For Whom Did They Die?

We hail our fallen heroes.  Hopefully many of you stirred some dull roots with spring rain today:…  memories, both a blessing and a curse.

But for whom did they die?

Did they die for….

Top 5 Contributors, 2009 – 2014,       Campaign Cmte and Leadership PAC      Contributor      Total Indivs PACs
AstraZeneca PLC                                                                     $71,550                                               $36,550               $35,000
JPMorgan Chase & Co                                                          $58,200                                              $33,200               $25,000
Ashland Inc                                                                                $55,420                                              $25,700               $29,720
Blue Cross/Blue Shield                                                      $46,000                                                  $6,000               $40,000
Bank of America                                                                     $40,440                                                 $3,940               $36,500

Those were Tom Carper’s top 5 contibutors……

Or did they die for….

Top 5 Contributors, 2009 – 2014,        Campaign Cmte and Leadership PAC     Contributor           Total Indivs PACs

Young, Conaway et al                                                        $121,300                                            $121,300                     $0
Skadden, Arps et al                                                              $92,600                                             $87,600                       $5,000
Grant & Eisenhofer                                                              $70,049                                              $70,049                       $0
Comcast Corp                                                                         $69,200                                            $44,200                       $25,000
Morris, Nichols et al                                                            $57,550                                              $57,550                        $0

Those were Chris Coons’ top 5 contributors……

Or did they die for…....

Top 5 Contributors, 2013 – 2014,       Campaign Cmte and Leadership PAC     Contributor           Total Indivs PACs

Investment Co Institute                                                $12,500                                                 $8,140                            $2,500
Skadden, Arps et al                                                            $10,640                                                 $8,140                            $2,500
National Multi Housing Council                                $10,500                                                 $0                                     $10,500
Bank of America                                                                  $10,250                                                 $750                                 $9,500
AstraZeneca PLC                                                                 $10,198                                                 $250                                 $9,948

 

These are John Carney’s top contributors……

Our state relative to nationally, is actually on the good end of campaign contribution spectrum.  Nothing here, is really out of line. You should see some in other states…

But let us isolate by industry…..

For John Carney…. 

Top 5 Industries, 2013 – 2014,       Campaign Cmte and Leadership PAC       Industry Total           Indivs PACs
Insurance                                                       $96,520                                                                   $2,820                     $93,700
Securities & Investment                          $93,000                                                                  $1,500                     $91,500
Lawyers/Law Firms                                  $59,110                                                                   $45,610                     $13,500
Commercial Banks                                    $49,000                                                                  $1,250                       $47,750
Finance/Credit Companies                    $43,250                                                                  $5,250                      $38,000

For Chris Coons…….

Top 5 Industries, 2009 – 2014,      Campaign Cmt                                                Industry Total             Indivs PACs
Lawyers/Law Firms                                  $1,495,387                                                    $1,341,519                    $153,868
Leadership PACs                                        $512,900                                                           $0                              $512,900
Lobbyists                                                       $345,302                                                       $325,472                        $19,830
Securities & Investment                        $296,800                                                       $235,300                      $61,500
TV/Movies/Music                                     $228,157                                                          $163,800                       $64,357

For Tom Carper……..

Top 5 Industries, 2009 – 2014,       Campaign Cmte                                            Industry Total               Indivs PACs
Insurance                                                     $371,710                                                          $94,470                         $277,240
Securities & Investment                        $320,340                                                      $125,840                       $194,500
Lawyers/Law Firms                                  $294,382                                                       $170,761                        $123,621
Lobbyists                                                        $214,262                                                     $207,042                            $7,220
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products      $207,710                                                      $50,300                         $157,410

And now, in what I believe is the first time ever…. here is the combination giving you an idea of who influences our 3 man delegation…  Compiled by adding together all three’s industry totals listed above and then ranking them top down…..

 

Lawyers/Law Firms   ……………..    $1,848,879

Securities & Investment …………….   $710,140

Insurance…..,,,,,,,,,……………. , ……   $668,257

Leadership PACs ………………………. $675,400

Lobbyists  ………………………………,…$568,779

Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $486,108

Commercial Banks  …………………….$435,240

TV/Movies/Music……………………….$292,067

Finance/Credit Companies………….$208,865

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And that is who owns our delegation….  Just seeing the visual makes it clear why some of the anti-people votes cast by this delegation, … are ever cast at all….   No, contrary to how we exclaim… They are not insane.  They are practical….

It will get worse with McCutcheon passed…

Already the amount of dark money as shown by tallies done by the Center for Responsive Politics show that nondisclosing groups have already reported spending more than three times as much as they had at this point in the 2012 elections — a presidential cycle when higher spending would be expected.”

