Billionaires Are A Malignant Cancer... Romneyhood

"Romneyhood" is easy to understand-- a kind of bizarro world Robin Hood, stealing from the poor to give to the rich. That's exactly what his economic agenda boils down to. It is, in essence what Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Miss McConnell, Eric Cantor, Mitt Romney and the rest of these thugs in expensive suits have been chirping about all year. Let's keep in mind that the 10 most profitable U.S. companies-- including Exxon Mobil, Apple, Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase and General Electric-- paid an average federal tax rate of just 9% last year. Yesterday the Huffington Post reported on a group of progressive academics-- the Scholars Strategy Network-- dissecting the Ryan budget in order to help shape the political discourse during the presidential campaign.

“We have a commitment to laying out the truth in a way that citizens can access and comprehend, including arcane ideas like taxes, budgets and health care reform,” said [co-founder Theda] Skocpol, a sociologist and political scientist at Harvard University. “But it's important for those issues to be clarified and for citizens to understand what's at stake.”

Yale University Professor Jacob Hacker, who serves on the SSN's steering committee, described the current push in support of the Ryan budget as a “big mobilization” that could be held up as an embodiment of conservative priorities. In this case, those priorities that the network of academics will highlight include across-the-board tax cuts, including steep ones for the wealthy, at the expense of investments in education, health care, job training, college loans and other domestic programs.

Hacker, a leading health care theorist known to many as the "godfather" of the public option, is convinced that if most Americans understand these details, it will change the debate in Washington.

“This time around, the Republicans are essentially using the deficit as the central organizing principle for their budget," Hacker said in an interview. "But what they are proposing are plans that every independent analyst says will increase the deficit."

The elimination of billionaires-- no guillotines (yet), just truly progressive tax policies going back to before JFK started the downward trend we have today-- should be an important policy goal for anyone who cares about democracy. Democracy is virtually impossible if there are billionaires in a society. That isn't how Romney or the GOP see it, of course. His whole tax plan is based on that reverse Robin Hood theory which would be such an incredible boon for the wealthy, but a tax hike for 95% of Americans.

The report by researchers at the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, examined Romney’s suggestion of an across-the-board 20% income tax cut financed by closing existing loopholes and concluded there was no way to make the numbers work without burdening the vast majority of Americans with higher taxes.

Romney has not said which tax breaks he would end to finance his plan, but he has suggested that he would only look to breaks that benefit the wealthy. The report concluded that notion is a fantasy no matter how it’s constructed: There simply are too many middle class tax breaks on the table to avoid skewing the burden against the average American.

“Even if tax expenditures are eliminated in a way designed to make the resulting tax system as progressive as possible, there would still be a shift in the tax burden of roughly $86 billion from those making over $200,000 to those making less than that amount,” the report reads.

That $86 billion should lend quite the boost to the luxury goods market: “Americans making over $1 million would see an increase in after-tax income of 4.1 percent (an $87,000 tax cut), those making between $500,000 and $1 million would see an increase of 3.2 percent (a $17,000 tax cut), and those making between $200,000 and $500,000 would see an increase of 0.8 percent (a $1,800 tax cut).”

As for the other 95% of Americans? Not so much. The average tax increase needed to pay for the elite’s gains would be $500 per household.

President Obama, who is speaking in Ohio on Wednesday, is planning to seize on the study.

“He’s not asking you to contribute more to pay down the deficit, or to invest in our kids’ education,” Obama is expected to say, according to prepared remarks released by the campaign. “He’s asking you to pay more so that people like him can get a tax cut.”

Nancy Pelosi, addressing a very specific problem related to these sociopaths, pointed out why the GOP is, in effect, the E. coli club.

“I say to [Republicans], do you have children that breathe air? Do you have grandchildren that drink water?,” Pelosi asked. “I’m a mom and I have five kids ... as a mom I was vigilant about food safety, right moms? If you could depend on the government for one thing it was that you had to be able to trust the water that our kids drank and the food that they ate. But this is the E. coli club. They do not want to spend money to do that.”

...“Bless their hearts, it’s the philosophy Republicans in Congress have,” Pelosi added. “And bless their hearts, they act upon their beliefs. It’s an ideology. We shouldn’t have a government role. So reduce the police, the firemen, the teachers, reduce their role and give tax cuts to the high end. That will stimulate the economy and everything will be good.”

