Yesterday, Republicans again shot down an extension of a payroll tax break for middle-class families due to their objection to a 1.9 percent tax increase on the top 0.2 percent of income earners. Naturally, Republicans are recycling their spurious claim that taxing America’s millionaires will somehow hit small businesses and stifle job creation.

“It’s just intuitive that, you know, if you’re somebody who’s in business and you get hit with a tax increase, it’s going to be that much harder, I think, to make investments that are going to lead to job creation,” said Sen. John Thune (R-SD). Hoping for more than Thune’s intuition, NPR put out a request to Republican offices and the business groups that have been lobbying against the surtax to find business owners who’d be affected. Unsurprisingly, Republican leadership and the business groups came up empty: We wanted to talk to business owners who would be affected. So, NPR requested help from numerous Republican congressional offices, including House and Senate leadership. They were unable to produce a single millionaire job creator for us to interview. So we went to the business groups that have been lobbying against the surtax. Again, three days after putting in a request, none of them was able to find someone for us to talk to. A group called the Tax Relief Coalition said the problem was finding someone willing to talk about their personal taxes on national radio.

For much more click on:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/09/385989/republicans-job-creators-taxes/

Also, check out the latest video clip news about

 ”WHO KILLED OSAMA?”, “GOP CANDIDATES TURNING DOWN TRUMP”, etc. on:

 http://xfinity.comcast.net/news/

CORPORATIONS AND UNIONS SHOULD BE TRAINING LAID OFF EMPLOYEES TO REQUALIFY FOR JOBS THAT ARE NEEDED. A GOOD EMPLOYER SHOULD KEEP EMPLOYEES UP TO DATE ON THE JOBS THEY HAVE AND ON THE NEW JOBS TO COME. IF A POLITICIAN DOES SUPPORT THIS, HE NEEDS TO BE RECALLED AND FIRED.~mackie

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports:
In a statement, [Randy Radtke, president of the council,] added that the parade is intended to celebrate working men and women and what the labor movement has given them: weekends, a 40-hour workweek, child labor protection and a safe working environment.

Then They Came for the Trade Unionists

Thursday 10 March 2011 by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

George Voinovich is retiring from Congress next year, and I guess that means he can feel free to let a few things slip out. In this clip from CNBC, he admits what we’ve known all along – that opposition to the President is driving opposition to health care reform. Republicans know that if a Democratic President expands access to health care more than any time since Medicare, and lowers individual costs for most people, he will reap rewards. So their strategy, as revealed previously by internal memos and Jim “Waterloo” DeMint, is to obstruct reform to deny the President a “win”, thusly turning the uninsured and the poor into pawns in a political game.

Most of Voinovich’s remarks are of the fiscal scold variety, claiming that we cannot afford the cost of government (something I forget hearing from Voinovich when he voted to authorize a war in Iraq that cost three trillion dollars), but here’s the key moment at around 4:25:

QUESTIONER: …on health care, how much of this disagreement with the Administration is about the policy of health care and how to fix it, and how much of it is Republicans’ obvious and understandable desire to declaw the President politically? How much of that does fit into the equation.

VOINOVICH: I think it’s about 50/50, but I will tell you this…

He then claims that some Republicans want to work “on a bipartisan basis” on health care, but that’s pretty much the death knell right there.

Democrats are right to jump all over this and expose the GOP as obstructionists. We’ve known this for some time with the record number of filibusters, but haven’t gotten it out to the public. On a high-profile issue like health care, it should be radioactive to obstruct for political reasons and deny millions of people the right to have quality, affordable care.

 For more info click on:

“Search to know the Truth

And the Truth will set You Free.”

(my aim is not to convince, but to share what I have found for your consideration. – mackie)

ON FACTS?: something that has actual existence <space exploration is now a fact> b: an actual occurrence <prove the fact of damage>

ON OPINIONS?: belief stronger than impression and less strong than positive knowledge b: a generally held view

ON FEELINGS?: often unreasoned opinion or belief

ON HEAR-SAY?: a rumor: a statement or report current without known authority for its truth (not accepted in court)

ON HALF-TRUTHS: a statement that mingles truth and falsehood with deliberate intent to deceive

(definitions from: http://www.merriam-webster.com/ )

——————————————-

ON WHICH ARE THE FOLLOWING BASED (from some items posted)?

GOP vice presidential pick Sarah Palin accepted at least $4,500 in campaign contributions in the same fundraising scheme at the center of a public corruption scandal that led to the indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens.

The contributions, made during Palin’s failed 2002 bid to become Alaska’s lieutenant governor, were not illegal for her to accept. But they show how Palin, a self-proclaimed reformer who has bucked Stevens and his allies, is nonetheless a product of a political system in Alaska now under the cloud of an ongoing FBI investigation.

It’s the latest in a string of revelations that have forced John McCain‘s campaign to defend his choice and the thoroughness of the background check of Palin, 44, a little-known governor who is new to the national stage. Palin stunned delegates at the GOP convention Monday when she announced through the McCain campaign that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant.

With the convention still abuzz, the list of potentially embarrassing details grew Tuesday:

_Palin sought pork-barrel projects for her city and state, contrary to her reformist image.

_Her husband once belonged to a fringe political group in Alaska with some members supporting secession from the United States.

_A private attorney has been authorized to spend $95,000 to defend her against accusations of abuse of power.

_She has acknowledged smoking marijuana in the past.

And this: Bristol Palin’s boyfriend, Levi Johnston, plans to join the family of the Republican vice presidential candidate at the GOP convention, the boy’s mother said. He left Alaska on Tuesday morning to join the Palin family in St. Paul, Minn.

Defending his choice and the team that helped pick her, McCain said Tuesday that “the vetting process was completely thorough.” Campaign advisers at the convention in St. Paul, Minn., said Palin filled out a survey with 70 questions, including: Have you ever paid for sex? Have you been faithful in your marriage? Have you ever used or purchased drugs? Have you ever downloaded pornography?

For the entire article click on:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080903/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_palin