Did you get that?  The unprecedented spending done in 2012, a contested presidential year, as of now been tripled over the same point of time back in 2012…….. . And it is both sides. In the past dark money was 80% Conservative, 20% Liberal.  Today (2014), it is 60% Conservative; 40% Liberal…   Spending by liberal nondisclosing groups is more than four times higher than it was at this point in 2012, while their conservative counterparts have tripled their previous spending level……

Which means, no tv watching this summer… and social media will become a real turn-off….  Both mean that most of America will tune out this election…  Thank you, Supreme Court…..   What were you smoking?

And if most of America tunes out this election,   it again begs the moral and serious question…. for whom did they die?  Certainly not us.

 

 

 

 

Hope Georgia Is Happy With Their New Gun Law

Fed Ex shooting.  A FedEx employee wearing ammunition draped across his chest “like Rambo” opened fire

All legal in Georgia.

In addition to a shotgun, the gunman also had an undisclosed number of molotov cocktails,

All legal in Georgia.

The shooter first shot a security guard at a shack outside the building.. Everything up to the split second the shell impacted the guard, was under Georgia’s new law, completely legal.

He was a white male.

Is anyone really surprised?  Guns are more important than people inside the state lines of Georgia…..

Comment Rescue Regarding Obamacare

This bears more exposure.  Originally from Allan Loudell’s blog on WDEL.  

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I would have to disagree with XXXX’s current political assessment. I can see how he would be misguided. If one associates only with those who think like ones self, then one reinforces ones opinions instead of challenging them….

 XXXX feels like people don’t remember the shutdown… He thinks that people are more concerned about losing their insurance. If one looks at Breitbart and Red State, one can see why he feels that way. They talk of nothing else.

But the rest of America all suffered from feeling embarrassed that one wing of us was so childish, they shut down the government, then capitulated completely, getting absolutely nothing to gain from it.

In other words, all America suffered, not one single person gained. Ironically, just returning to normal was heralded as a victory for the American People, and allowing the return to normal was cast as a blemish to the Tea Party. That stains like child abuse; they will never live that down.

Now lets take the insurance exchange debacle. If you randomly pick 1000 people, 800 of them already have insurance so are unaffected. That leaves 200. Out of those 200, 170 of them were previously uninsured. So getting insurance for the first time, is a bonus to them. We are left now with 30. 30 people out of 1000 who currently buy their own plans on the open market. Of these 30, 8 will save money either through subsidies or through more direct competition. 9 will go through the process and find they are spending relatively the same. Unfortunately for those 13 left, they will have an increase in their premiums. That is 13 out of … how many? 1000.

Only 13 out of 1000 will have their insurance go up. Of course, with entreaties out to “send us your story” these 13 have a pipeline right up to the top of national media from where it is spewed out like treated water at a sewage treatment plant….

 But in the end.. by next November 4th, exactly 345 days away, those 13 will be drowned out by the 987 who received no harm from Obamacare.

The problem is not your facts. 13 people will pay more. It is with your getting your facts from only those people who want you to hear one side.

Good luck winning Congress back with 13 people.

67 Republicans Voted Against Hurricane Sandy Relief

So I heard the aid to our friends in New Jersey and New York was passed and wasn’t really worried. It was supposed to. A meesly 9 Billion dollars and then 51 Billion later. So later, I was thinking, gee, did anyone vote against that… I wasn’t the only one thinking that…

The New York Daily News was at the top of the charts with a front page headline that screams… Remember the 67 Republicans in House of Representatives who turned their backs on Hurricane Sandy victims

The Daily Beast was right behind it….

Yes. All 67 were Republicans… Let’s get what this Republican “NO” vote says… It says, “YOU DO NOT DESERVE EVEN A MEESLY 9.7 BILLION TO BUILD OUT FROM HURRICANE SANDY!!! YOU SUCK YOU EAST COAST LIBERAL FUCKIN’ SCUM.” That is what this vote is saying… It’s not $60 billion. It’s not $100 billion. It’s not a trillion. It’s $9.7 Billion….

The New York Times has a great interactive map showing they yea’s and nay’s…

Some surprises…. or not… Remember, Republicans are the lowest human element here.

Steven Pallazo, Gulf Coast Mississippi… (Remember Hurricane Katrina?) Look what Google pulls up for him…U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo helps Vietnam vet replace medals lost in Hurricane Katrina Oh, he’ll help his own replace a medal, but won’t help a New Yorker get someplace to live… Typical republican… are you surprised?

