Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
Represenative Jim Jordan (OH-4), a cheap labor conservative and chair of the stealth Republican Study Committee, introduced “H.R. 1167, the Welfare Reform Act of 2011” to do to food stamp recipients what the GOP did to people on welfare back in the 1990’s – kick them to the curb if they don’t go to work. Too bad the program already has such a requirement. I can only think that Jordan and the rest of his Star Chamber want to have children go hungry and make family poverty worse.
Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel, held out as the model of integrity, resigned Monday as the pressure mounted due to a memorabilia-for-tattoo scandal that showed no sign of simmering down. Like all media created heroes, the backlash and piling on has been merciless. Besides the obvious questions about what is true or not, where was the Columbus media when all this was going on?
The start was in December when we all found out that 5 players had traded memorabilia (rings, jerseys, autographs, etc…) for tattoos at a Columbus tattoo parlor. At the time Coach Tressel and Ohio State officials claimed they found out about it in December. The five players were allowed to play in the season ending Sugar Bowl but were suspended for five games to start the 2011 season.
Today is Memorial Day when we honor those who have served and/or died for this country. One of those military members was my Dad. He was killed in Vietnam in 1968. To those members of the Armed Forces who answered their country’s call, I tip my hat and say thanks.
This is my Dad in his dress uniform:
On Thursday, Mitt Romney gave a speech about health care reform where he actually lied about his support of a national mandate. Since the tea bagger GOP members hate the mandate, Romney is lying about supporting it back in 2007 to try and make them like him. Kind of like Donald Trump being a birther or Newt Gingrich running for President.
In 2007 Romney said:
When the Republicans won back the House of Representatives, they did it by campaigning about JOBS JOBS JOBS, yet just as I knew they would they instead decided to start by attacking women. One way was by passing HR 3 (aka No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act) on Tuesday. This bill not only prevents federal money being spent on abortions it also goes much further and redefines what is your money and what is the government’s money.
The House of Representatives just passed H.R. 3, the controversial abortion-funding law that pro-choice critics and the White House has said will make it harder for woman to pay for abortion coverage with their own money.
The passage was expected, considering 227 members signed on as co-sponsors of the legislation. The final vote was 251-175. Sixteen Democrats and 235 Republicans voted aye. The full rollcall vote is here.
Not only does the bill ban federal funds to pay for abortions, and redefines rape to remove that from reasons to use federal funds for an abortion, it also changes what is meant by “Your money”:
In order to make their “no taxpayer funding for abortion” scheme work, Republicans use H.R. 3 to disallow tax deductions for your health care expenses if your private insurance plan covers abortion. Not if you actually get an abortion. And not if a member of your family does. All it takes for you to see your taxes hiked is if the private insurance plan you selected and paid for with your own money permits coverage of abortion at all. For anyone. Even if you never get one and never plan to. If you bought a plan that agrees to cover abortion if someone else totally unrelated to you needs one, then you lose eligibility for any tax deductions for the cost of your insurance, and your tax bill shoots up. Republicans take your cash, because you agreed to buy a plan that might someday pay for someone else’s abortion.
That’s right. The cheap labor conservatives will raise your taxes to make sure no one gets an abortion – even if you pay for it yourself.
As David Waldman continues:
Yes, it’s the government’s prerogative to favor or disfavor certain activities using the tax code. But of course, just last month, the Supreme Court’s conservative wing went out of its way to preserve state tax breaks for donations made to funds that underwrite religious school tuition in Arizona by holding that tax credits aren’t “government spending.” And yet now, here are Congressional “conservatives” insisting that they are. And that since money is fungible, that means every dollar you have might be in your wallet only by virtue of a tax credit. Which means the government can keep every dollar you have on a string, telling you you can’t spend it on things they don’t like, or else they’ll raise your taxes for making them mad.
AND the GOP went ape shit over something called a “Medicine cabinet tax” after the Affordable Health Care for America Act passed.
As my friends and I say IOKIYAR!
It’s OK If You’re a Republican.