America's Pandora's Box

We've seen the corporate evil, Supreme Court corruption, political bribery, money laundering with Super PACs, white-collar greed, and learned of Citizens United. Can Stephen Colbert save America?

With the massive growth of cable TV news and high-spend internet over the past 15 years, average Americans have become much more privy to the workings of government and our elected politician's unholy alliances to corporations. People who were previously unaware of the corruption, are now learning (at lightening speed) just how badly they've been getting ripped off. They are finally waking up to realize just why they've busted their asses for the last 30 years and weren't getting anywhere...and younger Americans, who are just graduating from school, are aware as well. (Google: Occupy Wall Street)

America's Pandora's Box has been opened. According to Greek mythology, when Pandora opened the jar, all its contents except for one item were released into the world. The one remaining item was Hope. Today, opening Pandora's box means to create evil that cannot be undone. Is is too late for American citizens to undo the evil that's be unleashed against us?

Government corruption begins at the top. The Supreme Court allowed BIG MONEY to influence our politics, corrupting the election process, and calling corporations real people in upholding Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. If we have corruption in the Supreme Court, how can THE PEOPLE have a fair and representative form of democratic government?

Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report hundreds of thousands of dollars on annual financial disclosure forms, and there's a call for his investigation.

His wife Virginia Thomas lobbied for the Tea Party, which promotes "free trade" but not "fair trade", which allows for the outsourcing of millions of American jobs to countries for cheap "sweatshop" wages.

Virginia Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, pictured at an event sponsored my NewsMax, a conservative American news media organization.

See my post America's Race to the Bottom, about how American CEOs use slave labor to enrich themselves at the cost of American jobs. See my post about how BIG businesses and the Republicans want "more of the same" of these trade practices in other countries as well. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is one of a few at the top that has allowed this by allowing BIG BUSINESS to influence our elections.

Where did all our jobs go? American CEOs keep saying taxes, government regulations, and a lack worker job skills are the reasons why they won't hire. Bullshit! The #1 reason for our jobless economy is that jobs have been going overseas for lower wages. And Canadian corporations do this too! The clothing store GAP pays under-aged girls 28¢ an hour to produce jeans that costs us $26.95 to buy in our malls across America.

New York Times: "Modern communications technology has enabled multinationals to profit from low-cost global sourcing of labor."

New York Times: "At the top of this list is a trade policy that was designed to put manufacturing workers in direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world."

New York Times: "Starting in the late 1970s, the middle class began to weaken...started to undermine any American job that could be automated or done more cheaply abroad."

And: "Businesses are not leaving the United States to escape high taxes or regulations. They are leaving to low wage countries."

That's how all the CEOs began getting HUGE multi-million-dollar salaries! Taking money out of our pockets and stuffing it in theirs! That's why we've had all the wage and wealth disparity in America over the last 40 years (besides just unfair tax laws favoring the rich). That's why our "jobless recovery" exists today - - - stocks and CEOs bonuses are up, but without creating any good paying jobs in America, to put money in the pockets of average working-class Americans to buy things.

If we can't get the Supreme Court to rule in favor of REAL people, instead of just Republican interests that represent corporations (and not really REAL people), then we can never fix the underlying problem that's at the very core of this vast disparity in wealth.

GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS and hold all the Supreme Court Justices accountable to ethnics laws, and put term limits on their jobs, instead of nominating them to life-time positions. The damage they do can take generations to fix while millions of citizens suffer the ramifications of their corrupted decisions.

Read: Dylan Ratigan's (of MSNBC) piece at the Huffington Post: "Building a Digital Wave to Get Money Out".

Also: Sign the petition at www.getmoneyout.com "It's Time to GET MONEY OUT of politics."

That's why comedian Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report started his own Super Pac, to mock the ridiculousness of this BIG MONEY laundering scheme. Super PACs can raise unlimited sums from corporations, unions and other groups, as well as individuals. Made possible by two court rulings that lifted many spending and contribution limits, Super PACs can also mount direct attacks on candidates that weren't allowed in the past.

In the 1980 Presidential election, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan received all their campaign funding from that little box we checked on our federal income tax returns. No Super PAC money was used.

Pandora's Box is now WIDE OPEN....we've seen the evil that was released upon us; now it's up to us to "right the wrong" that's been perpetrated upon us by our elected officials and the corporations.

Visit the Stephen Colbert Super Pac

Bud Meyers at Twitter @BudMeyers99 - A 99er in Las Vegas

My new Twitter account is here

In May of last year I opened a Twitter account at http://twitter.com/#!/BudMeyers but I no longer have access to the email I used so as to retrieve the password and log in to change the email and password (Catch-22). I contacted Twitter support but I only received an auto-generated email telling me to contact my service provider. But I was the service provider, and my domain name had expired, and the email service is no longer in business.

So I opened a new account and any and all variations of the name Bud Meyers was taken without having to use any other combination of alpha-numeral characters. So I settled with this http://twitter.com/#!/blogsteratlarge (BlogsterAtLarge) yesterday. But I had a problem logging several times, and Twitter kept referring me to a "create an account" page. So after having this happening several times, I just decided to go ahead and open a new account, instead of just changing the user-name in the other account.

So I ended up with this http://twitter.com/#!/BudMeyers99 (BudMeyers99) and now I "follow" myself. Hey, I'm no rocket scientist...I'm just trying to figure this stuff out. But I thought, if a teenager can do this, then so can I.

And then I thought again...they can hack the White House website, and I wouldn't now the first thing about that. I just wished they still made 8-track tape players. I sure do miss the old days.

My research and writing has been put on hold for a while as I played with this, and made some fliers for the 99ers at the Occupy Wall Street protest.

While you're here, please sign our White House petition to extend UI benefits for the 99ers and all "exhaustees". http://tinyurl.com/99wall (Thanks)

If you get bored, or have something juicy to report, Tweet me, "follow me", or just ignore me. I'll keep doing what I'm doing regardless. Take care, and be very careful of those CEOs, the Republicans, and Fox News...they'll hurt you bad!!!

White House Petition and Flyer for 99ers

Click photo to enlarge and print.
http://tinyurl.com/99wall

If you are in New York City (Occupy Wall Street), we could sure use your help!

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke: "Long-Term Unemployment A 'National Crisis' "

Canada's Propaganda on Corporate Taxes

A man in Canada posted this and the video below*

"Corporations need more tax breaks...they tell us that same trash here in Canada all the time. China is not prosperous due to low corporate taxes. (In China it is 25%, when the actual effective tax rate in the U.S. is usually much lower, if they pay any at all. In Canada, it's also lower. On January 1, 2011 the corporate income tax rate fell to 16.5% from 18% of 2010.)

If you will work for 1 or 2 dollars a day in deplorable conditions with no rights or benefits, then maybe you too can have a job. Employees at resorts in Mexico work 6 days a week, starting around 9am and going until midnight, with very few breaks in-between, for approximately 10 dollars a day. (It's much worse in China.)

I am tired of hearing from governments and business leaders saying that if the tax rate for corporations were reduced - it will be like a magic formula for job creation. That just isn't so. Taxes are just one element, there is labor (and related costs such as benefits, pensions etc.), local and federal regulations from zoning to environmental and reclamation costs, and even government subsidies hidden to circumvent trade agreements. It's only in a self-serving way, do corporations want tax breaks."

* It's not much of a video, but it's still worth a listen to, to see how Canadians are also being lied to the same way as we Americans are being fed the same corporate propaganda.

So it's NOT that corporate taxes are too high, it's fair wages they don't want to pay.

