, he is credited with “talk[ing] Herman Cain into running for president”. As AFP-Wisconsin president in 2006, Block even tried to convince Cain to run for president in the 2008 election because of the former pizza executive’s rousing speeches at Americans for Prosperity events. Block has a history of electoral dirty tricks and once fined $15,000 for violating Wisconsin election law.

    - Cain attended the Koch Brothers’ private biannual meeting in Palm Springs: In January, the Kochs hosted one of their biannual meetings of top corporate and political figures in order to coordinate strategy and raise money for the conservative movement. Cain was among the small group of conservative politicians invited to attend.

    - Cain traveled to Wisconsin in support of the Koch-funded union-busting bill: During the apex of the fight in Wisconsin over Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) union-busting bill this spring, Cain traveled to the Badger State to support the conservative power-grab, speaking at a rally in February. The Koch brothers were major players in Wisconsin’s anti-union push.

    - Cain headlined a Koch-funded anti-climate rally in New York: As other presidential candidates focused on glad-handing with voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, Cain took time out in June to travel to New York and headline a Koch-backed anti-climate rally. The rally, held by Americans for Prosperity, protested New York’s involvement in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an important project to fight global warming that has been long-opposed by the Koch Brothers.

    - Cain was a featured speaker at the Koch-funded RightOnline conference: Cain has been a featured speaker at RightOnline, the Koch-backed conservative conference, for the past two years.

The Koch Brothers’ investment in Herman Cain appears to already be paying dividends in advancing their corporatist agenda. Cain has centered his presidential bid around the “999? economic plan, an enormous corporate giveaway that would reduce companies’ income tax rate from 35 percent to 9 percent. Not only would Koch Industries reap massive benefits, but the Koch Brothers themselves — already tied for the fourth richest people in America — would personally see their tax rates fall from approximately 28 percent to around 11 percent.

Cain and the Koch brothers have a lot in common. One of the biggest items on their radical conservative agenda is to transform America into a modern day plantation where workers are only technically free. American workers would be stripped of all rights, unions would be banned, this working class folks would be even more wage slaves than they are now. The cherry on top would be a 9 percent sales tax on in addition to the sales taxes medium and low income workers are paying now. Why? So that billionaire special interests like the Koch brothers can make even more money for exerting no more effort than getting up and going to the office to sit behind their desks.

Conservative Republicans Show True Colors - American Blackshirts Against Voting

Conservative Republicans Show True Colors - American Blackshirts Against Voting

Total shock: Voter ID laws prevent people from voting
For white male property owners only.
This isn't a bug, this is a feature:

    Dorothy Cooper is 96 but she can remember only one election when she's been eligible to vote but hasn't.

    The retired domestic worker was born in a small North Georgia town before women had the right to vote. She began casting ballots in her 20s after moving to Chattanooga for work. She missed voting for John F. Kennedy in 1960 because a move to Nashville prevented her from registering in time.

    So when she learned last month at a community meeting that under a new state law she'd need a photo ID to vote next year, she talked with a volunteer about how to get to a state Driver Service Center to get her free ID. But when she got there Monday with an envelope full of documents, a clerk denied her request.

    That morning, Cooper slipped a rent receipt, a copy of her lease, her voter registration card and her birth certificate into a Manila envelope. Typewritten on the birth certificate was her maiden name, Dorothy Alexander.

    "But I didn't have my marriage certificate," Cooper said Tuesday afternoon, and that was the reason the clerk said she was denied a free voter ID at the Cherokee Boulevard Driver Service Center.

Cooper was able to vote during the days of Jim Crow, but under Tennessee's recently passed voter ID law, she can't get an ID because she didn't have every single last piece of documentation the state would require. Now, some might say that Cooper's case is just an unfortunate incident of a well-meaning system failing a select few individuals, but it's not: Making it harder for immigrants, minorities, students and poor people to vote is exactly part of the plan. It's like Rep. Steve King said as he longed for the days when only white property owners could vote:

    KING: As I roll this thing back and I think of American history, there was a time in American history when you had to be a male property owner in order to vote. The reason for that was, because they wanted the people who voted—that set the public policy, that decided on the taxes and the spending—to have some skin in the game.