E. Coli Conservatives Are Willing To Gamble With Our Children's Lives For The Sake Of Their Deranged Ideological Convictions

Long before the Republican Party adopted Ayn Rand as their newest ideological goddess, right wing sociopaths have been adamant that federal regulatory agencies were an outrageous interference with the "free market." (Remember, to a Republican "free market" goes beyond caveat emptor into the realm of the "freedom" of unscrupulous "businessmen" to rip off, even to the point of manslaughter, their customers .) They have always opposed all regulations on business. And they still do. In fact, they are busy trying to defund the agencies that regulate modern society, whether they be agencies that are supposed to protect us from predator banksters or agencies that make sure corporations aren't polluting the air and water or, ironically, the FDA, which is struggling to make sure the food we eat is safe. In Ayn Rand/Paul Ryan-world, a merchant whose products poisons a thousand people will sooner or later be driven out of business. Take that!

House Republicans are pushing back against a series of public health measures, including school lunch standards and tobacco regulation, teeing up a confrontation with Senate Democrats and the White House over the reach of government in daily life.

The Republicans have used an agriculture appropriations bill to send several messages: They don’t want the government to require school meals that are more nutritional but also more expensive, they don’t want the government to prod food companies to restrain marketing to children, and they don’t want the Food and Drug Administration to regulate any substance based on anything but “hard science.”

They took aim at measures that are part of the Obama administration’s efforts to combat obesity among children and adults as well as some initiatives enacted by the previous Congress.

On Tuesday, the GOP majority on the House Appropriations Committee approved a 2012 spending plan that directs the Agriculture Department to ditch the first new nutritional standards in 15 years proposed for school breakfasts and lunches. The lawmakers say meals containing more fruits and vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy will cost an additional $7 billion over five years-- money they say the country can ill afford in difficult economic times.

The committee also directed the USDA to scale back participation in an effort to develop voluntary guidelines for companies that market food to children. And it directed the FDA to exempt grocery and convenience stores and other businesses from regulations set to take effect next year requiring that calorie information be displayed.

So on the very day Michelle Obama was working with the Department of Agriculture to unveil a plan to replace the long outmoded and virtually useless "food pyramid" with a more up-to-date way of helping parents and care-givers make healthy choices for their children, the GOP was up to their old anti-social tricks.

The first part of the campaign will encourage people to make half their plate fruit and vegetables. Later phases of the campaign will urge consumers to avoid oversize portions, enjoy their food but eat less of it and to drink water instead of sugary drinks.

Ayn Rand characters William Edward Hickman & Paul Ryan have different approaches to murder

Meanwhile, a deadly strain of E. coli is killing consumers in Europe and seems to have jumped over to the U.S. with two tourists who returned last month from Hamburg. Yesterday the first cases were reported in Britain and the Guardian provides us with this update:

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has said that three of the seven people in Britain who have been infected by the strain of E coli sweeping Europe have developed haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), a rare and severe kidney complication that destroys red blood cells and can affect the brain and spinal cord.

The HPA confirmed that all seven patients had recently visited Germany, where an 81-year-old woman became the 18th victim of the previously unknown E coli strain when she died on Wednesday at Hamburg-Eppendorf university hospital. More than 2,000 others have so far been infected in 10 countries from eating contaminated vegetables.

The HPA reminded Britons travelling to Germany to avoid eating raw tomatoes, cucumbers and leafy salad including lettuce, especially in the north of the country, until further notice. Anyone returning from Germany with symptoms including bloody diarrhoea should seek urgent medical attention and ensure they mention their recent travel history.

Dilys Morgan, head of the agency's gastrointestinal department, said: "The HPA continues to actively monitor the situation very carefully and we are working with the authorities in Germany and with our counterparts across Europe as to the cause of the outbreak. We have alerted health professionals to the situation and advised them to urgently investigate and report suspected cases with a travel history to Germany. ... Though the EU continued to insist there was not enough evidence for any foodstuffs to be banned, Germany's disease control authority, the Robert Koch Institute, has advised German consumers against eating raw tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce.

...Genetic sequencing of the bacteria behind the outbreak suggests that it is a previously-unknown strain. Dr Hilde Kruse, a food safety expert at the WHO said that "this is a unique strain that has never been isolated from patients before". She added that the new strain has "various characteristics that make it more virulent and toxin-producing."

Paul Wigley of the University of Liverpool's School of Veterinary Science, said that the E coli outbreak was caused by a type called O104, part of a group of bacteria that produces a chemical called verocytotoxin (Vtec).

"[These bacteria] normally infect people directly through animal faeces, or more usually through poorly cooked meat contaminated with the bacteria. Whilst most strains of E coli do not cause disease, Vtec are able to attach to the wall of the intestines very tightly and produce toxins.

"It is these toxins that cause damage to the gut, leading to bloody diarrhoea and may cause damage throughout the body including the kidneys."

He added: "Animals, and in particular cattle, may carry Vtec in their intestines without disease, which may lead to the bacterium being shed in their faeces. It is most likely that the use of manure as a fertilizer in organic salad vegetable production has lead to contamination of cucumbers and other vegetables.

