CA GOP Official Sends Racist Pic of President

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A Southern California Republican Party official was under fire Saturday after allegations she sent an email that included an altered photo depicting President Barack Obama as an ape.

Marilyn Davenport, who is a member of the central committee of the Republican Party of Orange County, sent the email. The photo in the email shows an image, posed like a family portrait, of chimpanzee parents and child, with Obama's face artificially superimposed on the child. Text beneath the photo reads, "Now you know why no birth certificate."

Davenport told the OC Weekly it was a joke.

"You're not going to make a big deal about this, are you?" Davenport reportedly asked when the newspaper's political blogger reached her for comment. "Oh, come on!"

The RPOC chairman is calling for an ethics investigation and says Davenport should consider stepping down.

Do I have the photo Davenport sent in her email?  Yes, I do.  However, I'm tired of spreading the filth that racist politicians produce.  Rather, I chose a photo of the President of the United States that every American can and should be proud of. Your thoughts?

Related articles:

• VIDEO: Tea Party Activist's Racist Email Shocks Orange County GOP (huffingtonpost.com)
• California Republican sent photo of Obama as an ape (capitolhillblue.com)
• GOP leaders denounce Obama-chimp email (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Round Three of the Budget Battle

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Round One-The battle offered increased taxes for the middle class vs. keeping Bush tax cuts for the rich.

Round Two-Showdown over funding the government through the end of this fiscal year.

Round Three-The debt ceiling fight now in progress-two opposing sets of values.

Paul Ryan has been hailed for his "vision" evidenced in his budget proposal.

By proposing to dismantle Medicare for people retiring in 2021 and afterwards, he's laid out a radical alternative to today's policies. By slashing taxes for the wealthy and proposing deregulation for all industries, the Ryan plan envisions a future America: one where the environment is despoiled, the poor go unfed, and the middle class faces a lifetime of financial insecurity following by an old age of sickness and penury.

When President Obama offered his budget proposal, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security remain in tact. He supported his healthcare plan to address Medicare and Medicaid issues. He proposed a return to the Bush-Clinton policies that put us on the path to budget surpluses in the 1990s — and he will be able to restore the Clinton tax rates simply, with his veto pen, if necessary, in 2013. He proposed a tax-reform process that will eliminate loopholes. All in all, his plan is reasonable and far less distasteful than that of the Republicans.

 Joe Klein, Time Magazine, offers a summary of the President's history lesson:

Republicans, colleagues of Paul Ryan's, voted for the Bush tax cuts — which, as Obama noted, added $500 billion per year to the deficit — and they also voted for the (unpaid for) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a massive (unpaid for) Medicare prescription-drug benefit. On top of these obligations, we suffered a severe recession starting in 2008, which reduced tax revenue by an estimated $500 billion per year — and which required nearly a trillion dollars in government spending to avert a total economic collapse. And voilá, this year's $1.6 trillion budget deficit.

As the round three battle begins, I hear Rodney King in the background..."Can't we all just get along?".

Related articles

• Mr. Prudent: Obama Preaches Deficit Sanity (time.com)
• The Cal Coolidge/Paul Ryan Budget (crooksandliars.com)
• Andrew C: Tax Cuts for the Rich on the Backs of the Middle Class; or, Paul Ryan Has Balls | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy (rollingstone.com)
• Dem lawmaker stays opposed to any tax increase (thehill.com)
• Editorial: Budget Battles: Tax and Spending Myths and Realities (nytimes.com)
• Official: Debt Limit Failure Would Make Financial Crisis Look Like A 'Walk In The Park' (huffingtonpost.com)

The Inside Job-Naming the Culprits

If you want to clearly understand all the elements of the Financial Crisis, I strongly suggest you view the academy award winning documentary "The Inside Job".  It'll be worth the effort to track the film down and the time it takes to view it.  It'll make you angry, but you'll see how all the familiar names chased the almighty dollar at the expense of our collective financial welfare. I promise you'll learn everything you need to know to make sense of the whole sorry mess.

Highlights from an article in The New York Times, "Naming the Culprits" by Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story:

“Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse,” a 650 page report, was released Wednesday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, whose co-chairmen are Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, and Tom Coburn, a Republican of Oklahoma. The result of two years’ work, the report focuses on an array of institutions with central roles in the mortgage crisis: Washington Mutual, an aggressive mortgage lender that collapsed in 2008; the Office of Thrift Supervision, a regulator; the credit ratings agencies Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service; and the investment banks Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.