Also, have you ever watched the show American Greed on CNBC? Corporate CEOs are almost always the "bad guys". Just look at what's happening now with Solyndra. How much did they pay in corporate taxes? And they just laid off 1,100 workers! This is happening all the time...where white-collar crime is running rampant in this country (and most probably in Canada too).

And the Republicans call all these thieves "job creators".

If every American (and Canadian) CEO in a large multi-national corporation just lopped off a measly $1 million from their HUGE multi-million-dollar annual salaries, couldn't their company then afford to pay "living wages" and the premium for a group health-care policy for all their domestic employees?

Or would that just encourage more corporations to send more jobs overseas, just so they could put more cash in their own deep pockets? Yeah, I know...stupid question.

I like Ali Velshi...because at least he's made a few favorable mentions of these corporation's sworn enemies...the long-term unemployed 99ers. Please sign their official White House petition to extend unemployment benefits. Thanks. See my related post: Corporate Exceptionalism

The Elizabeth Warren Quote Every American Needs To See

Why Do Rich Republicans Always Whine?

They do! It's almost as though they were all suffering horribly! They're like big cry babies! They're like sniveling rich spoiled brats, the privileged ones, who always feel entitled!

When we ask our Congress to end oil entitlements subsidies, they whine, "You can't take away our oil subsidies, that's un-American!" When we ask large profitable corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, they whine, "You can't tax us, we're the job creators!" When we ask Fox News millionaires like Bill O'Reilly for a little more, they whine, "If you raise my taxes, I'll have to quit my job!" When we ask that the Bush tax cuts be allowed to expire so we can balance the national budget, they whine, "That's class warfare!"

It's no wonder the Republican ex-Senator Phil Gramm from Texas once called us "a nation of whiners". Maybe he's right. Every time I hear these rich Republicans bitch and moan and groan and whine, I always feel obligated to post a "counter-whine" in my blog.

Or...

Maybe it's not really the poor "left-wing liberals" who are the victims, but it's really the wealthy Republican presidential candidates who are the true victims.

Since the Bush tax cuts 10 years ago, how many jobs did corporations send overseas? How many jobs did these rich people create? And how much cash did they hoard away in off-shore bank accounts? (52,000 U.S. citizens had secret Swiss accounts at banking giant UBS, violating American tax laws.)

Since the Bush tax cuts 10 years ago, how many more jobs did movie stars, pro athletes, Rock stars, Hollywood celebrities, best-selling novelists, hedge fund managers, talk radio show hosts, Fox News commentators, pampered heirs and heiresses, organized crimes bosses, the thieves at Goldman Sachs, rich Republican members of Congress, and homicidal drug dealers create -- just BECAUSE of the Bush tax cuts?

Since 2008, how many more jobs did the banks slash? How many more jobs did corporations send overseas? How many more construction jobs were lost since the collapse of the housing industry?

Does taxing these supposed "job creators" really cause unemployment? It seems more like by NOT taxing them has caused 30 million people to lose jobs since the Bush tax cuts from 2001 to the present.

Bill O'Reilly bought a $3 million beachfront mansion BEFORE the Bush tax cuts, but says he might have to quit his job if we allow his current tax breaks to expire next year. In 2008 he told Obama he'd be willing to have his capital gains tax rate go back to the "Pre-Bush Tax Cut Era", but only because he feared that Obama might raise them even higher. Now he's whining if Obama only allows the Bust tax cuts to expire without actually raising them at all! (Flip-flop, flip-flop!)

SINCE the Bush tax cuts, how many more jobs did rich Republican and Tea Party millionaires like Bill O'Reilly, Paul Ryan, Sean Hannity, Eric Cantor, Glenn Beck, Rick Santorum, Rupert Murdoch, the Koch bothers, Michele Bachmann, Paul Rand, Nikki Haley, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, and Mitt Romney create? (If I've omitted your name, please forgive me...there's just too many to list in my little blog.)

And why are they all whining? That's odd...those are all the very same people that say we need MORE tax cuts to create jobs! Go figure.

That's very odd...because most of these people also have corporations too, and they all want lower corporate taxes as well! What an uncanny coincidence! Who would have thought?! Un-frigging-believable!

But at the same time, they also want to deny Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, welfare, healthcare, and food stamps to old, poor, and sick people. Why is that? They have millions of dollars in their bank accounts, so how will paying a measly 3% more in federal income taxes (or raising their capital gains taxes back to 20% from 15%) harm any of them? Will they have to worry about paying for rent, electricity, and food like the rest of do?

How will paying the unemployed 99ers extended jobless benefits affect the wealthy Republican candidates' privileged and luxurious way of life? How much less would the bottom line be for a millionaire if the government allowed the 99ers food stamps to eat? Would those Republican millionaires have to drastically cut back in their own personal household budgets to accommodate the less fortunate in this country? If so, by how much? 1¢?

Or is it that "enough" can never be enough for people like that? Hmmmmm...let me think about that for a second... NOPE! I think greed begets greed. And that greed is much more addictive than unemployment benefits! (sarcasm). "Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become." - Arthur Schopenhauer

Wasn't it poor people who elected these rich politicians into public office, giving them HUGE government salaries, government healthcare, generous allowances, and government pensions? Who's REALLY on the government tit?

Wasn't it poor people who made rich people rich, who watched their movies, went to their ball games, bought their books, went to their concerts, watched their TV shows, and bought all their widgets and trinkets, that made them all so rich to begin with? The American public gave them all fame, power, and wealth...now they want all the credit for themselves, and they don't even want to share a little in the form of better infrastructure for the country or food stamps for the poor. A pity. A shame. A real national shame.

Does anyone remember a single one of these rich Republican millionaires making any of these promises while they were campaigning last year?

"Elect me and I promise to..."

• shut down our government.
• "reform" your Social Security.
• replace your Medicare with a voucher.
• outlaw abortions.
• eliminate collective bargaining.
• vote "NO" on any and all jobs bills.
• never raise taxes on the richest people.
• give large profitable corporations more tax breaks.
• cut your teachers, firefighters, and police.
• cut jobless benefits if you're laid off.
• cut food stamps if you're laid off.
• cur Medicaid if you're laid off.
• de-regulate the banks that foreclosed on you.
• repeal ObamaCare™ (Medicare for all)

OK, maybe those rich Republican congress-people made ONE of those promises. But when they promised to "cut spending", I thought they meant "wasteful" government spending...such as $400 hammers, $500 toilet seats, or $16 muffins. Or maybe oil and tobacco subsidies (and other corporate welfare). Or one less war or aircraft carrier. Or maybe even congressional salaries and their other expensive perks. I didn't think they wanted to cut stuff that regular working folks might need. After all, with all the bailouts and lost jobs, I figured they'd already done their fair share of sacrificing.

Did all those rich Republican candidates REALLY make all those campaign promises? The reason I ask is, every time I see one of the aforementioned above on Fox News, they keep telling me with a straight face: "That's what the American people want. That's what they voted for."

But did they? Did they really? I doubt it, but I guess we'll all see in the next round of elections.

I just wish those uber-rich Republicans would just stop whining and walk in a poor man's shoes for one day. I'd tell them to watch the Eddie Murphy movie Trading Places. In real life Eddie Murphy is worth about $75 million. I'm sure if he had to pay a little more in his taxes he wouldn't have to sell his mansion in Beverly Hills. He wouldn't have to take a second job. And unlike Bill O'Reilly, I doubt he'd quit his Hollywood gig either.

