The @GOP’s Love/Hate Relationship With @realDonaldTrump Is Beginning To Show Hair

November 12, 2016
Day 4: The shit’s starting to hit the fam… er, fan

Donald Trump, the GOP Presidential nominee who appears to have won the 2016 General Election, has reportedly made remarks that he might not, after all, as he proclaimed in his “Contract with the American Voter” that he would “5.) Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act. Fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines…”

Strike One:
According to his first post-election interview, which was exclusive to the Wall Street Journal, “President-elect Donald Trump said he would consider leaving in place certain parts of the Affordable Care Act,” and that “Mr. Trump said he favors keeping the prohibition against insurers denying coverage because of patients’ existing conditions, and a provision that allows parents to provide years of additional coverage for children [up to age 26] on their insurance policies.”

Regular readers will recall that yesterday I had made the same observation, that portions of the law are worth keeping.

President-elect Donald Trump leaves a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), at the U.S. Capitol November 10, 2016 in Washington, DC Zach Gibson/Getty Images

Strike Two:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY, R) has pointedly said he opposes and will refuse Trump’s first order of business in his Contract with the American Voter which is “Constitutional Amendment for Congressional Term Limits.” The Senator, who has been in office since 1984 (32 years), said, “I would say we have term limits now. They’re called elections. And it will not be on the agenda in the Senate.”

Strike Three:
Furthermore, McConnnell has also said that he’s opposed to

How TRUE is “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command”? You’d be surprised… or, maybe not.

Remember how ANGRY some folks got when Michael Weisskopf (b.1946) of the Washington Post wrote on February 1, 1993 (link to original article with the WaPo’s editorial addendum) that the simple-minded evangelical groupies of Jerry Falwell (who himself died in 2007), Pat Robertson (b.1930), et al, that:
“The gospel lobby evolved with the explosion of satellite and cable television, hitting its national political peak in the presidential election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

“Unlike other powerful interests, it does not lavish campaign funds on candidates for Congress nor does it entertain them. The strength of fundamentalist leaders lies in their flocks. Corporations pay public relations firms millions of dollars to contrive the kind of grass-roots response that Falwell or Pat Robertson can galvanize in a televised sermon. Their followers are largely poor, uneducated and easy to command.

“”The thing that makes them powerful is they’re mobilizable,” said Seymour Martin Lipset (d.2006), professor of public policy at George Mason University. “You can activate them to vote, and that’s particularly important in congressional primaries where the turnout is usually low.”

“Some studies put the number of evangelical Americans as high as 40 million, with the vast majority considered politically conservative.”

[ed. note: The excerpt, which has frequently been distilled to “largely poor, uneducated and easy to command,” is provided here in full proper context with leading and following sentences, not merely excerpted, in order to thoroughly show proper context.]

It’s true.

Folks don’t get mad because of falsehoods.

They get mad because of truth.

It’s true.

According to the United States Census Bureau (USCB), in 2015 (22 years AFTER that was written), 32.5% of the American public aged 25, or older, have a Bachelor’s Degree (Table 1.), which is CLEARLY a minority. Thus, we see automatically the “largely” part of “uneducated.”

The USCB has also performed research on income, which is similarly delineated and categorized by education. For the year 2011 (18 years AFTER the remarks were made), and those aged 25+ with at least a Bachelor’s Degree, the average income was

Even With #ALpolitics @ALGOP & @GovernorBentley’s Iron-Fisted Control, Alabama STILL Thanks God for Mississippi

Fraud, waste, and abuse are rampant in Sweet Home, and it’s KILLING the state.

Cronyism and corruption remains alive and well, despite claims to the contrary as asserted by the GOP, which now rules Alabama with an Iron Fist.

If it could be said that states have personalities, Alabama’s would be bipolar, and schizophrenic. Reeling from fear – though they deny it – they continue to perpetuate and indeed, cultivate the very worst of the very worst in human behavior.

It’s not that Alabama or its people are bad, it’s that fear rules their hearts, and fearing that want and poverty will overtake them (ALERT! It already has.), they continue to elect those who pander to their fears. As a result, they get what they deserve.

