FOR SALE: BACKBONES (MADE IN USA) FOR DEMOCRATS, INCLUDING PRESIDENT OBAMA

For one week running up to the very important New Hampshire primary, I was in New Hampshire volunteering for the campaign titled: Obama for America. Not my comfort zone to make the phone calls, go door-to-door, but I did it because I felt Barack Obama genuinely had a backbone. Because I was promised to be able to get into him speaking one day that week, and then getting there after going door-to-door right up to the time of the event, I was unable to get in, because the room was full and I had to sit in a room with the national press instead. I talked with Richard Wolffe briefly and had my picture taken with him by his friend. I watched Barack speak on a TV screen, while I sat with the press core which was reporting the campaign and rode the bus with Barack Obama.

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So as a result of this broken promise by the campaign leader, I was given a hard copy ticket for this night in the Nashua, NH gym and sat right where Barack and Michelle entered that night. The spirit of promise in the “Yes We Can” speech that night has been buried. The poor, the middle class are the sacrificial lambs. General Electric is paying no taxes April 15, 2011. Hope and Change? Certainly hope free.

"Mike Elk has a nice companion piece to the New York Times story on General Electric paying no taxes after making $14 billion in profits, and in fact getting $3 billion in returns from the government. At the same time that the corporation isn’t giving one penny to the government for use of the commons, they are trying to exact wage and benefit cuts on their own workers." From news.firedoglake.com/2011/03/28/ge-pays-no-taxes-wants-workers-to-accept-cuts

Sent April 8, 2011 via whitehouse.gov

Dear President Obama,

As someone who used to support President Obama, I write to express my feelings of disappointment in the latest news.

Mike Elk has a nice companion piece to the New York Times story on General Electric paying no taxes after making $14 billion in profits, and in fact getting $3 billion in returns from the government. At the same time that the corporation isn’t giving one penny to the government for use of the commons, they are trying to exact wage and benefit cuts on their own workers.

Why are we middle class and poor being asked to compromise and do more than our part when the corporate USA "rich" get bail-outs from us, and pay NOT their fair share in taxes?

It is my understanding the poor women of D.C. just got not only the short end of the stick, but no "stick" at all in this latest "compromise". The short speech given by President Obama tonight didn't ring true for me. The Washington Monument in the background of the President's speech tonight was "theatre" that was forced and felt “un-genuine”.

From the President’s speech: "Largest Spending Cut in History" is not a cause for pride. Very sad to see President Obama lose his passion for justice.

Sandra Hammel

Use Your Voice to Stop Genocide RI

Genocide will only stop with us demanding it - Our leaders have taught us this

"The most important things belong first, not last or never."

Words of the Earth by Cedric Wright

If you want peace, work for justice

إذا كنت تريد السلام ، أعمل من أجل العدالة

President Obama: 202-456-1111 or 1-800-GENOCIDE

Call President Obama's Comment Phone Line
202-456-1111

Email the Whitehouse

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1-800-GENOCIDE
to support ending the Darfur Genocide
you can talk to the President's Line,
your USA Senators and Representative

Just Follow the Prompts

MICHELE BACHMANN - GET TO KNOW HER

Michele Marie Bachmann (née Amble; born April 6, 1956)^[2] is the U.S. Representative for Minnesota's 6th congressional district, which includes the northernmost and eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities and St. Cloud, serving since 2007. She is a member of the Republican Party. She previously served in the Minnesota State Senate. She is the third woman, and first Republican woman, to represent the state in Congress.^[3]

Bachmann is a supporter of the Tea Party movement and "is founder of the House Tea Party Caucus."^[4]

Click the post title for Michele Bachmann's wikipedia page.
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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell

U.S. MN (Minnesota) Rep Michele Bachmann has been named to the Intelligence Committee. Speaker of the House, John Boehner, made the announcement Friday.