Eddie might not like it, but he wouldn't whine either...he'd be a good patriot, just like Warren Buffett, and take it like a man. I'd hate to think that Eddie would act like a greedy slob and a greasy wimp -- like Bill O'Reilly and the rest of his ilk with secret Swiss bank accounts. I'd like to think that Eddie Murphy has much more class than the rest of those other stingy creeps.

All those tears, cry me a river of tears, as you're crying all the way to the bank. But why won't you ever shed a tear for me?

Let's Compare: Who whines, and who doesn't. The richest Republican in Congress: ($300 million+) California Representative Darrell Issa was once a CEO and voted on continuing reduced tax rates of 15% and 5% on capital gains and dividends - and voted YES on making the Bush tax cuts permanent. (Whiner) The richest Democrat in Congress: Senator John Kerry (MA) is one of the most senior members of the Debt Super Committee and is seen as an advocate for raising taxes on the rich, echoing the Obama administration. Kerry and his wife Teresa's Heinz has at least a $1 billion net worth which was inherited from Teresa's previous husband, H. John Heinz when he died in 1991. Heinz® Tomato Ketchup is a "job creator". (non-Whiner) John Kerry's Enigma: The CEO of Heinz is a fiscal conservative who had donated to Republican political committees last year. He said he will not be hiring any Americans this year. The reason he gave was echoing Republican Speaker John Boehner's excuse of "uncertainty" that was produced by the "inability" of the government to decide on really important things, such as the tax rate his business will have pay. (I would just tax him higher, and then he'll know for "certain" what he'll have to pay in taxes.) (The usual Whiner)

Here's who the Republican presidential candidates represent, not you...and certainly not me!

Bill O'Reilly is just an Uber-Rich Con Artist

* Editor's Note: The article begins after these updated links:

UPDATE (October 12, 2015)

"Garbage, Total B.S." -- Reagan aides and biographers blast Chronic Fabricator Bill O'Reilly over his new book. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/10/09/garbage-total-bs-reagan-aides-and-biographers-b/206068

Killing Media Matters: Bill O’Reilly throws tantrum after his ‘BS’ book is exposed.
http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=29844

UPDATE (May 2015)

"Bill O'Reilly doesn't think the Rich are Rich Enough" (With a comment about Bruce Bartlett's new report on Fox News)
http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2015/05/multi-millionaire-bill-oreilly-thinks.html

Watch David Corn Discuss Threats From Bill O'Reilly With Rachel Maddow—Thu Feb. 26, 2015
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/watch-david-corn-discuss-threats-bill-oreilly-rachel-maddow 

CBS Has Released the Falklands Protest Footage Bill O'Reilly Asked For. It Doesn't Support His Claims: The Fox News host says he was in a "war zone" where police gunned down civilians. The video doesn't show that.—By David Corn and Daniel Schulman Mon Feb. 23, 2015
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/cbs-releases-falklands-protest-footage-bill-oreilly 

These Are the Questions Bill O'Reilly Won't Answer: Why won't the Fox News host address the evidence he mischaracterized his wartime reporting experience?—By David Corn Fri Feb. 20, 2015 
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/questions-bill-oreilly-falklands-david-corn 

Bill O'Reilly Has His Own Brian Williams Problem: The Fox News host has said he was in a "war zone" that apparently no American correspondent reached.—By David Corn and Daniel Schulman Thu Feb. 19, 2015
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/bill-oreilly-brian-williams-falklands-war

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I wonder if Bill O'Reilly is a vain man. Does he have someone on his staff Google his name every day, just to see what other people might be saying about him? If so, then I suppose he's also aware of another post I did about him - and he also knows about the book I published about his employer and the thugs he affiliates with. And besides this post, I'm sure O'Reilly has also heard about Jon Stewart's latest diatribe.

Jon Stewart recently mocked Bill O'Reilly (and rightly so) in this very funny video posted at the Huffington Post, for his now-infamous threat to quit his show (The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News which is owned by News Corp) if Obama were ever to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires.

I don't know why good ole Bill (the guy that's just "lookin' out for you") is always whining like a stuck pig when it comes to taxing billionaires....when I would only like to tax Bill O'Reilly the same as me, someone whose only income last year was from 6 months of unemployment benefits. Wouldn't that be "fair and balanced"? Or would that be considered "class warfare"? Tax HIM at the same effective tax rate as ME for federal income taxes - whether it be 10%, 25%, or even 50% of all our TOTAL personal annual income. Just tax us the same percent. Is that too much to ask from good ole Bill?

If 20% of the whole population has 80% of all the wealth, then it only stands to reason that they should also be paying 80% of all the taxes. It only makes sense.

Bill O'Reilly has been constantly complaining that the "Liberal Left" is waging "class warfare" by asking our government to raise taxes - just a little more - on JUST the uber-rich. But in reality, it's the majority of everyone on both sides of the political isle that wants to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires; so that they're all paying AT LEAST the same effective tax rate as everybody else. Wouldn't that be "fair and balanced"? Or would that be considered "class warfare"?

And Bill O'Reilly wouldn't be alone. We'd be taxing other wealthy people too, such as: Paul Ryan, Sean Hannity, Eric Cantor, Glenn Beck, Rick Santorum, Rupert Murdoch, the Koch bothers, Michele Bachmann, Paul Rand, Nikki Haley, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, and all the rest of those greedy and hypocritical liars. (That's odd. All the same people who are condemning raising taxes on millionaires!)

Bill O'Reilly, being a multi-millionaire himself (with a net worth of $50 million) is nothing more than a fox at Fox News in the hen house. Of course Bill O'Reilly doesn't want to see HIS taxes go higher (as if he already doesn't have too much.)

Who's lookin' out for you? Is it a nice, friendly, pleasant, and kindly old man who could be your uncle - and who has no personal ulterior motives at all? Or is he nothing more than a greedy, jealous, and petty rich bully, and a perverted sexual predator, who defends the rich at the expense of the poor - and lies to the general public to keep from paying his own fair share of taxes, and all at the expense of our national debt and budget shortfalls? I think the latter.

Isn't Bill O'Reilly really just a big mouth who always talks over other people and bullies his guests (except for Jon Stewart), and always slants his opinions to deceitfully mislead the general public based on his own selfish and ideological views? Does he really "report", or just blather and pontificate like an egoistical fool?

I report, you decide. Bud Meyers, Blogster-at-Large, discusses "Fair and Balanced".

Now let's go back 15 years....

Bill O'Reilly was hired by Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of the then startup Fox News Channel, to anchor The O'Reilly Report in October, 1996. (The show was later renamed The O'Reilly Factor).

Less than a month later that same year Bill O'Reilly married the much younger Maureen E. McPhilmy, a public relations (PR) executive, on November 2, 1996.

Bill O'Reilly and his young wife had met four years earlier and their wedding took place in St. Brigid Parish of Westbury. Two years later they had a daughter, Madeline (born 1998) -  and then later a son, Spencer (born 2003). Bill O'Reilly currently resides ALONE in his suburban Manhasset, New York* mansion (more on this below).

* Manhasset is a hamlet and neighborhood in Nassau County, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island (As of ten years ago the population was only 8,362). In 2005, a Wall Street Journal article ranked Manhasset as the best town for raising a family in the New York metropolitan area. The Manhasset neighborhood is served by the Long Island Rail Road, which provides a direct and convenient access to Fox News (News Corp) in mid-town Manhattan in New York City.

