House Republicans plan performance art on the House floor

The piece of performance art that will be launched next week on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives by House Republicans in a vain attempt to repeal the historic health care insurance reform bill passed last March will add, if successful, $230 billion in the first decade and roughly one-half of one percent of GDP, or over a trillion dollars, in the second decade, to the budget deficit, according to a report by the independent and bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Of course, Republicans immediately tried to discredit the CBO that they routinely use when they get results they want, and new Speaker of the House John “The crying man” Boehner dismissed the report and released a report of his own. The Boner accused the Democrats of somehow rigging the report. Perhaps he missed the part about the CBO being independent and non-partisan. Instead, the Republicans made up their own facts in a report that got the results they wanted.

Who would you believe; an independent, nonpartisan fiscal agency or the Boner.
This lame attempt to overturn a popular and historic law is another waste of time. If it gets enough votes in the House, which it should, it will never get out of the Senate, and on Thursday, the President made it clear he will veto the bill if by some miracle it gets out of the Senate.

In a statement of administration policy released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the administration said that repeal would "would explode the deficit, raise costs for the American people and businesses, deny an estimated 32 million people health insurance, and take us back to the days when insurers could deny, limit or drop coverage for any American."

"If the President were presented with H.R. 2, he would veto it," the statement said, emphasizing this with an underline.

But political theatre is nothing new to Republicans; like Thursday when they killed an hour and a half to read the U.S. Constitution line by line, at least the parts they liked, on the floor of the House on opening day of the 112th Congress.

Republicans have a history of performing and pandering for the teabaggers, and this was no different. The farce even had a birther disrupt the proceedings.

Perhaps they are not aware that all laws must pass constitutional muster before the third equal branch of government, the judiciary. Apparently, some Republicans skipped the reading, and they did not hear the part where only members of Congress can vote and make motions on the House floor.

Rep. Pete Sessions, R- Texas, made a motion to open the first act of the GOP’s performance of repealing health care insurance reform, an action that can only be taken by an official member of Congress. Sessions, however, missed Wednesday’s swearing-in ceremony while he and fellow Republican Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, R-Penn, attended a fundraiser.

President Barack Obama is the most admired man in America

For the third year in a row, President Barack Obama is the most admired man in America according to a USA Today-Gallup poll.

But he does not come close to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was named the most admired woman for the ninth year in a row.

The USA Today-Gallup survey, conducted Dec. 10-12, is based on telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,019 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Still, perhaps we should not take too much stock in the survey because former President George W. Bush was in the top five in the men’s list and half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were in the women’s top five list.

However, it’s good to see that some people have respect for the office of President, as well as for President Obama the man. But there are still people who have an irrational hatred for Obama, like the birthers.

These insane people believe the President was not born in the U.S. and has not produced his birth certificate, despite undisputed evidence to the contrary. It seems the only way they will be satisfied is if he personally knocks on their door and presents it to them, but I doubt that will even satisfy them. It’s just amazing that people still believe this.

Now, new Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie wants to dispel conspiracy theories that the President was born elsewhere and find a way to release more information about President Barack Obama's Hawaii birth. The only problem is Abercrombie can’t release the birth certificate because Hawaii's privacy laws have long barred the release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who doesn't have a tangible interest.

That has just given birthers more ammo, and they are claming a conspiracy. This is so simple: if the President was ineligible to be the President, the conservative U.S. Supreme Court would have done said as much. After all, they had no problem making Bush President; they would have no problem unseating Obama.

Birther officer denied his circus performance

Apparently, Terry Lakin, an active-duty Army surgeon and poster boy for the discredited birther nonsense that is claiming President Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen, is upset that the Army is not allowing him to make a circus of his court-martial.

Lakin is being hailed as a hero by the discredited birthers for disregarding his oath of office and announcing he intends to disobey all orders from his commanders and not deploy to Afghanistan until President Obama produces a birth certificate proving he is a U.S. citizen, even though the birth certificate has already been produced.

According to a press release by the rightwing “American Patriot Foundation” that is funding the circus, “the Army on Tuesday officially denied the request …for the testimony of Dr. Chiyome Fukino of the Hawaii Dept. of Health, and all of that agency's records that exist concerning the president's birth. That request was formally denied yesterday. Lakin had also requested the testimony of the custodians of records of, and the records relating to Obama's admission and financial aid that exist, of the Punahou School, Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard Law School.”