    [...]

    Now I don't think they're paying taxes. But many of them are voting. And when they vote, they vote for more government benefits.

Not that Rep. King is alone. This is what New Hampshire State House Speaker William O'Brien had to say this spring in defense of a bill that would have made it significantly harder for students to vote in New Hampshire:

    New Hampshire's new Republican state House speaker is pretty clear about what he thinks of college kids and how they vote. They're "foolish," Speaker William O'Brien said in a recent speech to a tea party group.

    "Voting as a liberal. That's what kids do," he added, his comments taped by a state Democratic Party staffer and posted on YouTube. Students lack "life experience," and "they just vote their feelings.

Got that? If you vote as a liberal, you don't deserve to vote. The only way you deserve to vote is if you're the type of person who will vote to enrich the class of male property owners. That's why 38 states have introduced some form of suppressive voter ID law; after all, the people who are likely to be affected by them aren't the people that "deserve" to be voting, and white property owners will likely have the resources to get the IDs they need.

And in case it wasn't clear enough, the sponsor of the bill in Tennessee doesn't have high regard for the people her law could affect:

    In this video, the House sponsor of the photo ID voter law defends it against questions from a gaggle of pesky reporters. Rep. Debra Maggart, R-Hendersonville, dismisses Democratic claims that many poor people don't have photo ID. She wonders how "all these people" are able to buy beer and cigarettes without driver's licenses. Later in the interview, she denies she's referring to poor people. Maybe she was talking about wealthy Republican voters.

    Maggart: Tell me how people are buying beer and cigarettes? They have to have an ID to do that, a photo ID to do that. I have a hard time believing that all these people don’t have an ID. … You have to have a photo ID to get public housing. You have to have a birth certificate to get public housing. … I think there’s more people with a photo ID than they want to admit.
    ...

    Q: You were referring to housing project residents? You think they buy an inordinate amount of beer and cigarettes?

    Maggart: No, I didn’t say that. I’m just saying a lot of people have photo ID.

Poor people: they're all a bunch of drug-addicted losers on public housing, so who cares if they vote, right Rep. Maggart? Just shameless.

Conservatives like to portray non-conservatives as elitist yet they want to run the USA as an elte country club where only the chosen elite can participate in democracy. Or what is left of democracy after these fake patriots finish gutting it.

As crazy as an old barn bat - Herman Cain Claims That His Tax Plan Is ‘Not Regressive On The Poor’ — Economists Disagree

Bush-era probe involved guns 'walking'

The federal government under the Bush administration ran an operation that allowed hundreds of guns to be transferred to suspected arms traffickers - the same tactic that congressional Republicans have criticized President Barack Obama's administration for using, two federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

Bush Has learned Nothing From His Failures. Bush Remains The Typical Arrogant Conservative

Bush Has learned Nothing From His Failures. Bush Remains The Typical Arrogant Conservative

President Bush sat down with USA Today to discuss the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and his role in shaping U.S. policy in their aftermath. During the interview, Bush thought he’d take the opportunity to pat himself on the back for Osama bin Laden’s death:

    Bush said the events that led to the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May began during his administration.

    “The work that was done by intelligence communities during my presidency was part of putting together the puzzle that enabled us to see the full picture of how bin Laden was communicating and eventually where he was hiding,” he said. “It began the day after 9/11.”

The reality, of course, is that Bush’s attempts to capture or kill bin Laden were huge failures. While it’s been well documented that the Bush administration missed an opportunity to get bin Laden in Tora Bora in 2001, Bush himself subsequently stated publicly that he wasn’t spending much time thinking about getting him. “I truly am not that concerned about him. I am deeply concerned about Iraq,” Bush said in 2002, “I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you.” Bush told reporters in 2006 that hunting the al Qaeda leader was “not a top priority use of American resources.”