"Although E coli infection is most commonly associated with meat, there have been previous reports of the disease being contracted from raw vegetables."

It's a complicated world, not quite as simpleminded as the way Ayn Rand and Paul Ryan have painted it. Without well-funded regulatory agencies to protect consumers, we'd be stuck on our own battling these kinds of things constantly-- whether or not someone was eventually run out of business.

The Return Of The e. Coli Republicans

Yum, yum?

Yesterday I came up with a new recipe for a sauce to go over my zucchini faux "pasta." Instead of something tomato-based, a standard around here, I opted for a raw cauliflower-dill sauce, which also included watercress, a cucumber, pomegranate seeds, pumpkinseed oil, and apple cider vinegar. The whole time I was preparing it I was yacking away on the phone with Digby about Pelosi's very natural decision to run for Democratic House leader and about the fact that there is no realistic opposition to her, just a handful of mangy Blue Dogs grandstanding for the rubes back in their districts. The preparation for the sauce was just cutting and blending so there was no need for a very long conversation like there would be if I was actually cooking something (and killing all the nutrients). But Digby mentioned in passing-- probably while we were laughing about Heath Shuler, Dan Boren and some other Blue Dog freak whose name I can't recall-- that the same way our politics has become so bifurcated, even Americans' eating habits have diverged to a point where our nation can hardly sit down for a meal together.

I try to eat as vegan and as raw as I can. At home I only eat raw vegan preparations. I buy organic food and when I go to restaurants with friends who have different eating habits we always go to places where it's easy to get healthy salads and simplied-prepared wild-caught fish. News yesterday that the cosmos marked the return of the e.coli Republicans to power with a widespread outbreak of... well, what else?-- e.coli, seemed almost pre-karmic.

An E. coli breakout in five states has been linked to Bravo Farms Dutch Style Gouda cheese sold at Costco. The cheese was not only available for sale, but also as free samples, and at in-store tasting events. Twenty-five people reported being infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) joined Costco to warn consumers to avoid the cheese. According to Costco, the cheese manufacturer, Bravo Farms is responsible for issuing a formal recall, because the product could have been sold in other states. Costco contacted consumers who bought the cheese directly to tell them about the possible outbreak. Customers can return the cheese for a refund.

People infected with E. coli can develop diarrhea, abdominal cramps and other longer lasting and more severe conditions. Most people, however, recover within a week. 

Unfortunately, it isn't just GOP voters who will be afflicted, but also poor people, who have little to no choice but to eat this kind of garbage food. And with the GOP ideologically determined to "let freedom ring," freedom, as Republican-Nazi Rich Iott, can explain, meaning the freedom of the wealthy corporate interests to exploit the poor and... well, society in general, expect plenty of more news like this. That means the newly electards like Ron Johnson (R-WI), Rand Paul (R-KY), Sandy Adams (R-FL), Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Paul Labrador (R-ID), Justin Amash (R-MI), Taliban Dan (R-FL), Allen West (R-FL), and Tim Griffin (R-AR), to name a small handful of the worst of the worst, will be busily working on how to turn back the hands of time to when, for example, meatpackers didn't have to bother with pesky rules that impinged on their freedom (to kill their customers).

I've written many times that the House Agriculture Committee is one of the most despicable bastions of corruption in Washington. For the last 4 years it's been a de facto fully quorumed meeting of the Blue Dog caucus with Collin Peterson (MN)-- who has taken more money in thinly-veiled bribes from AgriBusiness than anyone else in the House... on either side of the aisle-- sitting at the head of the table. Peterson has stood in the way of health, organic food, family farms and consumer protections every step of the way. Frank Lucas (R-OK), another fave of AgriBusiness, and the recipient of $1,195,044 from the same pot of money, will be the new chairman-- and even worse than Peterson! A dozen filthy Blue Dogs currently on the House Agriculture Committee, all having spent years gobbling up AgriBusiness bribes, were defeated Tuesday: Travis Childers (MS), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Bobby Bright (AL), Jim Costa (CA), Frank Kratovil (MD), Jim Marshall (GA), Walt Minncik (ID), Betsy Markey (CO), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA), Zach Space (OH), Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD), and Earl Pomeroy (ND).

I wish I could cheer for this wonderful development and think about America with a rational agriculture policy. Instead, we're headed to an even worse situation, dominated by equally corrupt but certifiably insane holdovers led by Lucas, like Mean Jean Schmidt (OH), Randy Neugebauer (TX), Steve King (IA), Sam Graves (MO), Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) and God-only-knows which drooling newly elected teabaggers. Remember this press release from last July?