Fukino is the Health Director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, and she has issued numerous statements trying to reason with unreasonable people and put the witch-hunt to bed. She issued another statement last July that said President Obama was indeed born in Hawaii and is a U.S. citizen. He also issued a statement before the election in October 2008 that he saw the original birth certificate, and again in July. In fact, Hawaii is so sick of the nonsense from birthers that just two months ago that the Hawaii legislature officially passed a measure that “would allow state officials to legally ignore each month's dozens of repeated requests by persons or organizations seeking to see the infant Obama's actual birth certificate.”

“I ... have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen," Fukino said in a brief statement last July. "I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago."

Factcheck also put that no birth certificate myth to rest in August 2008, but it has not slowed down the crazies like Lakin and his supporters. Apparently, they believe there is a 47-year conspiracy involving the State of Hawaii, a couple of daily newspapers and the doctor and nurses present at the President’s birth.

Here is perhaps the funniest line in the press release, “…the President refuses --even in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary-- to prove his eligibility under the Constitution to serve as President and Commander-in-Chief.”

The only “mounting evidence” points to how crazy Lakin and the rest of the birthers are.

According to the pres release, “the preliminary hearing, called an "investigation" under Article 32 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, will proceed on June 11, 2010 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. at 9:00 a.m. in room 134 of Building T-2.”

A final decision is made by Lakin's Commanding General, Major General Carla Hawley-Bowland, whether to refer the charges for the show trial the birthers so crave. That final decision is expected later this summer.

Army officer disregards his oath of office

“I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

That is the oath of office I took when I enlisted in the Navy and every time I re-enlisted, as well as the oath millions of other Americans who wore a uniform took. Apparently, Lt. Col. Terry Lakin, an active-duty Army surgeon is disregarding it. Lakin is being hailed as a hero by the right for disregarding his oath of office and announced he intends to disobey all orders from his commanders, until President Obama produces a birth certificate proving he is a U.S. citizen.

My only question is how quick can Lakin be brought up on court martial charges? It should happen as soon as possible. Traitors do not belong in the military, especially a commissioned officer who is supposed to be held to a higher standard. He may be the highest ranking birther, but that’s what he is.

Join the Livingston County Democrats for a peaceful counter protest

BRIGHTON – The Livingston County Democratic Party is planning a counter protest to the big money, Anti-Obama partisan “Tea Party Express” bus tour sponsored by the rightwing “Our Country Deserves Better PAC that will be in Brighton on Tuesday, Sept. 8.

The farce will make a stop at the Mill Pond in downtown Brighton at 3:30 p.m., and the party is mounting a real grassroots counter protest that will be in sharp contrast to the fake, angry “tea parties” we have been subjected to.

Bring an American flag or wear an Obama pin or tee-shirt. The protest will be rational, and non confrontational.

The so-called “Our Country Deserves Better PAC” was formed in August 2008 by veteran Republican California political consultant Sal Russo and former GOP California Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian. The PAC’s mission is to oppose Obama and the "Democratic Congress." It boasts on its web site that "we must stand up to Barack Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress." The PAC also solicits contributions by stating, "Help us fight the Democratic Congress!"

The stated “mission” of the bus tour is to “highlight some of the worst offenders in Congress who have voted for higher spending, higher taxes, and government intervention in the lives of American families and businesses.” What they really mean is Democrats and only Democrats.

They will have no problem drawing a crowd in predominantly conservative Republican Livingston County, but that has never stopped Livingston County Democrats from fighting back. We welcome help from people who care about real health care reform and the environment we must live in.

Health care reform rally set for Saturday in Oakland County

Health Care Now 9th District in Oakland County is sponsoring a rally for health care reform at 11 a.m. Saturday Aug. 22 in Birmingham, across from Border's bookstore.

We are aware of the highly organized “tea baggers” and “birthers” stirred up by outrageous lies from the rightwing Washington, D.C. lobbyists groups and think tanks Americans for Prosperity” and “Freedom Works” – the same people behind the fake, Astroturf “tea parties – that have been hijacking Democratic townhall meetings and shouting down the Congressman and anyone who disagrees with them. This is a chance to join in the fight of our lives, and rightwing extremists have been fighting health care reform since 1961 with the introduction of popular Medicare.

Bring your friends, family and neighbors, and don’t forget your signs.

The rightwing blogs have been abuzz about Service Employees International Union (SEIU) allegedly busing in 100 members to a health care rally in Jackson near the office of U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek. They made the explosive charge that there were “…rented vans and encouraged people to carpool to the event.” They use the usual “thug” labels for middle class working people who dared to band together to get a better shake from their employer, and they are even going as far as to steal the name “Astroturf.”.