And in 2005, Bush shut down the CIA’s unit dedicated to finding bin Laden in order to shift resources to Iraq. “The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants,” the New York Times reported in 2006, adding that resources “had been redirected from the hunt for Mr. bin Laden to the search for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed last month in Iraq.” When the right wing rushed to give Bush credit after bin Laden’s death in May, ThinkProgress produced this short video highlighting Bush’s failures:

Soon after he took office, President Obama steered the U.S. on a course to end the war in Iraq and put resources back into finding bin Laden. “Shortly after I got into office,” Obama said in an interview after bin Laden’s death, “I brought [then-CIA director] Leon Panetta privately into the Oval Office and I said to him, ‘We need to redouble our efforts in hunting bin Laden down. And I want us to start putting more resources, more focus, and more urgency into that mission.’”

The Confessions of a Conservative Republican

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the CultSaturday 3 September 2011by: Mike Lofgren, Truthout

....But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.

It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill. A couple of months ago, I retired; but I could see as early as last November that the Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages.

The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel - how prudent is that? - in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.

Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care. This fact, which ought to be obvious, has nevertheless caused confusion among the professional pundit class, which is mostly still stuck in the Bob Dole era in terms of its orientation. For instance, Ezra Klein wrote of his puzzlement over the fact that while House Republicans essentially won the debt ceiling fight, enough of them were sufficiently dissatisfied that they might still scuttle the deal. Of course they might - the attitude of many freshman Republicans to national default was "bring it on!"

It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.

In his "Manual of Parliamentary Practice," Thomas Jefferson wrote that it is less important that every rule and custom of a legislature be absolutely justifiable in a theoretical sense, than that they should be generally acknowledged and honored by all parties. These include unwritten rules, customs and courtesies that lubricate the legislative machinery and keep governance a relatively civilized procedure. The US Senate has more complex procedural rules than any other legislative body in the world; many of these rules are contradictory, and on any given day, the Senate parliamentarian may issue a ruling that contradicts earlier rulings on analogous cases.

The only thing that can keep the Senate functioning is collegiality and good faith. During periods of political consensus, for instance, the World War II and early post-war eras, the Senate was a "high functioning" institution: filibusters were rare and the body was legislatively productive. Now, one can no more picture the current Senate producing the original Medicare Act than the old Supreme Soviet having legislated the Bill of Rights.

Far from being a rarity, virtually every bill, every nominee for Senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a Republican filibuster. Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that Washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.

John P. Judis sums up the modern GOP this way:

    "Over the last four decades, the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. It is the party of Watergate and Iran-Contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. If there is an earlier American precedent for today's Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery."

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness. Paul Krugman has skewered this tactic as being the "centrist cop-out." "I joked long ago," he says, "that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read 'Views Differ on Shape of Planet.'"

Inside-the-Beltway wise guy Chris Cillizza merely proves Krugman right in his Washington Post analysis of "winners and losers" in the debt ceiling impasse. He wrote that the institution of Congress was a big loser in the fracas, which is, of course, correct, but then he opined: "Lawmakers - bless their hearts - seem entirely unaware of just how bad they looked during this fight and will almost certainly spend the next few weeks (or months) congratulating themselves on their tremendous magnanimity." Note how the pundit's ironic deprecation falls like the rain on the just and unjust alike, on those who precipitated the needless crisis and those who despaired of it. He seems oblivious that one side - or a sizable faction of one side - has deliberately attempted to damage the reputation of Congress to achieve its political objectives.

This constant drizzle of "there the two parties go again!" stories out of the news bureaus, combined with the hazy confusion of low-information voters, means that the long-term Republican strategy of undermining confidence in our democratic institutions has reaped electoral dividends. The United States has nearly the lowest voter participation among Western democracies; this, again, is a consequence of the decline of trust in government institutions - if government is a racket and both parties are the same, why vote? And if the uninvolved middle declines to vote, it increases the electoral clout of a minority that is constantly being whipped into a lather by three hours daily of Rush Limbaugh or Fox News. There were only 44 million Republican voters in the 2010 mid-term elections, but they effectively canceled the political results of the election of President Obama by 69 million voters.