It’s HIGH TIME – as was said in the Star Trek television series – “to BOLDLY go where no man has gone before!”

No one praises cowards, or cowardice. And yet, so many praise Alabama’s politicians, who are veritable Cowardly Lions.

Alabama has had – and continues to have

Deep Data Mining & Personal Privacy: The NSA has NOTHING on BIG BUSINESS

Much ado about nothing.

That’s how I describe the recent ruckus & hullabaloo made about the recent UK news story that “revealed” the U.S. National Security Agency is “spying” on American citizens at home.

The reality is, that the information the NSA is creating is called “metadata,” is a set of data that describes & gives information about other data. Phone numbers called, dates, times & length of calls is NOTHING by comparison to what BIG BUSINESS knows about us already.

Why do you get certain junk mail?

Ever got junk mail from the AARP?

If you’re near age 50, or older, you probably already have.

Ever gotten junk mail from Social Security, Medicare, FDIC, or even your Congressman or Senator?

I dare say you have NEVER.

When you bought your car, if you borrowed money to purchase it, the bank or credit union which loaned the money to you performed a background credit check on you before they loaned their money to you.

Where do you think they got such information? The federal government?

Please… don’t insult my intelligence.

When you applied for a credit card, did you happen to list your age or birthdate on the application?

What about the life, health, auto, or house insurance policies you have? Did you mention your relationship status, number of children, their ages, specifics of your health including medicines, treatments, surgeries, income & source, length of residency, height, weight, or even the size, color & consistency of your last bowel movement?

I would imagine the answer to ALL those questions – at one time or another – has been “yes.”

And yet, unless you’ve served in the Armed Services, or as a

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, MD: Is Philadelphia’s horrific murder trial overshadowed?

In an earlier entry entitled “They kill babies… and women, too. West Philadelpia MD indicted on 8 counts murder” posted on Wednesday, January 19, 2011 I wrote in part that “The atrocities of this ONE incident make Nazi madman “scientist” Josef Mengele and madman/mass-murderer Jeffrey Dahmer almost pale by comparison. Body parts and bodies in freezers and refrigerators, corpse mutilation… all in the “City of Brotherly Love.””

Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s murder trial will be starting it’s sixth week, and with testimony such as:
Defense attorney Jack McMahon (heatedly): “After Digoxen and having its neck cut, you’re telling the jury that you saw the baby moving?”
Kareema Cross, 28-year-old employee from 2005 to 2009: “Yes, it was.”
– it doesn’t look good for the former physician, or for his untrained, unlicensed staff.

The indictment against him may be downloaded and read here:
http://www.phila.gov/districtattorney/pdfs/grandjurywomensmedical.pdf

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Why Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s Trial Should Be a Front-Page Story

The dead babies. The exploited women. The racism. The numerous governmental failures. It is thoroughly newsworthy.

By Conor Friedersdorf

Please note: This post contains graphic descriptions and imagery.

A procedure room at the Women’s Medical Society. / Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office

The grand jury report in the case of Kermit Gosnell, 72, is among the most horrifying I’ve read. “This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors,” it states. “The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels – and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths.”Charged with seven counts of first-degree murder, Gosnell is now standing trial in a Philadelphia courtroom. An NBC affiliate’s coverage includes testimony as grisly as you’d expect. “An unlicensed medical school graduate delivered graphic testimony about the chaos at a Philadelphia clinic where he helped perform late-term abortions,” the channel reports. “Stephen Massof described how he snipped the spinal cords of babies, calling it, ‘literally a beheading. It is separating the brain from the body.’ He testified that at times, when women were given medicine to speed up their deliveries, ‘it would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place.'”One former employee described hearing a baby screaming after it was delivered during an abortion procedure. “I can’t describe it. It sounded like a little alien,” she testified. Said the Philadelphia Inquirer in its coverage, “Prosecutors have cited the dozens of jars of severed baby feet as an example of Gosnell’s idiosyncratic and illegal practice of providing abortions for cash to poor women pregnant longer than the 24-week cutoff for legal abortions in Pennsylvania.”