A year after Bill O'Reilly's son Spencer was born, a woman named Andrea Mackris (33), who was a former producer for The O'Reilly Factor, sued O'Reilly (then 55) for sexual harassment on October 13, 2004, seeking $60 million in damages. In her lawsuit with the Supreme Court of the State of New York, she produced quotations from alleged explicit phone conversations between herself and O’Reilly in which he "advised her to use a vibrator and told her about sexual fantasies involving her". According to several published reports, as part of the settlement O'Reilly likely paid Mackris millions of dollars, but the terms of the agreement are confidential. Bill O'Reilly settled the sexual harassment lawsuit without taking personal responsibility for his actions an apology.

The following year in 2005 O'Reilly began to periodically denounce George Tiller, a Kansas-based physician who performed abortions, referring to him as "Tiller the baby killer". Later Tiller was murdered on May 31, 2009 by an anti-abortion activist.

Some media watchdog organizations such as Media Matters and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have criticized O'Reilly's reporting on a variety of issues, accusing him of distorting facts and using misleading or erroneous statistics.

Using analysis techniques developed in the 1930s by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, a study concluded that O'Reilly used propaganda, frequently engaged in name calling, and consistently cast non-Americans as threats.

O'Reilly has long said that he does not identify with any political party, but on December 6, 2000, The Daily News in New York reported that he had been registered as a Republican in the state of New York since 1994.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, O'Reilly accused the United Way of America and American Red Cross of failing to deliver millions of dollars in donated money to the families of those killed in the attacks. Actor George Clooney accused O'Reilly of misstating facts and harming the relief effort by inciting "panic" among potential donors.

In 2007 "Bill O'Reilly threatened on national radio to come to my house and 'surprise me' ."

In 2008 amidst reports of a scuffle breaking out, in this video Bill O'Reilly tells Fox News Brian Wilson what happened at a Barack Obama rally: "I had to gently remove someone from blocking our camera shot...I might have called him an SOB [son-of-a-bitch]...no one on this Earth is going to block a shot on the O'Reilly Factor!"

On October 14, 2010 on The View O'Reilly said: "Muslims killed us on 9/11."

That same year in 2010 Bill O'Reilly's wife Maureen McPhilmy purchased a new house, just down the street from the Long Island home she'd once shared with "Bill-O" since 2002.

O'Reilly still owns the old one (pictured below). And Fox News isn't saying whether they still live together. "Maureen O'Reilly" bought a five bedroom, 5,282 square foot home in Manhasset, NY, in May of last year for $2.5 million. The new house is less than half a mile from the waterfront Manhasset mansion she and O'Reilly have lived in with their kids for nearly a decade. She's listed, under her maiden name ("Maureen McPhilmy") as its sole owner. Bill O'Reilly, on the other hand, continues to be listed as the sole owner of the old place.

Bill's "old" place (He's just one of your "regular folks".)

Bill O'Reilly purchased this 5-bedroom, 4,631 sq ft estate BEFORE the Bush tax cuts in 2000 for exactly $3 million (according to public records). So AFTER the proposed Obama tax hikes in 2011, will poor Bill O'Reilly then be forced to sell his cozy little house?

As of this post Roger Ailes of Fox News is now saying Bill O'Reilly "hates" Sean Hannity because he's jealous of his radio success (and thus confirming years of rumors about the animosity between the two). Like "penis envy", one millionaire envying another millionaire....while 21 million Americans are jobless, as 10 million might be without unemployment benefits 4 months from today, as 45 million Americans depend on food stamps to survive, and 15% of the nation is now living in poverty.

But Bill O'Reilly cries like a baby if his taxes go up just a little bit. And he wants all his viewers to feel sympathy for him. He wants everyone to think that "the left" and Obama and 80% of the nation wants to unfairly "redistribute" his wealth. Poor, poor, Bill O'Reilly! And he's one of those who wants to "reform" Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps. Is he evil or what?

Can you trust Bill O'Reilly's criticism of taxing millionaires when HE HIMSELF is an uber-rich multi-millionaire?

Besides his radio show (and his gig at Fox News which pays him $10 million a year) Bill O'Reilly has authored ten books, and is making a ton on book royalties, which should be reported to the IRS on a Schedule C form, and is subject the self-employment tax rate of 15.3% (minus a ton of deductions).

Hey Bill...are you really lookin' out for me, or just for yourself?

How Fox News wants to promote job growth.

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More reading:

Jon Stewart Mocks 'Helpless' Millionaires Who Say Obama Starting Class Warfare (VIDEO)

Bill O'Reilly Strikes Back At Jon Stewart (VIDEO)

Fire Bill O'Reilly (A blog devoted to him)

My Posts:

Bill O'Reilly Fears "Left Wing Loons" Rioting in America

History of Class War, Positive Sum Game, No Class Tax Plan

GOP Candidates - Millionaires Representing Millionaires

Republicans and Millionaires - Class Warfare and Greed

Obama: Taxing ONLY the Millionaires and Billionaires

Simple Tax Reform - Tax Millionaires Like Everybody Else

When the Going Gets Tough, the Rich Get Going

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Corporate Exceptionalism

I would like to form a corporation called Political Elections Inc., apply for a $1 trillion government subsidy, list my company's stock on the NYSE, elect myself as the CEO, pay myself $1 billion a year in company stock, hire a secretary to do all my work for $1 an hour, and buy a "company" jet and limo.

I would also like to start a super-PAC and donate $1 billion to the political party of my choice, which will grant me unlimited access to the White House -- which will enable me to suggest Supreme Court nominations to the sitting President. He can't say "no" to me, I just gave his party $1 billion! I got him elected! He doesn't answer to the voters, he answers to me! I own his damn ass!!!

I would like to influence the media, the courts, the laws, the politics, and the elections of the land...hence my company name, Political Elections Inc. -- I'd like to control law enforcement, the intelligence community, and the entire military defense industry -- essentially, I'd like to rule the entire country. If you rule America, you could rule the whole world!!! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

I would also like to pay no corporate taxes, pay no capital gains taxes on my $1 billion company salary as CEO, and expect everybody else earning less than $20,000-a-year to fund safe bridges and highways, clean water, safe lobsters and Champagne, safe products on the shelves, safe limousines on the roads, better Ivy League schools, scientific research so I can live longer, space exploration, dams, power grids, safe medicines (so I can live longer), technologically advanced armies to increase and protect my wealth, and a border patrol to close my the borders. I want to benefit from all these things in some way, but I don't want to pay anything for any of them.

I also don't want to pay for Social Security or Medicare for old and sick people either, those who can no longer make profits for corporations. And when I lay off my secretary to save money, I don't want to pay her unemployment benefits either, or pay for food stamps to feed her little kids. I certainly don't want to pay for their healthcare! (Medicaid)

If anyone attempts to compete with me, I will either destroy them or buy them out -- and will hold a monopoly and corner the market on all goods and services -- holding the nation hostage to my extortion. If you don't pay, I will kill the hostage.

I could have my own Army (by proxy of the U.S. government), and open up "emerging markets" for my corporation in lands far away from home, increasing my marketplace. I could make my corporation a huge "multi-national" conglomerate, and build factories in Third World countries and hire the local natives for pennies an hour, while not having to abide by any labor or environmental laws. I could pay foreign despots and other brutal dictators for the privilege of doing business in their low-tax salve-labor countries. The taxes I pay to these foreign countries might some day be used to build an army to kill American soldiers in other future wars for oil or other natural resources. Countries like China could build a better infrastructure than America.

And if I break any laws and get caught, I would not have to spend any time in jail, and just be fined $1 and get a soft slap on the wrist for my crimes - "You were a bad boy!" - even if many human beings had become disfigured, mutilated, suffered and died. I have "limited liability", and won't have to take any personal responsibility for any of my actions. My Supreme Court will always rule in my favor.