Mississippi’s Fourth Congressional District, which Palazzo has represented since 2011, includes the city of Biloxi, one of the most heavily damaged communities in the region by Hurricane Katrina. Congress quickly passed an initial $10.5 billion relief package in the immediate aftermath of Katrina in September of 2005

John Flemming, (R La) Had his own primary and runoff election canceled because of Hurricane Gustav, but voted no on relief for Hurricane Sandy. Flemming was involved in controversy when one of his 33 Subway franchises refused service to two Muslims because of their religion. Perhaps because Muslims live in New York?….

Andy Harris R-MD. EASTERN SHORE including the area of Ocean City, Maryland, which lost it’s pier to Hurricane Sandy…. UNBELIEVINGLY voted no aid to Sandy victims… His response? “This really wasn’t aid for the victims. What this was raising the debt ceiling limit”…. WTF…. Typical republican… are you surprised?

Randy Weber R-TX, took Ron Paul’s district, and just a year ago, was according to his tweeter feed, “Sitting in on a Galveston Erosion Response Plan in Galveston City Hall…” trying to get FEDERAL AID to stem Galveston’s Beach Erosion. But, he won’t support money for ‘dem liberals with no houses up in dat der liberal country.” Typical republican… are you surprised?

This just boggles the mind.

You have Mo Brooks of Alabama, who practically went door-to-door in his state after tornados to explain to them how to best get their federal money

Representative Sam Graves of Missouri…. co sponsored a much greater bill for flooding in his state… His quote…“This bill would take into account the new data points caused by this past year’s flood,” said Rep. Sam Graves. “This will ensure that we are prepared for a new worst-case scenario. As communities, roads and farmland all along the Missouri River begin to dry out, now is the time to start making common sense changes to the way the river is managed. This is a good first-step.” Check out this headline! Graves supporting flood insurance extension, but he won’t fund the exact same bankrupt fund for Hurricane Sandy victims.

But ‘dem Liberals in New York are just panhandlers… they want stuff for free…. typical Republican…. are you surprised?

This is going to be the big story this weekend… It boggles the mind. How can any human being take something for his district, then deny that exact same thing to others?

There is something really sick in America.

As Republicans Get Sick, They Start To Realize Why “Obamacare” Is Good

This story is making it’s way up the charts… It is about the perils of navigating the private insurance labyrinth, being kicked out, and finding salvation in what?…… A government run Health Care Program.

“Obama-care To The Rescue”

Bottom line… Private Insurance ain’t what it was under Clinton’s 1990’s… If you haven’t gotten sick lately, then talking smack about Governmental Healthcare, makes you a stupid-ass hypocrite.

Bottom line.

Delaware Footnote…

From Bloomberg….

On May 4, 2010, Geithner visited Kaufman in his Capitol Hill office. As president of the New York Fed in 2007 and 2008, Geithner helped design and run the central bank’s lending programs. The New York Fed supervised four of the six biggest U.S. banks and, during the credit crunch, put together a daily confidential report on Wall Street’s financial condition. Geithner was copied on these reports, based on a sampling of e- mails released by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

At the meeting with Kaufman, Geithner argued that the issue of limiting bank size was too complex for Congress and that people who know the markets should handle these decisions, Kaufman says. According to Kaufman, Geithner said he preferred that bank supervisors from around the world, meeting in Basel, Switzerland, make rules increasing the amount of money banks need to hold in reserve. Passing laws in the U.S. would undercut his efforts in Basel, Geithner said, according to Kaufman.

Anthony Coley, a spokesman for Geithner, declined to comment.

In A Perfect World….

Call it temporary insanity but let’s pretend, let’s just say, …that at one moment in time, if I chose to donate my youth out for my country, to be compensated back in the form of low pay; to completely and unjudgingly offer my fate up to the will of bureaucrats, all for the loss of my own self esteem, all for unending stretches of boredom, sparsed with interludes of a few intense seconds, that fortunately thorough my reactions and training, enabled me to continue living as I do today………….

I could reasonably be expected to be honored for that service to my nation, right?

In a perfect world, that is….

One would think, that in a perfect world, as needs were being debated across the universe of public funding, that a hierarchy resembling this, would sort of be the guideline, if not the rule?

National Heroes…..

over

We, The People…..

over

LLC corporations….

After all, if it weren’t for us, there’s a good chance those LLC. corporations wouldn’t be able to do business in a free and prosperous society, you would think?….

One would think, that if one of these heroes needed medical care, with the tremendous amounts of money being thrown away by our government daily, in the forms of corporate tax breaks enabling corporations to make “record breaking profits”…. that they would be put at the top of the list.. don’t you think?

Sorry, CEO… your operation will have to wait… We have a veteran who is in dire need ahead of you….

In a perfect world….