Until Thursday, I wasn’t aware of this story. It has generated sparse coverage in the national media, and while it’s been mentioned in RSS feeds to which I subscribe, I skip past most news items. I still consume a tremendous amount of journalism. Yet had I been asked at a trivia night about the identity of Kermit Gosnell, I would’ve been stumped and helplessly guessed a green Muppet. Then I saw Kirsten Power’s USA Today column. She makes a powerful, persuasive case that the Gosnell trial ought to be getting a lot more attention in the national press than it is getting.

The media criticism angle interests me. But I agree that the story has been undercovered, and I happen to be a working journalist, so I’ll begin by telling the rest of the story for its own sake. Only then will I explain why I think it deserves more coverage than it has gotten, although it ought to be self-evident by the time I’m done distilling the grand jury’s allegations. Grand juries aren’t infallible. This version of events hasn’t been proven in a court of law. But journalists routinely treat accounts given by police, prosecutors and grand juries as at least plausible if not proven. Try to decide, as you hear the state’s side of the case, whether you think it is credible, and if so, whether the possibility that some or all this happened demands massive journalistic scrutiny.

* * *

On February 18, 2010, the FBI raided the “Women’s Medical Society,” entering its offices about 8:30 p.m. Agents expected to find evidence that it was illegally selling prescription drugs. On entering, they quickly realized something else was amiss. In the grand jury report’s telling, “There was blood on the floor. A stench of

Should Wal-Mart Workers be Thankful for a Non-Living Wage?

In this season of giving thanks, we are again reminded that our neighbors, our friends, our family are abused by corporate overlords who treat their employees as chattel, mere serfs, by the world’s largest retailer, which is headquartered in Arkansas, in the United States of America – land of the free, and home of the brave, land where our fathers died, land of the Pilgrims’ pride.

That is abuse and injustice.

Plain and simple.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

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Wal-Mart’s 6 biggest blunders

Haven’t we been here before? Remembering the biggest public relations crises in the company’s 50-year history.

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that Walmart allegedly covered up an internal investigation proving its Mexican subsidiary bribed officials in the country. The retail giant’s stock fell sharply Monday following the expose. Should the market be really that surprised? Over the years, Walmart has made headlines for behaving badly even as executives work tirelessly to maintain its all-American image. Here, take a look at Walmart’s blunders.

1. Working conditions

A worker’s got a right to lunch. And get paid for overtime. That wasn’t always the case at some Walmart stores.

In 2005, a California jury awarded $172 million to thousands of workers who claimed they were illegally denied lunch breaks. The case was one of at least 40 similar suits filed nationwide at the time, alleging workplace violations.

The outcomes of the cases varied, but those that stood in court brought bad news for the company. In 2002, a federal jury in Oregon found Walmart employees were forced to work off the clock and awarded back pay to 83 workers.

And in a similar case in 2000, Walmart settled a class-action lawsuit against

Alabama politicians: Wii dont knead know edjewkashun

Time and time again, the politicians in Alabama continue to prove the truth of that February 1, 1993, story Washington Post news story authored by reporter Michael Weisskopf which stated that followers of the Christian Right are “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”

By the time Governor Bentley and his GOP henchmen get through with Alabama, the only thing the citizens will need is a kiss.

The reason why, is that they’ll already have been screwed.

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Alabama is great for business, unless you’re in the business of being a kid

Published: Monday, October 22, 2012, 10:25 AM     Updated: Monday, October 22, 2012, 1:04 PM

By John Archibald | jarchibald@al.com

 You know that old Whitney Houston song? What was it, The Greatest Love of All?

It’s happening to … us.

Only here in Alabama we sing it, like we sing most of our tunes, in our own peculiar way.

We believe that corporations are our future.

Seed them well and let them have their way.

As for the children? Well, to hell with them. They’re too little to make us any real cash, anyway. What good are they if they can’t produce jobs, jobs, jobs?

You see the reports and statistics all the time, rankings that paint Alabama as gloriously business friendly, with cheap labor costs, low corporate taxes and a government so eager to lure jobs it’s willing to toss in the barn when it gives away the family farm.

A development magazine this month ranked Alabama as the fourth-best state for business. And of course Alabamians cheered.

They believe it translates into

How to End This Depression

It’s been said that ‘everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.’