I would like to smugly sit in one of my many 25-bedroom beach-front mansions, or on one of my elegant and luxurious yachts, surrounded by a bevy of beautiful escorts 20 years younger than me, and command one of my media empires to berate those who hold up their pathetic home-made signs protesting my abuse greatness and our unfair disparity in wealth. I would label them all as "whiners", drug addicts, Socialists, and bums...who only want a hand-out. How dare they!

I'd also like to call my police force to silence and imprison them if they would ever dare rise up against me, or criticize me for just being a good, noble, and patriotic "job creator". I would squash them like bugs, because after all, that's all they are.

If I were ever called upon to testify in front of Congress, I could plead the Fifth Amendment, spit in their faces, and call them all fools. As the wealthy CEO of Political Elections Inc., I'm almost a god!

I can't wait for the day when I can finally drive them all underground, the masses of scum, when I will no longer be forced to share the air I breath with them, or even the sunlight.

And if anyone objects to my business model, my special privileges, or my constitutionally guaranteed rights, I could call them un-American. After I lay my secretary off, I can call her lazy too. Isn't this what our Founding Fathers would have wanted? Isn't this what corporate capitalism and American patriotism is all about? Isn't this what's called American corporate exceptionalism?

God bless me and Corporate America!

Occupy Wall Street (Last Update: Oct. 5, 2011)

Where's the Corporate Media? Where the hell is Alex Jones? Where is Ed Schultz? The 99ers while be there!

MSNBC Has Devoted "ZERO" Prime Time Segments To Occupy Wall Street

See the White House Petition and Flyer for 99ers at Occupy Wall Street

A woman was arrested for writing on the sidewalk and 4 men were arrested for wearing masks. What, no more hopscotch or Halloween parties?

People are being arrested for wearing rain caps and crossing the street! One woman was struck in the face. Bullhorns were outlawed. So far 60+ people were arrested from http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution who were reporting on the OCCUPY WALL STREET story.

Even one story on Alex Jones website about Yahoo censuring emails was put on the back burner, and on his show he conspicuously makes NO mention at all! The major news media is located in NYC but not one wants to cover the story in their own back yard!

Occupy Wall Street Protest Being Systematically Ignored by Mainstream Media

Fox News, besides bashing Obama, is talking about Palestine. MSNBC - Where's Ed Schultz? CNN - Hello? Anybody home?

That clown on Red Eye was at the Occupy Wall Street protest, acting up and interviewing people - and he made a total ass out of himself. (It was on Fox News last night.) He must have thought he was cute and funny, but looked like a total fool - an idiot - a moron.

In the upcoming October event, I suggest that someone familiar with all the faces on Fox News (like myself) should be at the event with a bullhorn to alert nearby people that the enemy is in the camp (Fox News ambushes people with cameras and mikes, catching them off guard to make them look foolish).

Leaders of the event should pass out a short list of talking points to be memorized, so that if the media asks a question, just ignore the question entirely and launch into the talking points - I learned that strategy from politicians.

A guest on Red Eye said of the protesters at Wall Street: "They're ignorant. They know they were ripped up, but they just don't know who or how." (They also said that all one could smell at the NYC protest was pot, B.O., and urine.) Maybe that idiot never went camping before. Pot? That Fox News guest probably did a line of coke before appearing on the show.

Occupy Wall Street: Photos and video footage

Occupy Wall Street: More video coverage

Corporate America and the government must be trying to crack down on OCCUPY WALL STREET and silence them! Is this no longer America, when hundreds of thousands could once protest the Vietnam War? How long before the National Guard is brought out (like in Ohio) and they start killing people? Is the government preparing for massive social unrest, and why the "SEVEN GOVERNOR SECTIONS are now being prepared as FEMA camps, for mass incarcerations?

Occupy Wall Street Day 8: 60 + Arrested and Pepper Spray Used.

99 Percenters Occupy Wall Street

Troy Davis Protesters occupy Wall Street

Anonymous Occupation Of Wall Street - Here Is What You Missed

Although CNN had an OLD article

New York Times was critical - Yvonne says," This was not a terribly organized event. And the comparison of the massive Wisconsin demonstration to another NYC rally (in the story) was comparing apples to oranges. If massive layoffs of teachers, firefighters and cops were suggested, by a corrupt Governor (who also raided their state's surplus and turned it into a deficit), the same might occur. I'm wondering how the October event in DC will turn out. It's possible we are still a year away from real rage in the US (meaning not enough people are motivated enough to get out of their complacent and comfortable skins)."

Where's the major media, and the "anti-government" voices like Alex Jones? Was he silenced by the government too?

The bankers ripped off the nation, but law enforcement, our government, and the major corporate media is protecting them? Why? Because they have all our money?

History of Class War, Positive Sum Game, No Class Tax Plan

In the context of a "positive sum game" as it relates to economics (where one privileged group of people has acquired 80% of a nation's wealth), then by all rights, shouldn't that group also pay 80% of all tax revenues...no matter what the actual tax rate might be?  The No Class Tax Plan proposes the same tax rate on everyone. Maybe the rich (and those at Fox News) can finally stop their constant whining about "class war", and have more time to count their money. And maybe the rest of us will also have an equal opportunity to grab the brass ring and have a chance to live the American Dream too.

History of Class War

One aspect of our current re-ignited American Civil War is getting a lot of air-play. It is so-called “class war.”

That's the tag-line ordered up by Roger Ailes of Fox News. The notion: that any talk of returning to 1990s tax rates - way back when the U.S. was healthy. wealthy, vibrantly entrepreneurial and world-competitive, generating millionaires at the fastest pace in human history - is somehow akin to Robespierre chopping heads in the French Revolution's reign of terror.

But in fact, "class war" has always been with us. If you ever actually sit down to read what people wrote in times past - for example Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations, or even The Holy Bible - then you know struggle and resentment between social castes was the normal state of human affairs for 6000 years, or much longer.

In fact, today's American perspective that there is no-such-thing as class - so blithely exploited by Fox News - seems rather quirky and charmingly innocent. Baby Boomers, especially, were raised under unusual circumstances -- perhaps the only stretch of time in which a great nation experienced a (fairly) flat social order.

Revolution in France

All the shouts about "class war" bring to mind images of rabid Jacobin mobs in 1793 hauling brave nobles and gentlemen to the guillotine. But if Rupert Murdoch & Co. really wants us pondering that image, we owe it to ourselves to leaf back just a few pages in history to 1789, when the French Revolution began as a much more moderate thing, inspired by events across the ocean, in America.

France was broke. Louis XVI and his ministers were incompetents who deliberately squelched commerce with internal tariffs and policies that crushed innovation. The church owned much of the productive land, tax-free. So did the feudal aristocracy. Top merchants and corporations managed to wrangle exemptions too. After years of quagmire wars, poor tax revenue, bank collapses and mismanagement, Louis needed more money to stave off bankruptcy and save the country. So he summoned the Estates General.

That was the rough French equivalent of the British Parliament, but with much less authority. In fact, it had last met in 1614. But Louis was desperate. What he needed was for the first and second "estates" -- the clergy and nobles -- to vote themselves a temporary levy and join the third estate (the people) in paying their fair share.

That's how it all started. The country's leader asking oligarchs and aristocrats to pay the same rates as common folk, for a while, especially since they already owned damn near everything. The answer given by the dukes and bishops and marquises? "Heck no! We're the ones keeping it all together. The managers and investors and owners and job-makers. The government can damn well keep its mitts out of our pockets. It's our money, not the State's!"