I don’t see any union members or health care reform supporters trying to shout anyone down, and it was certainly not scripted by the insurance lobby like the Astroturf Townhall meetings are.

Oh my God, liberals and environmentalists car pooling to an event to show support for Schauer? Who would have thought that would happen? Working people rallying for health care reform when health care premiums for family plans have increased 78 percent in Michigan since 2000? Somebody better alert the corporate, conservative media. Stop the presses; I’ve wanted to say that since the first time I saw by byline in print.

Wow, this is their smoking gun? “…Rented vans and encouraged people to carpool to the event.” Wow. I’m stunned. I guess that dispels those polls that say 70 percent of Americans want health care reform is bunk, or that that the overwhelming victory in November when health care reform was a campaign issue was a fluke. Union members – regular working middle class people, not thugs – want health care reform, and it’s their union dues that paid for the van, if that story is true. It wasn’t money from the $1.4 million a day the insurance lobby is spending to kill real reform through rightwing lobbying groups like “Americans for Prosperity” and “Freedom Works.”

If this fails, the health insurance companies will continue to line their pockets at the expense of good medical care for the middle class, and if this passes, the majority of the 50 million U.S. citizens with no access to health care will be covered. The right is complaining about working people pooling their money to get out and fight back against misinformation, showing their support for a cause they have been fighting to gain for the past 50 years and to stop the shouting down of Democratic Congressman? Just sad.

What the right is really mad about is we are finally starting to fight back against their disgusting and disruptive tactics.

Election politics speeds Gitmo resolutions through the Senate

LANSING – Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland, may have set a record for getting a piece of legislation through and approved Wednesday; showing what a strong motivation politics and an approaching election are.

Kuipers introduced a pair of Senate Resolutions on the Senate floor in the morning Senate session on Tuesday to ask the President and Congress to declassify intelligence information regarding the Gutantanamo Bay detainees. That afternoon the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Kuipers, took testimony on the resolutions and passed them to the Senate. The next day on Wednesday, the full Senate took them up and passed them.

He already had a receptive crowd of “tea baggers and “birthers” for the committee meeting because he was taking up a pair of resolutions on the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, a favorite cause of extreme right-wingers for years.

Ironically, there was basically only one witness for the Gitmo resolutions; although a few “tea baggers” filled out cards and got a few minutes of mike time. But it was dominated by U.S. Rep. Pete “Twitter Pete” Hoekstra, R-Holland, a harsh critic of the President and for closing Gitmo.

But the really important thing to note is that Hoekstra is giving up his seat in Congress to run for the Republican nomination for Michigan Governor in 2010. Guess who is running for Hoekstra’s open seat and desperately wants his endorsement? If you guessed fellow Holland native Kuipers you get a gold star.

Kuipers announced his decision to run in December, along with fellow Republican State Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Zeeland. Clearly, the Gitmo detainees will be a campaign issue, both nationally and in the Gubernatorial race. Gitmo will join the budget and the Michigan State Police Headquarters as campaign issues in Michigan in 2010; for the Gubernatorial race, the entire Senate and the entire House.

You have to wonder if Kuipers’ decision to showcase Twitter Pete had anything to do with who he will endorsement for his old seat? I’m guessing heck yes.

As you know, the state is considering housing Guantanamo Bay prisoners at the soon-to-be-closed Standish Maximum Correctional Facility. Most Standish officials, many Standish residents and many state officials favor the move or at least exploring it to help the local economy.

There is a townhall meeting set to discuss the issue in Standish tonight, and it’s no coincidence that some of the GOP Gubernatorial candidates are falling over themselves to hold press conferences in Standish.

State Sen. Tom George, R-Kalamazoo, used the Senate floor to campaign for Michigan governor Wednesday, but he supports at least looking into housing the Gitmo detainees at Standish. I’m not sure that position will serve him well in the GOP primary.

“Some argue that incarcerating enemy combatants here will make Michigan a target, but we are already a target,” George said from the Senate floor Wednesday. “We have a federal center in Battle Creek, Fort Custer, and other National Guard bases. We have Selfridge Air National Guard Base, VA hospitals, federal courthouses and defense contractors. We are already a target.”

Now that the Senate has passed a couple of resolutions that do nothing so quickly in a mere 24 hours, they can now take up some legislation that will help Michigan residents and have an effect on their lives that has been staled for years and months in the Senate, like the budget, the workplace smoking ban the majority of people have been clamoring for, take up laws to make voting easier that has bipartisan support and were passed in the House, auto insurance redlining or take up the unemployment bills that will give Michigan families running out of unemployment access to $140 million in federal funds.