This tactic of inducing public distrust of government is not only cynical, it is schizophrenic. For people who profess to revere the Constitution, it is strange that they so caustically denigrate the very federal government that is the material expression of the principles embodied in that document. This is not to say that there is not some theoretical limit to the size or intrusiveness of government; I would be the first to say there are such limits, both fiscal and Constitutional. But most Republican officeholders seem strangely uninterested in the effective repeal of Fourth Amendment protections by the Patriot Act, the weakening of habeas corpus and self-incrimination protections in the public hysteria following 9/11 or the unpalatable fact that the United States has the largest incarcerated population of any country on earth.

There is more at the link. In many ways this confession by a conservative is just a distillation of hundreds if not thousands of articles that have tried to warn the American people about the cancer that is the modern state of conservatism. Conservatism as it is not practiced by John Boehner(R-OH), Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Eric Cantor, Michelle Malkin, Rupert Murdoch's anti-American "news" outlet Fox News and thousands of others is not patriotic much less American. They preach a weird combination of government by and for the financial elite with some mean interpretation of religion.

The Taliban Comes To Texas Dressed Up as Republicans

The Taliban Comes To Texas Dressed Up as Conservative Republicans

Before I met with Texas State Representative Dan Flynn last month during Texas’ pro-choice lobby day, I truly believed that even the most passionate anti-choice conservative couldn’t look me in the face and tell me they didn’t really care whether I got the reproductive health care I needed. Who would seriously tell me their religious beliefs are more important than making sure hundreds of thousands of women just like me—women with high-risk HPV--don’t develop cervical cancer?

But like I said, that was before I sat in front of Rep. Flynn, in his Austin office next to his model airplanes and elect-Dan-Flynn gum, and told him how I’d lost my job and my health insurance and needed regular, affordable pap smears to keep an eye on my pre-cancerous cervical dysplasia. I told him Planned Parenthood could provide low-cost paps, breast exams and contraceptives to keep me healthy despite my lack of insurance, and I believed they should continue to be funded by government family planning dollars. He scoffed, waving around a handful of papers—spreadsheets and maps, it looked like—and told me that Planned Parenthood was nothing but a tax-evading abortion machine (he knew because he used to be a bank examiner and had heard some things from some people) and there were so many other options besides Planned Parenthood in Texas. I should and could go to one of those, he told me, so we could spread some of the wealth around to these smaller providers. It would be very easy, he said.

I asked him if he could give me that list he had in his hand, the long list of places I could get low-cost reproductive health care without insurance near my home in Dallas. He glanced at the list and rattled off some names, something about Dallas Emergency Services and Dallas County Hospital District. He didn’t exactly wait for me to get out my pen and pad. I filed out of Flynn’s office with the rest of the women I’d teamed up with for lobby day feeling surprised and disappointed. But I still wanted (needed!) to know where those low-cost health centers were that Flynn had referenced, because I knew the Texas Legislature to be hell-bent on cutting the family planning funds that keep Planned Parenthood and clinics like it afloat.

Planned Parenthood or not, I’d still need well-woman exams, birth control pills and suchlike, and I wanted to know where I could get these things if I had to spend weeks or months scraping by on a freelancer’s salary without health insurance. So here’s what I did: I spent my own time, money and energy trying to find a health care clinic that anti-choice conservatives, legislators and organizations would approve of—namely, to find a Federally Qualified Health Center or “look-alike” center that, by virtue of federal grant funding, cannot provide abortion services except in cases of rape, incest or threat to a mother’s life, as dictated by the 36-year-old Hyde Amendment. (I know—that amendment also applies to Planned Parenthood, which only uses private, non-taxpayer funds for its abortion services at separate, privately-funded locations, but we’re talking about conservative ideology, not logic, so just go with me here.)