We know what happened afterward.

"Class war" has a whole lot more to it than they are telling you with their blithe, two-word nostrums over at Fox News. As Warren Buffett said: "My side - the rich - have been winning class war for some time, and it won't end well."

Across the sea in America

After our own Revolution a different experiment was being tried. The aristocracy over here -- like Washington and Jefferson -- certainly enjoyed being rich, and wanted opportunities to stay that way! But they also knew the frontier virtue satiability -- the notion that getting rich is great! Economic success can both entice and propel innovation, hard work, enterprise, competitive creativity and philanthropy. But that (as Adam Smith proclaimed in the miracle year 1776) there comes a point where enough is enough... and sometimes even too much.

The founders started by banning primogeniture, so no family fortune could sit and accumulate, undivided, as a lordly demesne at the pyramid's peak. Instead, they would get divided among the large numbers of children that folks had then -- an intentional act of "social engineering" and outright "leveling" -- and don't you for a moment think otherwise! They also seized the assets of the Tory lords and even neutral absentees and distributed them to the masses. And they made homesteading easy, with laws that favored Yeoman citizens.

"I would rather leave my son a curse than the almighty dollar," says Andrew Carnegie, who was the Warren Buffett of his day. Even a jerk like Henry Ford realized the essence -- that he benefited from a rising middle class that could afford to buy his cars (so he raised the minimum daily pay from $2.34 to $5 for his employees). And our agile nation came up with moderate solutions like anti-trust laws and progressive tax rates, that staunched class war without ruining capitalist enterprise. That kept the goose alive, to keep laying golden eggs.

It is the context of the positive sum game - the notion that we can get all the benefits of an enterprise-market system -- using the allure of wealth to reward innovators and vigorous competition -- while somehow preventing the toxic side effect of wealth... the poison called oligarchy. The same poison that ruined markets and freedom in every culture other than ours, in every other era than ours.

Wake Up Call

Is history really so boring to you that you find it completely irrelevant? So much so that you'll ignore the patterns of 6,000 years? If so, FDR sure did make a different world for Baby Boomers to ignorantly take for granted.

But the Gen-Xers and Gen-Ys and Millennials won't. They are waking up!

So don't fret, Boomers. Your children will rescue America. Not with violent class war, but with the kind of tweaking we saw from Washington and Lincoln and Carnegie and Teddy Roosevelt and FDR. (Three of them Republicans.) The kind that [levels the playing field] while continuing the miracle of competitive markets and freedom.

* This post was excerpted from the full article called Class War and the Lessons of History by David Brin

The No Class Tax Plan

With the No Class Tax Plan, Exxon-Mobil, who recently reported $45.2 billion in profits (the highest in U.S. history) would have had to pay an EFFECTIVE tax of 25% (the exact same tax rate as Sally's Lemonade Stand, who might have only earned $5.00). Instead, Exxon-Mobil paid ZERO in corporate income taxes (and Sally's was closed for not having the proper business license).

Johnny Depp grossed $100 million for starring in Alice in Wonderland and Charlie Sheen may get a $100 million settlement from Warner Brothers....and would have to pay 10% in personal income taxes (the same exact tax rate as those who only earned a combined TOTAL HOUSEHOLD INCOME of $43,000...the national average.)

You, me, the hedge fund managers, the bankers, members of Congress, the CEOs, and all the Fox News commentators would all pay the same exact EFFECTIVE tax rate...no more "class war".

Naturally, the Congressional Budget Office might have to tweak the actual percentages to ensure we receive enough revenues to cover actual allocations, but you get the drift. I personally, if I were earning $33,000 a year, and over the course of a year had to pay an additional $100 in taxes, I wouldn't mind at all -- so long as all the former tax dodgers were also paying their fair share....NO MORE CLASS WARFARE (at least, not in regards to the tax system). Corporations will still bust unions to pay sub-standard wages, and will still send jobs overseas for cheaper labor.

IMPORTANT TALKING POINT!

The CEOs of corporations claim that just because the company they work for has already paid a corporate tax (maybe), their wages that are paid as stock options (but not their base salaries) should not be taxed as personal income (or as capital gains) because their company has already paid a tax.

So then, if I took my weekly paycheck of $500 (after taxes were already deducted), then put it in a saving account or an IRA account and earned interest (or bought stocks from an online trader and earned dividends, or if the value of the stock went higher and I sold it), then shouldn't I also be exempted from paying any further tax, since I was already taxed in my paycheck?

"The rich (and the GOP) has more excuses than Carter has liver pills!"

The "No Class Tax" Plan Income Tax - 10% on ANY and ALL personal GROSS income from 0$ to $100 billion. Why can't poor people and rich people pay the exact same effective tax rate on their personal income. No deductions, tax credits, deferments, depreciations, or any other loopholes. All personal taxes are taxes at the same exact rate. All the different taxes would be eliminated, no matter if income came from capital gains, interest, dividends, annuities, or royalties. They would ALL be income taxes, taxed at same exact effective tax rate as any other tax or income. (Wages, salaries, tips, bonuses, stock options, commissions, gifts, pennies found on the street, etc.) EVERYTHING taxed the same. Businesses and Corporate Tax - 25% on ANY and ALL business's whose GROSS income is from 0$ to $100 trillion. Why can't small businesses and big businesses also pay the exact same effective tax rate on their business income. No deductions, tax credits, deferments, depreciations, or any other loopholes. All business taxes will tax at the same exact rate. No taxpayer subsidies AT ALL! All and ANY business income is taxed at same exact effective tax rate as any other business is taxed (From Sally's lemonade stand to Exxon-Mobil Inc.) Inheritance Tax - 10% from $250,000 up to 5 million dollars, 25% on ALL thereafter. (Below $250,000 pays no tax at all - or whatever the median price of a house is at the time. And then taxed at 10% thereafter if it applies.) Poverty Tax - Those earning less than $20,000 a year (whether single, married, or have children) would not be required to pay any federal income taxes at all on their first $15,000 (Why tax those on fixed incomes who are poor if their only income is unemployment benefits, welfare, or Social Security?) No National or Consumption Tax at all...period! (It's a secret tax on the poor).

* The No Class Tax Plan was conceived and designed by Bud Meyers, Blogger-At-Large

Solyndra Bosses Plead the 5th - Guilty of Greed

Not that I'm all surprised that in the middle of the Great Recession, while we're having debates about the national debt, budget shortfalls, and taxes, that corporate executives in expensive suits and high-priced attorneys would be ripping us off. These guys would have looked at me at the country club like I was scum..

Bust them down to food stamps like me, then send them to prison and let Bubba have at them....they deserve no less. I tried and convicted them already. I would lead the firing squad.

Solyndra Inc. CEO Brian Harrison and the company's chief financial officer, Bill Stover, both invoked their Fifth Amendment right to decline to testify to avoid self-incrimination. Lawmakers from both parties said they were disappointed, but said that silence from the two executives would not stop them from pursuing their investigation into a $528 million loan Solyndra Inc. received from the Energy Department in 2009.

Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison, second from left, talks with the attorney Walter Brown, left, as Chief Financial Officer Bill Stover, second from right, talks to his attorney Jan Nielsen Little, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 23 2011, prior to testifying before the House Oversight and Investigations subcommittee. (Susan Walsh/AP Photo) That thug on the left almost looks like Bubba!

It was good drama on CSPAN today.

"Let me just warn you and the other folks involved in this taxpayer rip-off," Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) told the Solyndra executives. "We're not done. No we're not."