What some people think of as a thoroughly off-the-deep-end decision, others think this is an intelligent decision. Imagine Michele Bachmann as President of the USA. One day it may be President Bachmann. As much as this is a troubling thought for me, I can see the USA doing this. Bachmann received her J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University. Bachmann and her husband own a Christian counseling clinic in Stillwater. The following excerpt - Early career - is from wikipedia's page about Bachmann:

Bachmann had grown up in a Democratic family, but says she became a Republican during her senior year at Winona State. She told the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune that she was reading Gore Vidal's 1973 novel, Burr: "He was kind of mocking the Founding Fathers and I just thought, 'I just remember reading the book, putting it in my lap, looking out the window and thinking, 'You know what? I don't think I am a Democrat. I must be a Republican.'"^[5][17]

While she was still a Democrat, Bachmann was involved in anti-abortion activism. She and her then-fiance Marcus were inspired to join the pro-life movement by Francis Schaeffer's 1976 Christian documentary film, How Should We Then Live?. They frequently prayed outside of clinics and served as sidewalk counselors in an attempt to dissuade women from seeking abortions.^[18]

The first time Bachmann's political activism gained media notice was at an abortion protest in 1991. She and approximately 30 other abortion opponents went to a Ramsey County Board meeting where a $3 million appropriation was to go to build a morgue for the county at St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center (now called Regions Hospital). The Medical Center performed abortions and employed abortion rights pioneer Dr. Jane E. Hodgson. Bachmann attended the meeting to protest public tax dollars going to the hospital; speaking to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, she said that “in effect, since 1973, I have been a landlord of an abortion clinic, and I don’t like that distinction.”^[10][19]

In 1993, Bachmann and other parents in Stillwater, Minnesota opened New Heights Charter School. The oversight of New Heights soon encountered problems when a group of concerned parents and the school district questioned if the insertion of Christianity into the school's curriculum amounted to using public tax money to fund a religious school.^[20] One such parent, Denise Stephens, a longtime Republican, charged the board of directors of the school (which included Bachmann) with trying to set up classes on Creationism and advocating that "something called '12 Christian principles' be taught, very much like the 10 Commandments."^[20] According to Stephens, school officials also refused to allow the in-school screening of the Disney film Aladdin, saying that it endorsed witchcraft and promoted paganism. Along with other directors, Bachmann appeared before the Stillwater School Board to address the parents' concerns. According to Stephens, Bachmann became angry and asked, "Are you going to question my integrity?", before she and four other members of the board resigned on the spot.^[20]

Bachmann became an outspoken critic of public education and opponent of Minnesota's Profile of Learning and School-to-Work policies. In a 1999 column, Bachmann said: "School-to-Work alters the basic mission and purpose of K-12 academic education away from traditional broad-based academic studies geared toward maximizing intellectual achievement of the individual. Instead, School-to-Work utilizes the school day to promote children's acquisition of workplace skills, viewing children as trainees for increased economic productivity."^[21

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Article: michele-bachmann-named-to-intelligence-committee

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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$8,700 Salary increase for U.S. Representatives - a 5% pay increase - Will congress vote to NOT take their voted pay raise?

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Roseanne Barr - World Peace in 30 days

U.S. SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES INCOMES ~ RELATE THIS TO YOUR INCOME

Source sanders.senate.gov

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Uploaded by InternetSpanker

Note sent to Senator Sanders via his website form:

Thank you, Senator Sanders for speaking sense regarding the middle class situation and the Republican obstruction, Saturday.

I look at all labels and shy away from Made in China merchandise purchases as much as possible.

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Source December 3, 2010

In a rare weekend session, Senate Republicans unanimously blocked a measure that would have extended tax cuts for American families with incomes under $250,000 and ended Bush-era tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. “What this debate is about is whether or not we continue to take money from the middle class and working families of this country who are struggling in a way that they have not struggled since the great depression in order to provide $700 billion over a 10-year period to the wealthiest people in this country,” Sanders said on the Senate floor moments before the vote. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that the Senate will vote next week on a Sanders’ bill to provide a $250 payment to more than 50 million American retirees and disabled veterans.

Taxes The White House and congressional Republicans were holding closed-door negotiations amid signals the Obama administration could bargain away tax breaks for the rich. Sanders hoped the White House stands firm. "What we have got say is, ‘no, we`re not going to give huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires and ignore the needs of working families.’ The priorities have got to be not increasing our national debt by $700 billion by giving tax breaks to people who don`t need it," the senator said. The senator was interviewed by Rachel Maddow about taxes and the White House negotiating strategy. To watch, click here.