But I thought, I’ll play this game. If it turns out I was wrong—and I really thought maybe I could be, because how could it seriously happen that “pro-life” Texans didn’t want me to get cancer screenings?—I would be the first to admit that you can take Planned Parenthood out of the equation and still find easily accessible, low-cost reproductive health care in a sprawling metropolitan area like Dallas. But I wasn’t wrong. I was, maddeningly, right. Considering the rate at which conservatives are defunding family planning in my state, and for that matter, across the country, I’m very sorry about that. All of this is an ideological, not fiscally conservative, battle. After all, family planning saves taxpayers $4 for every $1 spent. But I was trying to work around family planning dollars, since conservatives seem to think they go straight to gleeful baby-killing cocktail hours, and stick with straight-up FQHC's. If they’re lucky, Dallas women will be told what I was told: an appointment at an anti-choicer-approved FQHC might be available in May if I called back in three weeks—at a location two cities away and five miles from the closest bus stop.

Or women can call Planned Parenthood, like I did, at lunch time on a Friday, and be told that an afternoon appointment including a full pelvic and breast exam is available that same day for about $100 at a location a few yards from a major public transportation hub that I could easily reach in a half-hour or so. But I’m getting ahead of myself. You see, I first had to do a little divination to figure out where exactly anti-choicers wanted me to get my health care (besides not Planned Parenthood), since I couldn’t actually get any of them to pass along that list of their approved providers to me. First thing in the morning, the day after I met with Rep. Dan Flynn, I called and e-mailed his office. After a day or so, they got back to me and advised I contact the anti-choice religious groupTexas Alliance For Life for a list of alternatives to Planned Parenthood. I e-mailed the Alliance on March 10:

Hi, TX Alliance for Life - I was referred to you by the office of Rep. Dan Flynn. I’m looking for a comprehensive list of alternatives to Planned Parenthood–when I visited with Rep. Flynn this week he referenced a document that appeared to be just such a thing. Karah Carr, a legislative aide for Rep. Flynn, tells me the Alliance for Life provided it. I was wondering if I could get a copy of the same list? Thanks! Andrea

So, what’s today? April the something? I haven’t heard back from the Alliance yet. I’ve even been Tweeting at both the Alliance and Rep. Flynn asking for that list of providers that can they believe can give me the same or better care as Planned Parenthood.

But, nada.

I know Flynn and his conservative counterparts were very busy over the weekend deciding which Texans deserve health care (hint: it’s not women of reproductive age) but I hoped that at least in Flynn’s passion for defunding family planning, he’d develop a passion for helping women find health care providers he approved of. I was wrong about that one.

I posted about my travails on my personal blog, where I have a number of anti-choice trolls who are always more than happy to share their wealth of knowledge with me. There, someone from another anti-choice group eventually commented and told me they wouldn’t mind if I went to a Federally Qualified Health Center or “look-alike” center that offers sliding fee scales. And look, said the "pro-life" Texan, there are seven such centers in Dallas! So that’s what I did: Last Friday morning, I went out of my way to find a doctor based on the fact that some people have a personal dislike of Planned Parenthood for providing abortions--a safe, common and legal medical procedure.

It hardly felt like easy-access, low-cost health care. It felt more like coercion, and it was a hassle, and it forced me to make decisions about my own body and health care based on what other people—people who never met me, who are not medical professionals—think I should be doing based on their religious beliefs.

I found that list of FQHC’s—I am privileged to have a flexible work schedule, home phone and home internet access, so I didn’t have to take time off work to go to the public library and use a pay phone, and I didn’t have to sneak around on a conservative, religious or abusive family or partner--and started making calls. Most places I telephoned did not provide reproductive health care and instead focused on providing low-income housing, job training and addiction-recovery programs. A homeless shelter on the FQHC list did tell me I could get a free pap smear if I could prove I was homeless. I then got sidetracked looking into something called Project Access, a low-cost program that helps uninsured people who don’t qualify for Medicaid—but because I made more than about $20,000 last year as an unmarried woman without kids, I don’t qualify for that, either.

And the Texas Breast And Cervical Cancer Services, which is supposed to provide low-cost screenings for Texas women? It referred me to Planned Parenthood. So that was a no-go.