“The report pulls back the curtain on shoddy, risky, deceptive practices on the part of a lot of major financial institutions,” Mr. Levin said in an interview. “The overwhelming evidence is that those institutions deceived their clients and deceived the public, and they were aided and abetted by deferential regulators and credit ratings agencies who had conflicts of interest.”

The report adds significant new evidence to previously disclosed material showing that a wide swath of the financial industry chose profits over propriety during the mortgage lending spree. It also casts a harsh light on what the report calls regulatory failures, which helped deepen the crisis.

Washington's Money Game

Well, the politicians got together and finally managed to advert a government shutdown.
I must say I'm not impressed and the battle of the budget left a bitter taste in my mouth and left me disappointed with all the parties concerned. Democrats gave up $38.5 billion in spending cuts, when the original Republican demand was for $32 billion. That means the Democrats only gave the Republicans 20% more than they originally demanded. Democrats agreed to enormous program cuts but managed to save the EPA and Planned Parenthood.



 The tax cuts for the rich passed in December amounted to $150 billion and rescinding them would have solved the supposed fiscal problem. Of the 535 members of Congress, 237 are millionaires, 55 are worth over $10 million each and 3 are worth $150 million each. Every body else depends on contributions from wealthy donor with vital interests they want protected.  Is there any wonder why we can't get rid of Bush's gift to the top 2% of the population.

People can debate who won the second wave of the Battle of the Budget, but I believe the country and the American people are the clear losers.

Related articles

• Deal leaves liberals disheartened (politico.com)
• Poll: 58 percent back spending-cuts agreement (thehill.com)
• The Budget Deal Isn't a Compromise, but a Rout [Mike the Mad Biologist] (scienceblogs.com)
• The Planned Parenthood budget shuffle (salon.com)
• Even Some Republicans Starting to Balk at Government Shutdown over Planned Parenthood (news.firedoglake.com)

Bristol Palin's Paycheck

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Bristol Palin, the 20-year-old daughter of former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin drew ire on Tuesday after tax documents revealed she raked in more than $262,500 for her work advocating against teen pregnancy in 2009.

She has been advocating youth abstinence on behalf of New York-based Candie's Foundation, a nonprofit organization that seeks to raise awareness of teen pregnancy and parenting issues.  The head of the nonprofit group against teen pregnancy on Wednesday defended the $332,500 his organization paid Bristol Palin over a two-year period to advocate for sexual abstinence.


"Bristol did a tremendous amount of work for us -- many, many days and weeks," said Neil Cole, founder of the nonprofit Candie's Foundation.

I wonder if this money will trickle down to the disadvantaged like the tax cuts for the rich.

Related articles

• Bristol Palin got $262,500 from sex abstinence work (reuters.com)
• "Bristol Palin Cashes In On Teen Pregnancy & Abstinence" and related posts (bumpshack.com)
• Bristol Palin earned $262,500 from sex abstinence work (reuters.com)
• Corrected: Nonprofit defends payment to Bristol Palin (omg.yahoo.com)
• Bristol Palin’s Nonprofit Paid Her Seven Times What It Spent On Pregnancy Prevention (politics.ie)

Trump for President? Get Real!

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The talk about the Donald running for President floods the news media, but can you take Trump for President seriously?  Never mind the fact he claims to be a "Birthier". Never mind the fact that he's polled number 2 at 21% behind Mitt Romney's 27%  in the Republicans for President polling. It's good for publicity.  It got him a weekly show on Fox News.  It makes him a person in demand on the talk show circuit. It may raise the ratings on his TV show Celebrity Apprentice. It allows him to garner campaign donations. It's money in Trump's pocket...that's what it's all about.

Related articles

• Trump's Weekly Fox News Segment Debuts (huffingtonpost.com)
• Donald Trump To Join Fox & Friends News Chatter (newsy1.wordpress.com)

Paul Ryan's Budget Proposal

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Wisconsin Republican and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan compares his recently introduced budget plan to the proposals for welfare reform enacted during the 1990s.

“This budget,” Ryan proclaimed, “extends those successes . . . to ensure that America’s safety net does not become a hammock that lulls able-bodied citizens into lives of complacency and dependency.”

I agree with Washington Post contributor Ruth Marcus: when she say “Paul Ryan is wrong about the safety net.” ” Nothing justifies spending nearly $700 billion to extend tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans while cutting even more, $771 billion, of health care for the poorest."