The distinguished Dr. Krugman – who accurately foretold in 2001 that the “Bush Tax Cuts” would create significant deficit (and they did) – understands the role of government in providing opportunity for entrepreneurs and private enterprise, and the equally important role that government has in responsibility to protect public health and safety.

The long and short of it is this: Government spending on economic infrastructure (including education) is a good investment because it yields significant immediate and long-term results.

Why?

Because Materials and Manpower ALWAYS come from the private sector.

Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the aforementioned premise, and the numerous times about which I have written in detail about the same. This entry illustrates with three excellent examples of that principle.

Naysayers and critics miss one very important factor in their analogy, which is that the Federal government has the power and authority to print money. The way that factor relates to the issue at hand is this: While the government could – in theory, and in reality – print enough money to give $10,000 to every man, woman and child in this nation the net effect of so doing would be to devalue the money, which would be resulting from inflation.

How to correct, resolve or work within the guidelines of that factor is to understand that one very important role of government is to provide OPPORTUNITY for entrepreneurs and private enterprise. By providing opportunity, government is also encouraging private enterprise and entrepreneurship. And, for the strict Constitutionalists, courts have continued to uphold and acknowledge that such power is contained within the Preamble’s clause “to promote the general welfare.”

Further, for the “anti-Big Government” naysayers, it is preposterous (contrary to reason or common sense; utterly absurd or ridiculous) to imagine that, in this era, with every technological advance, invention and discovery which has been made since 1776, and with our population (now approaching 312,000,000), that we would have fewer laws, rules and regulations than when we first began.

And, for those who say we should balance our budget, I would agree. However, I hasten to point out, that the last time that was done was under Eisenhower and LBJ. That does not excuse us from an ongoing civil discussion and debate about how to effectively manage our nation’s budget. Perhaps a formula of some type which would take into account GDP, debt (outstanding Treasury notes), trade deficit, population growth, birth rate, and other factors – with an “escape” mechanism for times of civil emergency or war, of course.

For such, we need technocrats – experts in areas of operations – rather than bureaucrats. Perhaps in an advisory role. But then again, we have those.

So… why don’t we work together as we ought?

Politics.

It seems that “Everybody’s got something to hide except for me and my monkey.”

—

May 24, 2012

Paul Krugman

The depression we’re in is essentially gratuitous: we don’t need to be suffering so much pain and destroying so many lives. We could end it both more easily and more quickly than anyone imagines—anyone, that is, except those who have actually studied the economics of depressed economies and the historical evidence on how policies work in such economies.

President Obama on a tour of the Master Lockfactory in Milwaukee with the company’s senior vice-president, Bon Rice, February 2012; Susan Walsh/AP Images

The truth is that recovery would be almost ridiculously easy to achieve: all we need is to reverse the austerity policies of the past couple of years and temporarily boost spending. Never mind all the talk of how we have a long-run problem that can’t have a short-run solution—this may sound sophisticated, but it isn’t. With a boost in spending, we could be back to more or less full employment faster than anyone imagines.

But don’t we have to worry about long-run budget deficits? Keynes wrote that “the boom, not the slump, is the time for austerity.” Now, as I argue in my forthcoming book^*—and show later in the data discussed in this article—is the time for the government to spend more until the private sector is ready to carry the economy forward again. At that point, the US would be in a far better position to deal with deficits, entitlements, and the costs of financing them.

Meanwhile, the strong measures that would all go a long way toward lifting us out of this depression should include, among other policies, increased federal aid to state and local governments, which would restore the jobs of many public employees; a more aggressive approach by the Federal Reserve to quantitative easing (that is, purchasing bonds in an attempt to reduce long-term interest rates); and less timid efforts by the Obama administration to reduce homeowner debt.

But some readers will wonder, isn’t a recovery program along the lines I’ve described just out of the question as a political matter? And isn’t advocating such a program a waste of time? My answers to these two questions are: not necessarily, and definitely not. The chances of a real turn in policy, away from the austerity mania of the last few years and toward a renewed focus on job creation, are much better than conventional wisdom would have you believe. And recent experience also teaches us a crucial political lesson:

American tax code promotes outsourcing. Mitt Romney’s jobs plan would exploit that weakness.