Now that those two resolutions have passed in the Senate, the next question is when will extremist Republican Rep. Paul Opsommer, R-DeWitt, introduce the Gitmo resolutions in the House?

Senate Republicans play to the rightwing base and ignore important pending legislation

LANSING – If you need to see where the real priorities of the Michigan Senate Republicans are, you just need to be in Lansing Tuesday and take in the meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by right-winger Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland.

The committee will be considering two items: Senate Resolution 17 and Senate Concurrent Resolution 4. Both resolutions “affirm Michigan’s sovereignty under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.” I kid you not. With all the work that needs to be done, the Republicans feel the need to take up two non-binding suggestions that are little more than rallying points and fodder for rightwing Republican, Astroturf tea baggers.

The Republican-controlled Senate has met only once in August, nor have they held any committee meetings; other than campaign-like meetings, like the so-called “House Republican Jobs Taskforce” that only wants to meet with business owners. The Democratically-controlled House was holding regular sessions and committee hearings this month until this week when it gave it up waiting for the Conference Committees to send over the budget bills, and they held committee as late as Wednesday.

You will recall that the House and Senate passed different versions of the budget bills for each state department, and the bills were referred to a conference committee where the differences between the House- and Senate-passed versions will be resolved. The problem is that even though the bills were passed in June, the conference committees do not yet have them.

The Governor, the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader are in closed door negotiations over the state budget, and they must agree on targets before the bills go to the conference committee. You will recall that the Senate version included draconian cuts while the House version involved a mix of cuts and revenue from federal stimulus funds. Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, has a history of negotiating in bad faith to make Democrats look bad, and we saw the same thing in 2007 when Democrats had to step up to avoid a brief government shutdown.

This development comes on the heels of a new report by the Citizens Research Council (CRC) of Michigan that says local units of government, colleges and schools are forced to make decisions regarding numbers of personnel, contracts, tuition levels, in "an informational vacuum" when their fiscal years begin in advance of legislative appropriation decisions. That's because in Michigan, many locals governments and school districts have July 1 as the start of their fiscal years while the state’s is Oct. 1. The later the budget gets approved, the more difficult it is for them to plan, but Senate Republicans have bigger fish to fry.

The Senate version of the school aid budget had drastic cuts that included a $110 cut in the per student foundation grant, eliminated School Readiness grants, Early Childhood funding and Child and Adolescent Health Centers. Many parents are enrolling their children in pre-school programs as the start of the school year fast approaches, but the programs will not be there if Senate Republicans have their way.

This comes on the heels of a report in the Detroit Free Press that says only 65 percent of children entering kindergarten classrooms this year were ready to learn the curriculum.

But where are the Senate Republicans priorities? Playing to the party base with meaningless crap like the 10th Amendment.

They could be taking up the workplace smoking ban many people have been clamoring for, or take up laws to make voting easier that has bipartisan support and were passed in the House or take up the unemployment bills that will give Michigan families running out of unemployment access to $140 million in federal funds. But where are the Senate Republicans priorities? Playing to the party base with meaningless crap like the 10th Amendment.

The 10th Amendment was ratified on December 15, 1791, and it basically restates the Constitution's principle of federalism by providing that powers not granted to the national government nor prohibited to the states are reserved to the states or the people.

Now, I’m not a Constitutional law professor and scholar like President Obama, but isn't the role of the U.S. Supreme Court to ensure laws uphold the Constitution? However, general opinion is that the Constitution grants Congress the authority to do more or less anything that is not explicitly prohibited by the first eight amendments.

It is, apparently, rare, for the Supreme Court to take up 10tn Amendment cases. Again, I’m not a Constitutional law professor and scholar, but the Court has only taken up such cases where the federal government compels the states to enforce federal statutes. In just the first time in 55 years, the Supreme Court invalidated a portion of a federal law for violating the Tenth Amendment in 1992 in a case that challenged a portion of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985 that provided incentives for states to comply with statutory obligations to provide for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste.

It seems to me that if people have problems with the federal stimulus plan; appeal it to the conservative Supreme Court.

In earlier time in this country, the states used the 10th amendment to justify repressive and immoral policies, including slavery, the ability to seize abolitionist literature from the mail, secede from the union and to send slave-catchers into non-slave state territory to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, all in the name of state’s rights. There was apparently some war fought in 1861-65 over states’ rights and the ability of states to secede from the federal government.