Unemployment Up With unemployment benefits expiring for 2 million Americans by the end of December, Senate Republicans blocked votes to extend help for the long-term jobless. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent in November, the Department of Labor reported on Friday. More than 15 million people remained out of work last month, and 6.3 million of them have been unemployed for six months or longer. Private companies added 50,000 jobs in November, mostly for temporary help. Another 19,000 jobs were added by health care providers. Retail jobs fell by 28,000. Manufacturing lost 13,000 jobs. Government payrolls dropped by 11,000 in the month. If those unemployed people are added to part-time workers looking for full-time jobs you get 17 percent of the work force that is "underemployed." There was a record 1.3 million "discouraged" workers in November; persons who have stopped looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.

The Fed The Federal Reserve on Wednesday was forced to disclose that it gave banks and other institutions an estimated $3.3 trillion in emergency loans and other assistance during the financial crisis. Sanders, whose amendment required the Fed to make the information public, called the revelations "jaw dropping." The disclosure, available on the Fed Web site, was strenuously opposed by Chairman Ben Bernanke during a 2009 Senate Budget Committee hearing. The requirement to reveal the information was mandated by a Sanders amendment to the Wall Street reform law. The same amendment ordered the Government Accountability Office to conduct a top-to-bottom audit of the Fed. "Almost two years ago I asked Chairman Bernanke to tell the American people which financial institutions and corporations received trillions of dollars as part of the Wall Street bailout. He refused. Today, as a result of an audit-the-Fed provision I put into the financial reform bill, we finally learn the truth - and it is astounding," Sanders said. (Read his full statement here.) To watch the senator's interview with Eliot Spitzer on CNN, click here.

Food Safety A procedural hitch at least temporarily sidetracked a food-safety bill that the Senate had approved on Tuesday. At a time when millions of Americans are sickened by food-borne illnesses each year, the Senate voted to require companies to institute an aggressive safety testing procedures, maintain clear records, and have emergency plans in place. The measure also would require imported food to be subject to the same standards as food grown or made in the United States. And it would increase the number of FDA inspectors while allowing the agency to initiate mandatory recalls and suspend a facility's operations. Sanders responded to concerns by small farmers in Vermont, where there has been a significant increase in sustainable vegetable farms, and added a provision exempting small, low-risk, on-farm food processors from the new regulations aimed at large agribusinesses.

Offshore Drilling The Obama administration this week reinstated an offshore drilling ban which mirrored policy first proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders last May - the president had lifted the moratorium prior to the now-infamous BP oil spill on the Gulf Coast. Sanders, a member of both the Senate energy and environment committee, introduced his Clean Coasts and Efficient Cars legislation (S.3433) which would have put a moratorium on offshore drilling of the east and west coasts of the country and in certain areas off of Florida. Now that is again the policy of the federal government. At a hearing in May, Sanders had asked Interior Sec. Ken Salazar if he would support reinstating a drilling moratorium. Salazar said no. This week, Salazar confirmed his agency was reinstating the policy for the next 7 years. Sanders legislation also called for raising fuel economy standards to a minimum of 55mpg by 2030. That aspect of his bill has also been supported by the administration which plans to raise fuel economy standards to between 47 and 62 MPG by 2025. Between those two policy decisions from the president, Sanders' legislation has effectively been implemented despite finding little support from his Senate colleague for the proposal.

Members of Congress create their own Retirement Benefits. Do you get to enact by law your retirement benefits?

Retirement Benefits for Members of Congress

US Senators and Representatives Incomes for 2009

at: www.opensecrets.org/pfds

Here are two we should all make ourselves familiar with

The first amount given is the minimum, the second the maximum, third figure is the average amount of money

House (on graph 135 and 104)

John Boehner (R-Ohio)

$1,801,094

$5,340,000

$3,570,547

Eric Cantor (R-Va)

$2,175,157

$7,533,999

$4,854,578

also of interest

Senate (on graph32 and 25)
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky)	$7,102,036	$32,756,000	$19,929,018

Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine)

$12,556,055

$44,669,000

$28,612,527