One would think, that a voucher system would be in place, or a blank check, where any veteran could walk into any hospital, and get immediate, necessary medical attention, have his prescriptions filled as a privilege for his service, and that the bill would be willing be paid by those with monetary resources more than adequate for their own needs?

One would think, (right?)… that it would be CEO’s, those who give pink slips so they can break profit records, those who cut benefits so they can break profit records, those who don’t invest in America so they can break record profits, ….who should be the ones finding themselves regulated to CEO hospitals, where they would then have to settle in on a waiting list for the next opening to occur, where they had to endure budget cutbacks and go without life-saving medicine because there was no money left in the CEO fund, perhaps because it had all gone to Veterans to pay THEIR expenses?

In a perfect world…..

In a perfect world, veterans would need no freebies…. They would not need welfare, or a pension, or a humble stipend to eke an existence… They would be working, contributing to society, in any way they could… If they had no legs, they would be outfitted at corporate’s expense, so that would not be an issue… If they had no arms, they could be outfitted at corporate’s expense so that was not an issue. If they had psychological damage, (and who wouldn’t?) they could be treated at corporate’s expense… so that was not an issue.

If they were so badly damaged that they create an efficiency drain on society, they could be honored for their sacrifice, and a useful voluntary capacity could be created to honor that commitment once made so long ago… Perhaps speaking about serving one’s country in every class, in every school, in every county? Can you think of any better civic’s lesson?

There’s a lot that can be done…

The problem is that veterans are deemed as just another expense…. Because to corporate America, that is just what they are… An expense, an obligation to be met that gets in the way of their making more money…

Unfortunately, our Congress is owned by Corporate America….

What should and does need to happen, is this relationship needs to be exposed. We need to call them out on it…

Republicans and Democrats are both complicit in allowing corporate raiders this unprecedented power. But Republicans are the symbol of Corporate America. Republicans are the ones who championed the Corporate Takeover. Republicans are the ones who dismanteled the safeguards that had been put in place to prevent that takeover from happening. That is why they need to go. Disappear… Whoever is left, the remainder, most likely after seeing the elimination of a large majority of their peers, will think twice before following their Dark Lord, now a soul less wanderer eking existence.. ……

In a perfect world…

Unfortunately, today we need to contend with obscene amounts of money saying Corporate is Good; Government Fairness is Bad….

But we have our lives telling us the opposite… It will take courage and strong will, to override all the overload of sensory data being pipelined into our soul, but we still have hearts, and those hearts are attuned to what makes America special. great, and the best place to live on this earth….

WE can still dream….

And those dreams should include a perfect world… one we CAN make happen, at least for those without whom we would not have the freedom, the resources, the nation, we have today….

Here’s to a perfect world?

Of Course Mother Nature Hates Republicans!

Many of the areas hit by the storm had also been hit by Irene. In New Jersey’s Hamilton Township, Tom Jacobsen also recalled heavy spring flooding and a particularly heavy winter before that.

“I’m starting to think we really ticked off Mother Nature somehow, because we’ve been getting spanked by her for about a year now,” he said while grabbing some coffee at a convenience store…..

OF COURSE YOU DID, DUMMY. YOU VOTED FOR REPUBLICANS!

Hip, Hip, Hooray!!!!!!!!! It’s Almost 2012!!!!!!!

And what happens in 2012? No, not the end of the world…. but the end of the world as we know it…..

For in 2012, pieces of the Affordable Care act begin to go into effect….. How awesome is that? And in our own lifetimes too?

What to expect…..

In 2012, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, additional benefits for the 150,000 Medicare enrollees in Delaware include lower prescription drug costs through a 50 percent discount on covered brand name drugs in the coverage gap – or “doughnut hole” – as well as wellness checkups and access to certain preventive care with no copayments, a benefit that all Medicare Advantage plans will offer starting in 2012. As a result, Medicare beneficiaries will be able to get free preventive screenings for heart disease, blood pressure, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and other chronic conditions. In 2011 alone, over 20 million Medicare beneficiaries received an annual wellness checkup or received other preventive services with no deductible or cost sharing.

Thank you President Obama. Thank you Democratic Party of the USA…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How bad would we have been for us if Republicans had stopped this as they tried soooo hard to do?

It’s going to be a great year!!!!!

Number 1 Reason for National Healthcare

A group of insurance adjusters were commenting about the job security that Hurricane Irene had given them.

“I’ve got a huge, new pile of claims laying on my desk, every morning when I come in…” said one…

“It’s actually kind of fun” said another… “Deny, Deny, Deny… I can be done by noon…”

“Isn’t that wrong?” asked someone not in the insurance business?

“No, number one rule, is always deny the first time. They can always appeal…”

Ring a bell?