Back to the phones: a clinic close-ish to my home had no receptionist and a full voicemail. Another receptionist laughed at me because I’d been given the number for the county hospital front desk and told me to call a place called Los Barrios Unidos Community Clinic. When I called Los Barrios, I got an individual’s voice mail and had to take down another number to a switchboard, after which I was transferred to another voicemail that said the women’s health care folks would get back to me in 24 hours if I left my phone number. They’ve yet to call me. Later in the morning, I finally got through to the Los Barrios clinic in Grand Prairie, which is a western suburb of Dallas. They had appointments open in May, potentially, if I could call them back the morning of April 25th. There, a pap smear would cost me as little as $30, but maybe more depending on my income.

I made my last call to a Planned Parenthood clinic in central Dallas. The receptionist there told me they could schedule me that same afternoon for a full pelvic and breast exam. It’d be about $100, but there was a sliding scale. Without Planned Parenthood and family planning funding that funds actual medical centers—not crisis pregnancy centers or adoption agencies, as may happen in Texas after this year’s budget--poor, uninsured and under-insured women in my city do not generally have access to quality reproductive health care in any real way. They sit on waiting lists for weeks and months, and that’s if they can take time off work to do what I did: spend a morning surfing the internet, finding phone numbers and addresses of health clinics and hospitals, calling them only to be put on hold, laughed at or hung up on, and if they do find the a clinic, leaving a message in hopes of getting a return call to schedule appointment.

I’m not saying I tried my absolute hardest to find a reproductive health care provider that Texas anti-choice conservatives approve of. I could have called back the clinics I had to leave messages at, the ones that promised they’d get back to me in 24 hours. I could have spent another morning calling clinics in Fort Worth, Denton, Waco or Oklahoma City, to see if one of them could get me in for an appointment in the next two months. Of course, to visit those places, I’d be spending in gas what I’d be spending to go to a local Planned Parenthood here in Dallas. So there wouldn’t really be any money savings, there’d just be conscience-savings on the part of people who don’t really want to hear or care about my personal health unless I’m pregnant or might be pregnant.

Anti-choicers like Flynn and “pro-life” activists want me and women like me to jump through these hoops not because it's medically safer for us to go somewhere other than Planned Parenthood, but because they don't want women hanging out with anybody who provides a safe, legal and common medical procedure. And for what it's worth, I imagine the anti-choice folks who told me to seek out an FQHC should know this: FQHC's do provide referrals to abortion providers at their discretion, even though they don't provide the procedure on-site.

Of course, once you get to the next level, here--after anti-choicers have first told you they don't want to fund the abortion industry with taxpayer dollars--then it magically becomes about some pseudo- socialist ideal about spreading the health care access around, just like Rep. Dan Flynn told me in his office last month. Suddenly, all those things they told you about the abortionists and the dead babies goes out the window, because really, it's about making sure the little guys get their fair slice of the pie.

Nobody knows these two excuses—barring taxpayer funding for abortion and spreading the health care wealth around--are straight-up lies better than the anti-choice movement members themselves. There's a reason why anti-choice legislators and activists are so strong on these two talking points: they're simply, plainly, not true. Taxpayer funding for abortion does not exist. It hasn't existed for thirty-six years thanks to the Hyde Amendment. And we need only to look to Nebraska, where five babies have died so far this year because conservative lawmakers do not allow hospitals to care for undocumented immigrants, to know that spreading the health care wealth around to everyone is a total farce. Besides, wasn’t Jesus a capitalist, anyway?

Why do conservative have such deep paranoid fears of the Taliban. Their social and cultural agenda are so much alike. The Taliban and conservative Republicans are kindred spirits who think it best the world go back in time to the 17th century - a time where men and a government run by men owned and controlled every woman's uterus.

Paul Ryan’s ‘Compassionate’ Budget Would Gut The Food Safety Net

This so-called “compassionate” plan would double health-care costs for seniors, endanger vital Medicaid services, and likely increase taxes on the middle-class to finance tax cuts for the rich. But it would also undermine another important part of the social safety net: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program...

What is Ryan and the conservative vision of America's future - a dog eat dog world. An America that is you're lucky fighting the greed, malice, selfishness and complete lack of concern for your fellow citizens, Ryan and conservatives will give you a can of dog food.