I would add, "Hang'em from the nearest tree!"

When the Going Gets Tough, the Rich Get Going

"Once upon a time a CEO would have fired me for being 15 minutes late for work; but this CEO loses $2.3 billion and won't even resign. And if he ever was fired, he'd walk away with a multi-million-dollar severance package, and he'd pay less in taxes than his former janitor. Welcome to America folks...home of the brave, land of the free. When the going gets tough, the rich get going."

New York Times: "The Federal Reserve is an independent body whose decisions do not have to be ratified by the president or Congress." Then who do they answer to? Does the Federal Reserve Bank (our central bank) rule over us and the politicians as well? That's why I say, "Nationalize the banking industry!"

American citizens who earn less than $30,000 a year have been constantly scolded by the Republicans that "we must take personal responsibility for our actions" when we lose our jobs and our homes. That it's our own fault for not planning better, saving more, and being more prepared. It's our fault for not reading and understanding the fine print written in legalese when signing an ARM loan from a bank. It's our fault for not being more skilled or more mobile when we're laid off after seeing our jobs outsourced to China for cheaper labor.

In 1999 Phil Gramm, a Republican Senator from Texas, who said we were a nation of whiners, introduced a bill to deregulated the banks. After he retired from the Senate 3 years later he went to work for UBS bank as a senior vice-president. A decade later we had the housing crisis and bank failures that the taxpayers had to bail out. Now the Republicans blocked Elizabeth Warren's nomination to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to end banking abuse. And the Republicans are trying to repeal the Frank-Dodd Act as well.

The Republicans must have been very happy with the way the banks have ruined our economy, but the GOP still calls them our "job creators", and doesn't want to regulate them at all! If anything, the GOP wants LESS regulation of the banks! (It's no wonder why I hate Republicans.)

Bank of America (a "job creator") will be laying off another 30,000 employees. Yahoo writes, Why Big Companies Are Axing Jobs: "They are still struggling with constrained profits, new regulations and a tough environment for making money."

Just what EXACTLY are the new regulations that big banks are struggling with to make money fairly, honestly, and legally? I always hear about these draconian regulations, but no one ever mentions EXACTLY what they are.

Add maybe Bank of America's stock fell, but you can bet you ass the CEO and board of directors still get paid. CEO Brian T. Moynihan was paid $10 million this year. After losing money, getting fined for illegal activities, and having a branch office foreclosed on, he didn't get fired, he was rewarded. It's the investors who always get screwed. If the bank's stock goes down, the board of directors just votes themselves another bonus (and pays very little in capital gains taxes too). Corporate governance doesn't exist in this country anymore. They're all thieves. That's why I started a petition to nationalize the banks.

Now recently, UBS Bank CEO Oswald Gruebel (boss of Republican Senator Phil Gramm I mentioned earlier) is under pressure after a rogue trader lost $2.3 billion of the Swiss banking giant's money, but the CEO refuses to resign. Once upon a time a CEO would have fired me for being 15 minutes late for work; but this CEO loses $2.3 billion and won't even resign. And if he ever was fired, he'd walk away with a multi-million-dollar severance package, and he'd pay less in taxes than his former janitor. Welcome to America folks...home of the brave, land of the free. When the going gets tough, the rich get going.

When the Bank of America over-charges us and unfairly forecloses on our homes, that's called "American capitalism". When we wanted to stop taxpayer-paid oil subsidies, the CEO of a major oil company said that was "un-American". When we're taxed to pay for those oil subsidies, that's "patriotic". When we ask to tax millionaires their fair share, that's called "class warfare". The UBS banker won't resign for losing $2.3 billion, but we're told to "take personal responsibility for our actions.

When we are fired from our jobs for the most petty of reasons, these CEOs make sure to deny us unemployment benefits, and we usually always have to fight them all the way through an appeal process. But when a CEO screws up really, really bad (and loses billions of dollars), he gets a pat on the back and a "severance package" worth millions of dollars. That's why CEOs hide behind limited liability clauses in their corporate charters. But we're told to "take personal responsibility for our actions." These are the people that Republicans represent. (It's no wonder why I hate Republicans.)

Oh-oh! Watch out! Stand aside and make room...here come the "job creators" again! > > > New York Times: Worry About a New Wave of Layoffs - "The last workers in the door are often the first out the door. That could make the Americans who have already depleted their support networks and unemployment benefits most vulnerable to layoffs."

The rich CEOs will lay you off from your job to get cheaper labor in China, but then they don't want to pay you unemployment benefits after laying you off, but instead accuse you of being lazy and gaming the system. Nor do they want to pay you for Social Security or Medicare when you get too old or sick to work for them either.

Rich CEOs feel no empathy for poor people like me, just other rich people...like Bill O'Reilly, Paul Ryan, Sean Hannity, Eric Cantor, Glenn Beck, Rick Santorum, Rupert Murdoch, the Koch bothers, Michele Bachmann, Paul Rand, Nikki Haley, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, and the rest of those greedy and hypocritical liars.

And the Republicans are at it again. I've been monitoring the enemy during their presidential debates. Most have proposed a "consumption tax" or a "national sale tax" as part of their "tax reform" packages. The less one earns, the greater percentage of their earnings will go to pay these taxes. It's just another ploy by the Republicans to tax the poor more.

And the Republicans also want to lower (or eliminate entirely) capital gains taxes...those are the taxes that the wealthy pay. How can we ever expect millionaires (Republican candidates) to tax themselves? Greedy POS!

And the Republicans want to "reform" Social Security too. Last year Rick Perry said Social Security was unconstitutional and a Ponzi scheme. But just recently in one presidential debate he said he wanted to reform Social Security. How does somebody "reform" an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme? They are all lying hypocrites. ( It's no wonder why I hate Republicans.)

"I never got a job from a poor person." I hear this all the time from those right-wing loons. But a rich person hasn't hired me in 3 years either. So one would think that a rich person (banker, CEO, hedge fund manger, Charlie Sheen, Paris Hilton, etc.) would be just as useless to me as a poor person. But it was a poor person who saved my life, when the rich people left me for dead. Only their tax revenues can help me now.

Rich people laid off 10 million Americans just since 2008. Rich people sent millions of jobs to China, a country that backed North Vietnam and North Korea in the killing of over 100,000 U.S. soldiers. Rich people busted labor unions to pay us sub-standard wages. Rich people haven't been "job creators" for Americans in the last 40 years, they've created jobs in China and India and elsewhere, just to increase CEO pay 100-fold. Rich people (3% of the population) have hoarded 80% of the wealth and resources of this country.

But I'm not mad at rich people...I only get angry when I see their greed flaunted in my face. Enough is never enough for them. And which political party defends the rich at the expense of the poor? Of the 10 poorest states in the country, most are solidly GOP states. Yet the word "poor" is seldom uttered by the Republican presidential candidates. (It's no wonder why I hate Republicans.)

I live in Las Vegas, a town that epitomizes wealth and excess...I see it all the time; it's all around me. I laugh at the egos of the casino bosses who (like those with penis envy) always have to build bigger and more expensive hotels to out-do their neighbor's. Now the largest of them (MGM) is literally billions of dollars in debt for the albatross called CityCenter and their stock is WAY DOWN; but yet the CEO is still paid $10 million for doing such a great job. (And Las Vegas has the lowest gaming tax in the whole world, but also the highest unemployment rate. Less taxes don't create jobs.)

Too much wealth can be a corrupt and addictive thing, and very dangerous too when the wrong people acquire it. Like power, money tends to corrupt, especially when it's used to subvert our election process.