During the 1960's civil rights fight, the 10th Amendment was used because southern states invoked it as a barrier to enforcement of the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment gave citizenship to and protected the civil liberties of recently freed slaves, and states’ rights were used to maintain Jim Crow and Segregation.

The 10th Amendment has been fodder for conservatives for more than a decade. The movement got a boost following the Democratic control of Congress and the White House and more traction when federal dictates about how to spend stimulus money raised hackles in places like Texas and South Carolina. It also got a boost with the fake, Astroturf “tea parties.”

I’m sure the Committee room will be packed Tuesday with the same people who say the President is not a U.S. citizen, go to “tea parties” and disrupt townhall meetings put on by Democrats, but I also guarantee that this meeting will be more respectful.

Anti-Obama “Tea Party” bus tour comes to Brighton

Enough is enough all right, but enough with the fake anti-Democratic and Anti-Obama partisan and misnamed “tea parties”

The Livingston County Republican Party, along with Faux “News” lunatic Glenn Back, is heavily promoting something called the “Tea Party Express” bus tour that will be in Brighton on Sept 8 on its way to Washington, D.C.

This latest farce is sponsored by the “Our Country Deserves Better PAC (OCDB),” and it is billing the latest manifestation of the worn out and misnamed “tea party” theme as a non-partisan protest, claming, “At each stop the tour will highlight some of the worst offenders in Congress who have voted for higher spending, higher taxes, and government intervention in the lives of American families and businesses.” However, this attack will only target Democrats and President Obama.

The PAC was formed in August 2008 by veteran Republican California political consultant Sal Russo and former GOP California Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian. The PAC’s mission is to oppose Obama and the "Democratic Congress." It boasts on its web site that "we must stand up to Barack Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress." The PAC also solicits contributions by stating, "Help us fight the Democratic Congress!"

In 2008, OCDB's sole objective was Obama's defeat. NRR reported on September 26, 2008, that OCDB's website then said "it has one objective: to defeat Obama." It also has ties to the propaganda DVD stuffed in newspapers before the election called “Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West” when it was trying to smear Obama as a secret Muslim terrorist.

The thing that is for certain is we will see plenty of “birthers,” white Supremacists, militia members and secessionists mixed in with the GOP faithful on the Millpond.

Rightwing nuts known as the “birthers” go off the deep end

Although nothing will satisfy the rightwing nuts known as the “birthers,” Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the Health Director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, issued another statement on Monday that said President Obama was indeed born in Hawaii and is a U.S. citizen.

He issued a statement before the election in October 2008 that he saw the original birth certificate, and on Monday he did the same thing, according to a story in the Associated Press.

“I ... have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen," Fukino said in a brief statement. "I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago."

In recent weeks the so-called “birthers” have gone even further off the rails, and interest has intensified. One widely circulated YouTube clip of a recent town hall meeting showed a Republican congressman getting booed for saying Obama is a citizen, and one woman flung her birth certificate sealed in a baggie over her head. I have no idea what this is supposed to symbolize.

We saw some of this insanity and veiled racism at the false, so-called “tea parties” on April 15. But the insanity is even going mainstream. Ten Republican members of Congress co-sponsored a bill that would require future presidential candidates to provide a copy of their original birth certificate. Apparently, they are making a huge to-do about the difference between a birth certificate and a “Certificate of Live Birth.”

Factcheck put that no birth certificate myth to rest in August 2008, but it has not slowed down the crazies. Apparently, they believe there is a 47-year conspiracy involving the State of Hawaii, a couple of daily newspapers and the doctor and nurses present at the President’s birth.

But like the AP article says, Congress has moved on. The U.S. House on Monday unanimously by a vote of 388-0 approved a resolution recognizing and celebrating the 50th anniversary of Hawaii becoming the 50th state. A clause was included that reads: "Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961."

I have no idea why this BS is still going on almost a year after President Obama’s historic victory, I guess some people will never accept an African American President. No one made a big deal out of the fact John McCain was not born in the U.S., and it was only brought up in retaliation because of the charges of Republicans that Obama was not a citizen.

Those of us who live here in Michigan will remember former Gov. George Romney’s brief Presidential run in 1968, even though I was only 10, but not a whole lot of publicity or fuss was raised that he could not be President if elected. He was born to American parents in Colonia Dublán, Galeana, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, and he lived there until his Mormon parents returned to the U.S. when he was five years old.

What’s the difference between Barrack Obama and George Romney? It’s pretty obvious.