What's Up With Ex-Im And Why Is This Called An "Airline Fight?"

Delta Airlines?? What do they have to do with BOEING's financing of airplane sales to the world?
Well, "Delta Airlines is challenging this assumption, saying that Ex-Im fails to balance Boeing’s gain against the financial damage done to carriers like itself." Further: "Now here's George Will, in High-flying corporate welfare, (Note the lobbyist phrasing, pretending that Republicans are against "corporate welfare.") Will is complaining that Boeing, specifically, benefits from the Ex-Im Bank. Here is the most stunning statement in this piece: "There is an understandable urge to counter the subsidies that foreign governments give to companies competing with U.S. companies. The result, however, is an increasingly mercantilist world."
Got that? (George) Will says flat-out that America shouldn't defend itself from attacks on our economy!
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2012031220/whats-ex-im-and-why-called-airline-fight

WAR & What Happened to Robert Bales?

"Lt. Col. Dave Grossman in his book “On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society,” notes: “It is not too far from the mark to observe that there is something about continuous, inescapable combat which will drive 98 percent of all men insane, and the other 2 percent were crazy when they go there.”

Murder Is Not an Anomaly in War: http://www.truth-out.org/murder-not-anomaly-war/1332165061

"War is the beautiful young nymph in the fairy tale that, when kissed, exhales the vapors of the underworld.

The ancient Greeks had a word for such a fate: ekpyrosis. It means to be consumed by a ball of fire. They used it to describe heroes."

How the Fundamentalist Mind Compels Conservative Christians to Force Their Beliefs on You

"Good people are willing to subvert the U.S. Constitution and even violate human decency in their quest for converts."
 http://www.alternet.org/story/154460/how_the_fundamentalist_mind_compels_conservative_christians_to_force_their_beliefs_on_you?akid=8427.153143.eyzwNo&rd=1&t=5

STOP Backdoor Bribery in CONGRESS

Congressman Billy Tauzin (R-LA), for instance, made $158,100 as a lawmaker his last year in office. He went on to make nearly $20 million the next few years as a drug company lobbyist — after he wrote the law in Congress that prevents Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices for seniors (a rule that costs taxpayers billions).
Check out the WHOLE article: http://www.republicreport.org/2012/stop-backdoor-bribery-lette/
("Democrats" do as well! Just proving my point that 100% of the Republi-cons are on the take and 30-70% of the "Dems" are as well...depending on the issue.)

This Is NOT What Democracy Looks Like! Criminalizing First Amendment Rights

http://ampedstatus.org/this-is-not-what-democracy-looks-like-criminalizing-first-amendment-rights/
"Specifically, the bill, which now awaits President Obama’s signature, levies a fine and up to a year in prison against anyone found in violation, and if the person violating the statute is carrying a “dangerous weapon,” the prison sentence is bumped up to no more than ten years. Thus, a person eating in a diner while a presidential candidate is trying to score political points with the locals could be arrested if government agents determine that he is acting “disorderly.” Mind you, depending on who’s making the assessment, anything can be considered disorderly, including someone exercising his right to free speech by muttering to himself about a government official. And if that person happens to have a pocketknife or nail clippers in his possession (or any other innocuous item that could be interpreted by the police as “dangerous”), he could face up to ten years in prison".

What They Don’t Want to Talk About

"Ever since Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry started criticizing Mitt Romney’s actions at Bain Capital — and talking about the thousands of people laid off as a result of Bain’s investments — party leaders have essentially told them to shut up."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/what-they-dont-want-to-talk-about.html?_r=1
"Mr. Romney has based his campaign on his business experience. Americans need to know how that experience was gained, and what values — if any — it represents. Class reality has nothing to do with class warfare."

Sh*t Republican Candidates Say

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/11-4

5 Founding Fathers Whose Skepticism About Christianity Would Make Them Unelectable Today

http://www.alternet.org/story/153727/5_founding_fathers_whose_skepticism_about_christianity_would_make_them_unelectable_today?akid=8109.153143.jO3JUD&rd=1&t=2
"Stories of Washington’s deep religiosity, such as tales of him praying in the snow at Valley Forge, can be ignored. They are pious legends invented after his death."
"As president, Adams signed the famous Treaty of Tripoli, which boldly stated, “[T]he government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion….”
"Jefferson took political stands that would infuriate today’s Religious Right and ensure that they would work to defeat him. He refused to issue proclamations calling for days of prayer and fasting, saying that such religious duties were no part of the chief executive’s job. His assertion that the First Amendment erects a “wall of separation between church and state” still rankles the Religious Right today."
"Madison was perhaps the strictest church-state separationist among the founders, taking stands that make the ACLU look like a bunch of pikers. He opposed government-paid chaplains in Congress and in the military."
"So (Thomas) Paine’s a hero, right? He was also a radical Deist whose later work, The Age of Reason, still infuriates fundamentalists. In the tome, Paine attacked institutionalized religion and all of the major tenets of Christianity. He rejected prophecies and miracles and called on readers to embrace reason. The Bible, Paine asserted, can in no way be infallible. He called the god of the Old Testament “wicked” and the entire Bible “the pretended word of God.” (There go the Red States!)"

Santorum Becomes Millionaire in Six Years After U.S. Senate Loss

SANTORUM: BECOMES A MILLIONAIRE IN JUST 6 YEARS AFTER LEAVING U.S. SENATE! I wonder how that could be?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-05/santorum-becomes-millionaire-in-six-years-after-losing-u-s-senate-seat.html