Who's blaming Obama for being mad at the rich? I'm not. I've known about their ruthless and greedy thirst for wealth and power for the last 40 years. That's why young people are in NYC right now protesting > "OCCUPY WALL STREET". And that's why I say, "Nationalize the banking industry!"

* Support Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) in The Reciprocal Market Access Act
http://economyincrisis.org/solutions/hr1749

Muammar Gaddafi was a Republican

The small percentage of the population who are the wealthiest people in this country have a fiscal and moral responsibility to the people of the nation when they control 80% of the nation's financial assets. They are the caretakers of our country's resources, and it's their job to provide good-paying jobs and healthcare for the rest of us.

Corporate America has had an unholy alliance with China, a country that is responsible for killing over 100,000 of our soldiers in two wars. And even today they constantly launch cyber-attacks against us. But American corporations continue to send jobs to that country to increase their companies' profits for higher CEO pay. This and our corrupt banking system is what the Republicans support and stand for, they and the other richest people in this nation...the caretakers of our country's resources

For the last 40 years they have been failing miserably at their job, but we can't fire them if they're not elected officials. The only thing we can do is tax them to keep them from hoarding the nation's money supply, and to better circulate the country's wealth and resources amongst the population, so that we all can have a fair chance at the American Dream.

Some have said this is a form "socialism", and they say "spreading the wealth" is somehow evil, that it is "good" that only a few people get to keep most of the marbles and leave almost everybody else out of the game...that sharing is somehow a bad thing.

By what is any form of government if not sharing; we share the expenses for safe bridges and highways, clean water, safe food, safe working conditions, safe products on the shelves, safe cars on the roads, better schools, scientific research, space exploration, dams, power grids, safe medicines, shorter lines at the DMV, a strong defense, patrolled borders, national security, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment benefits for those who had their jobs sent to China by corporations (or indirectly as a result thereof), just so corporations could increase their CEO salaries one-hundredfold over their worker's wages.

If capitalism is only working for a small percentage of the nation, for people who don't want to share (either the expenses or the pain), then that economic system must be broken if the wealthiest among us are allowed to create such a huge gap in disparity between the rich and poor.

Maybe the old notion of capitalism is no longer working because we have corrupted public officials beholden to the the wealthiest among us. Maybe the word "socialism" is no longer such an evil word anymore, like we've been taught to believe by the powers that be in this country.

What usually happens in other countries when their nation's wealth is cornered by the very few? In the past we've always associated this unfair dispersion of a country's wealth with dictatorships and despots...not in free and democratic "democracies". When our elected officials stop listening to the will of THE PEOPLE, what type of a society are we left with? When there's a constant rise in unemployment and poverty, how can we say capitalism is working?

What defines the "good guys" from the "bad guys" in a society? Is it the number of people who draw a consensus, or is it the people who have the control and power that defines right and wrong for everybody else. "I have the army, so I make the laws, and I decide that I am right!"

We were once called "revolutionaries"...rebels (the "bad guys") when the King of England was their tyrant, for taxing Americans for the benefit of England, not for the original 13 colonies.

Why do our leaders define some people as "freedom fighters" (good guys) and others as "insurgents" (bad guys)? Why are some uprisings in the Middle-East and North Africa condoned and supported by our government, but others are not? Why didn't we go to the people of Iran's rescue when they demonstrated, but later decided that Libya was ok? We supported rebels in Egypt but not in Tunisian. Who and why in our government decides which rebels, revolutionaries, freedom-fighters, insurgents, rioters, protesters, and bad guys to defend?

Why not also in Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere? All these countries are ran by brutal dictators who oppresses and uses violence against their own people. American has condoned it for years for oil and other "strategic" reasons that were considered "in the best interests of our national Security".

Afghanistan was ok to war in because the Taliban provided safe haven to Bin Laden who bombed the World Trade Center; but why did we go to war in Iraq if they had no weapons of mass destruction? Later, when none were found, we called it a "humanitarian effort". Why not this same effort elsewhere like in Sri Lanka and the Congo? (no oil, just diamonds.)

We know what the powers that be can do to other people in other nations; and many here in America are just now starting to realize what they can do to their own people here as well. I was sacrificed "for the good of the nation" because the richest living here in America didn't want to pay any more in income taxes, even though they have more money than they know what to do with...yet they would let me starve to death or live homeless rather than fund food stamps, Social Security, or unemployment benefits for me - - - unless they weren't forced to by law, in the form of income taxes.

And now the rich are continuing their long-fought class war against us with strong opposition against a new proposed tax hike....and their media propagandists like Fox News has been very busy in their efforts.

First of all, why are tax laws so complicated? It's much easier to cheat an ignorant and uneducated person like myself, being a 55-year-old high school drop-out. So if we're not a tax attorney we have to pay someone to prepare our federal tax returns for us. That's why we need a more simplified tax code, so that everyone can understand it. Are all the tax laws deliberately written so that we can't understand them? And why can't we all just pay a certain percentage of all our total gross earnings (what we can put in our pocket)?

Because the rich don't want to.

I know what "tax reform" is...it's taxing the rich their fair share; at the same effective tax rate as we pay. But what exactly is "entitlement reform"? This is what the rich want for us. Does that mean paying old people less than they're already struggling to live on with Social Security? Or does it mean eliminating the fraud that's being perpetuated in Medicare by big corporate hospitals, HMOs, and insurance companies?

The Republicans say that businesses are still struggling with constrained profits, new regulations and a tough environment for making money. But just what EXACTLY are the new regulations that big businesses and big banks are struggling with to make money fairly, honestly, and legally? I always hear about these draconian regulations, but no one ever mentions EXACTLY what they are. The rich always complain about never having enough money, even though now they already have most of it.

The small percentage of the wealthiest people in this country have a fiscal and moral responsibility to the people of the nation when they control 80% of the nation's financial assets. But they don't give one damn about THE PEOPLE...they want ALL the damn marbles for themselves...they don't want to share a dime.

Muammar Gaddafi had all the marbles too, garnered from oil revenues; and he lived luxuriously in several mansions palaces while the rest of his people lived in poverty. He hoarded his nation's wealth, he didn't share, and he financially oppressed his people. Libyan citizens didn't have a voice; they couldn't tax Gaddafi for healthcare or other government services.

If a dictator (or if politicians representing only a small group of wealthy corporate plutocrats) controlled most of the wealth and a nation's army, does that make them "right"?

Or if a majority of polls in a true democracy showed that a majority of THE PEOPLE didn't want their jobs sent to China, wanted to earn a "living wage", wanted to tax millionaires their fair share, wanted government services, wanted to preserve Medicare and Social Security, wanted money out of politics, wanted a fair and honest banking system, wanted to end subsidies and corporate welfare for profitable corporations, and wanted their bidding done by their elected officials, would that make THE PEOPLE "right"?

And if we rise up in protest against the inequality in wealth distribution in our country (and the deaf ears of our elected officials), will the uber-rich have our U.S. Army suppress us, just to guard their excess money, and call us the "bad guys" - - - they way Gaddafi called his rebels the bad guys?

Or will our army come to our aid like they did in Libya when the rebels Libyan people were ousting their own greedy, brutal, and heartless dictator? After all, Muammar Gaddafi was not only an oil baron, but he doesn't seem much different than many of our own political leaders. He had all the money and controlled his army. He didn't abide by his people's wishes either. Couldn't he have just as easily been an uber-wealthy plutocratic Republican too?

My related posts:

Republicans and Millionaires - Class Warfare and Greed

Simple Tax Reform - Tax Millionaires Like Everybody Else