The Center for American Progress is a public policy think-tank which was created by John Podesta in 2003 as an alternative to right-wing extremist think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

You can skip the article to the conclusion, but then, if you did, you’d miss out on the rationale… which is the significant point.

Yes, there are changes to American tax policy which need to be re-examined, particularly and especially those which do not offer competitive, fair or just incentives for a win-win-win for American enterprise, the American worker, and the American economy as a whole. However, the rules that have skewed the advantage to Big Business to the exclusion of the benefit of all of America and her citizens should be re-examined and modified or eliminated as necessary.

Time and time again, history has shown that when our nation has had high personal income tax rates, our nation has prospered significantly. That’s but one proof positive that should no longer be a “sacred cow” for any political party.

Further, the “starve the monster” philosophy which has, in large part, guided the modern Republican party, even spawning the modern radical TEA Party element, is a significant departure from reality. The reason why is simple: 100 years ago, we didn’t have space travel, the Internet, computers, cell phones, the Interstate highway system and so many, many, many more things that we have now. It’s ludicrous – bordering on the insane – to imagine that as these new inventions and innovations have proliferated (themselves signs of American ingenuity & enterprise), that there would be fewer rules and regulations associated with them. The concept is really quite simple. For example, when families have more children, there are more rules to govern their actions & behaviors. It’s analogous also to saying that, as an adult, one would wear smaller clothing as an adult, then as they did when in their infancy. It’s so preposterously ludicrous as to be insane – a genuine divorce from reality.

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Romney’s New Tax Incentive for Outsourcing U.S. Jobs

How Romney’s Plan Would Reward Foreign Outsourcing

Gov. Romney presents his plan for creating jobs and improving the economy during a speech Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2011, in Las Vegas. His argument that we must exempt the overseas profits of American companies from U.S. taxes to make them more competitive in a global economy doesn’t hold up. SOURCE: AP/ Julie Jacobson

By Seth Hanlon | July 16, 2012
Download this issue brief (pdf)

The Washington Post recently reported that some of the companies Mitt Romney’s firm Bain Capital invested in were “pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories.” Even more troubling than his business record is his platform as Republican presidential candidate, which includes a policy that would encourage and further accelerate the outsourcing of American jobs to foreign countries.

The former Massachusetts governor would make U.S. corporations’ overseas profits exempt from U.S. taxes. These profits are already treated favorably under the tax code compared to corporate profits that are earned and reported domestically, creating an inefficient bias toward investment offshore. The favorable treatment of profits that are reported offshore also creates rewards for corporations that shift profits (on paper) out of the United States to foreign countries, including tax havens such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

Romney’s proposed exemption for foreign profits would exacerbate the worst features of our current tax system. It would:

Woodward & Bernstein on Watergate: Nixon was far wose than we imagined

And this surprises people?

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Woodward and Bernstein: 40 years after Watergate, Nixon was far worse than we thought

By Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, Friday, June 8, 12:35 PM

As Sen. Sam Ervin completed his 20-year Senate career in 1974 and issued his final report as chairman of the Senate Watergate committee, he posed the question: “What was Watergate?”

Countless answers have been offered in the 40 years since June 17, 1972, when a team of burglars wearing business suits and rubber gloves was arrested at 2:30 a.m. at the headquarters of the Democratic Party in the Watergate office building. Four days afterward, the Nixon White House offered its answer: “Certain elements may try to stretch this beyond what it was,” press secretary Ronald Ziegler scoffed, dismissing the incident as a “third-rate burglary.”

History proved that it was anything but. Two years later, Richard Nixon would become the first and only U.S. president to resign, his role in the criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice — the Watergate coverup — definitively established. Another answer has since persisted, often unchallenged: the notion that the coverup was worse than the crime. This idea minimizes the scale and reach of Nixon’s criminal actions.

Ervin’s answer to his own question hints at the magnitude of Watergate: “To destroy, insofar as the presidential election of 1972 was concerned, the integrity of the process by which the President of the United States is nominated and elected.” Yet Watergate was far more than that. At its most virulent, Watergate was a brazen and daring assault, led by Nixon himself, against the heart of American democracy: the Constitution, our system of free elections, the rule of law.

Today, much more than when we first covered this story as young Washington Post reporters, an abundant record provides unambiguous answers and evidence about Watergate and its meaning. This record has

One reason why medications are so expensive

Big Pharma justifies charging high prices by citing costs associated with Research & Development, and the lengthy process in obtaining Food & Drug Administration approval for new medications.

In some respect, there is validity to such assertions and claims.

However, a problem arises when the term for proprietary ownership of the formula is nearing expiration, and the firm then makes a minor modification to the medication – sometimes, only just changing the pill shape, or color – and then calls it “new,” which allows them to re-initiate another claim for unique ownership.

That is abuse.

However, more than anything, perhaps there is some warrant to discussing a more expedited pathway for FDA approval, which also guarantees patient safety.

Another reason, not mentioned here, is advertising.

Not only does advertising co$t lot$ of money, there is a legitimate concern that advertising to patients to get them to ask for medications from their physicians is not only an ethical lapse, but a medical one, as well. There’s a very good reason why it’s called “evidence based medicine,” rather than “advertising pushed medicine.”

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Want to cut health care costs? Start here.

Posted by Sarah Kliff at 09:00 AM ET, 04/21/2012

Every year, Americans pay $700 million more for cholesterol-lowering drugs than they need to. The reason? Abbott Laboratories.

(Photo illustration by The Washington Post; Original image from istockphoto.com)

Abbott Labs is a pharmaceutical company based in Illinois. About a decade ago, in 2000, it faced a problem. The company had recently acquired exclusive rights to sell Tricor-1, a cholesterol-fighting drug. It was profitable, which was nice, but the best part was this: It was a name-brand drug and Abbott was the only company with rights to sell it.

Drug exclusivity does not, however, last forever: After a name-brand drug has five years on the U.S. market, generics are allowed to come in and compete. That’s what a generic pharmaceutical company wanted to do with Tricor-1. Novopharm submitted an application to the Food and Drug Administrationto produce a generic version of the drug.That was bad news for Abbott Labs: With generics tending to sell at about 80 percent less than brand-name drugs, the new medication had the potential to seriously undercut its Tricor-1 business.

Abbott Labs was able to delay Novopharm by a bit, a story that health-care researchers recount in a recent Annals of Internal Medicine article. The company filed a patent infringement lawsuit that

Watergate Criminal Made Good – Chuck Colson dead at 80

Skeptics abounded when it was announced that Mr. Colson had converted and become Christian.

Their skepticism was misplaced, for Mr. Colson’s conversion was genuine.

If anything, Mr. Colson’s life is a story of the redemptive and transformative power of the living Christ.

His life story is a familiar one. A man with significant talent and power goes terribly awry. When confronted with the error of his ways, he is genuinely repentant, and changes his ways. He become another man altogether… a man no one would recognize, were it not for his name to identify him.

“I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'”

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”

– the words of Jesus Christ, Matthew 25:36-40

May he rest in peace, and may his memory be blessed.

1 Corinthians 13 >> New International Version 1984

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1If I speak in the tongues^a of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,^b but have not love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

—

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Former Nixon aide Chuck Colson dies at 80

April 21, 2012 4:29 PM

By Leigh Ann Caldwell

(CBS News) Chuck Colson, a former aide to Richard Nixon, evangelical leader, author and nonprofit founder, died Saturday at the age of 80.

He passed away at a hospital in Northern Virginia, three weeks after surgery to ease intercerebral hemorrhage — a large pool of clotted blood in his brain.

Colson was Nixon’s special counsel and was part of the Watergate scandal which led to Nixon’s resignation. He was known as the president’s “hatchet man,” and also served on Nixon’s re-election committee, which plotted and attempted to steal information from the Democratic Party headquarters.

Colson pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and served seven months of a one-to-three year prison sentence.

Prior to the start of his prison sentence, Colson became a born-again Christian. After his release from an Alabama prison, Colson founded Prison Fellowship, a nonprofit organization that conducts outreach to prisoners to “seek the transformation of prisoners… through the power and truth of Jesus Christ.”

According to his bio for Prison Fellowship, Colson formed the idea of Prison Fellowship when a fellow inmate told him “there ain’t nobody cares about us. Nobody!” Colson started the organization and ran it for 33 years.

Jim Liske, CEO of Prison Fellowship, told CBS News that

Liberals & Conservatives: The difference really is in the way they think

It’s been said that minds are much like books and parachutes.

They’re useless unless opened.

So, it seems evident that there really is something to be said about being “open minded.”

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Liberals and conservatives don’t just vote differently. They think differently.

By Chris Mooney, Published: April 12

“Follow the money.” As a young journalist on the political left, I often heeded this well-worn advice. If conservatives were denying the science of global warming, I figured, big fossil-fuel companies must be behind it. After all, that was the story with the tobacco industry and the dangers of smoking. Why not here?

And so I covered the attacks on the established scientific knowledge on climate change, evolution and many more issues as a kind of search for the wealthy bad guys behind the curtain. Like many in Washington, I tended to assume that political differences are either about contrasting philosophies or, more cynically, about money and special interests.

There’s just one problem: Mounting scientific evidence suggests that this is a pretty limited way of understanding what divides us. And at a time of unprecedented polarization in America, we need a more convincing explanation for the staggering irrationality of our politics. Especially since we’re now split not just over what we ought to do politically but also over what we consider to be true.

Liberals and conservatives have access to the same information, yet they

Are Bosses really like Dirty Diapers?

Black and White Looney Tunes opening title

Who hasn’t heard the joke that “Bosses are like dirty diapers: Always on your ass, and full of shit.”?

It’s a proverbial oldie, but goodie.

And, like all humor, it must contain an element of truth.

While the purpose of this post is

Study: Elected DC Officials wealth way up, Constituents wealth way down

Merry Christmas, everyone!

“Now, back on your heads.”

Thus goes the punch line to a very good, albeit old – yet timeless – joke.

It seems that a few poor souls were condemned to spending eternity in Hades, yet were also given the luxury of a guided tour and a choice. They viewed three vile rooms, each one littered and strewn with broken glass, shards of metal, and infested with vermin, roaches, excrement, garbage and all variety of filth.

The only difference between the rooms was the depth of the waste and debris.

In one room, everyone was standing around in waist-deep filth. In another, everyone was standing around in chest-deep filth. And in the third and final room, all were standing around in knee-depth filth, drinking coffee.

To the condemned, it seemed a no-brainer, so they told their Satanic tour guide they chose the third and final room, where they saw everyone standing around in knee-depth filth, drinking coffee.

Poof! They were in the room quicker than the blink of an eye – each one holding a cup of coffee, in knee-deep filthy excrement.

No sooner had they taken their first sip of coffee, than a cursing demon came in the room, cracking a whip in his hand and and screaming, “Coffee break’s over! Now back on your heads!”

And so, how does this cute joke relate to the story that follows?

Sometimes, things don’t appear as they really are. A particular case in point is

American troops bodies thrown in garbage dump

Thanks for nothing.

Is there no dignity?

And the news just in is that the Department of Defense (DoD) will now remove sex with animals as a prosecutable offense. (See story here.)

It’s only just and right, I suppose – particularly that they’ve just been screwed.

Perhaps necrophilia is next to be removed from the taboo list of perverted sexual practices, eh?

What is wrong?

Remains of 274 US troops dumped in landfill: report

The US Air Force dumped the cremated, partial remains of at least 274 troops in a landfill before

Insurance costs and health-care reform: Are health insurers making huge profits?

Are health insurers making huge profits?

Mar 5th 2010, 14:15 by M.S.

YESTERDAY Barack Obama dropped in on Kathleen Sibelius‘s meeting with executives of America’s top five health insurers and read a letter from a constituent. Natoma Canfield, a self-employed house cleaner, had carcinoma 16 years ago; it has been in remission for 11 years. Last year Anthem Blue Cross, who provide her with a high-deductible ($2,500) individual plan, raised her premiums 25%, to $6,075. This year they’re raising them another 40%, to $8,500. Ms Canfield  closes her letter, “Please stay focused in your reform attempts as I and many others are in desperate need of your help.”

There’s no doubt that the Obama health-care reform bill would