Despite recent outbreaks of food borne illnesses such as E.coli and salmonella, today Representative David Dreier blocked an attempt to strengthen and modernize the way we protect America’s food supply.
 
“Americans worrying about when the next outbreak of E.coli or salmonella will strike their families deserve better than Representative Dreier blocking a plan to keep our food supply safe,” said Ryan Rudominer, National Press Secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“It’s outrageous that Representative Dreier is willing to block solutions to make sure the food Americans feed to children is healthy and safe.”

At the time, I wrote, "It is outrageous and Dreier should be defeated next year. But so should Minnick, Childers, Griffith and Kratovil, all of whom voted with Dreier and the Republicans and all of whom are on the Debbie Wasserman Schultz' DCCC Frontline Program." Dreier won again-- Republicans admire being poisoned on the alter of ideological purity-- but the others on my wish list were all defeated. The DCCC needs to get the message.

Why Does David Dreier Want To Poison Your Family With Tainted Food Products? And He's Got Some Cronies In Congress Who Feel The Same Way

CA Congressmembers Dreier & Bono Mack dream of free market e. coli

Conservatives have always fought like mad dogs (if not blue ones) against protecting consumers from being poisoned by people selling bad food. Learning about the battles between progressives and conservatives regarding food safety in school helped me understand why I would never support conservatives and why I was-- and am-- a progressive. How in the pocket of Big Business do you have to be to risk killing your own constituents-- or even family members-- in the name of unregulated markets?

Yesterday the House failed to pass HR 2749, John Dingell's Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, a major overhaul of the FDA 280- 150. (It needed a 2/3's margin to pass under the rules so it lost by about 10 votes). Who would vote against food safety? You know the answer: conservatives, the whole reactionary Republican leadership and almost all the GOP loons in the House plus 23 mostly disgraceful Democrats, primarily Blue Dog congenital aisle jumpers like Heath Shuler (NC), Walt Minnick (ID), Travis Childers (MS), Parker Griffith (AL), Frank Kratovil (MD), Jim Marshall (GA), etc.

The DCCC sent out press releases today pointing out how California reactionaries Brian Bilbray, Mary Bono Mack, Ken Calvert, David Dreier, Elton Gallegly, Dana Rohrabacher, Dan Lungren, Tom McClintock, and Buck McKeon blocked Dingell's bill:

Despite recent outbreaks of food borne illnesses such as E.coli and salmonella, today Representative David Dreier blocked an attempt to strengthen and modernize the way we protect America’s food supply.
 
“Americans worrying about when the next outbreak of E.coli or salmonella will strike their families deserve better than Representative Dreier blocking a plan to keep our food supply safe,” said Ryan Rudominer, National Press Secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“It’s outrageous that Representative Dreier is willing to block solutions to make sure the food Americans feed to children is healthy and safe.” 

It is outrageous and Dreier should be defeated next year. But so should Minnick, Childers, Griffith and Kratovil, all of whom voted with Dreier and the Republicans and all of whom are on the Debbie Wasserman Schultz' DCCC Frontline Program. Donate to the DCCC and help defeat Republicans who want to poison our families and help re-elect with the same check Democrats who want to poison our families. How does Debbie Wasserman Schultz fall asleep at night or look in a mirror?

Meanwhile, the bill will be voted on today and it will only need a simple majority to pass. (Astute readers may have noticed that a small handful of dedicated progressives voted against the bill yesterday as well-- Lynn Woolsey, Maurice Hinchey, Chellie Pingree, Earl Blumenauer, Ben Ray Luján, Peter Welch, Steve Kagen, Eric Massa, and Martin Heinrich. After talking to a few Capitol Hill staffers and to food policy expert Jill Richardson (author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It) it appears that they are concerned about the burdensome effect on small organic farms since there's a flat $500 registration fee per facility and they thought it should be adjusted and made lower.)


UPDATE: The House Overcame GOP Obstructionism And Passed The Food Safety Enhancement Act

Adopting a rule that allowed the bill to pass with a simple majority, with just a few vote changes from yesterday-- 3 Democrats and 4 Republicans gave up their opposition-- the bill passed 283-142, another progressive victory for consumer protection against the extremism of anti-social mania of proft-driven conservatives. The California E. coli Republicans, Brian Bilbray, Mary Bono Mack, Ken Calvert, David Dreier, Elton Gallegly, Dana Rohrabacher, Dan Lungren, Tom McClintock, and Buck McKeon, all voted against the bill again. President Obama commended the House on passage:

Today the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, legislation that will raise food safety standards, allow the FDA to issue mandatory recalls of harmful products, and enhance our oversight of imported food.

This action represents a major step forward in modernizing our food safety system and protecting Americans from foodborne illness. Those are the goals of the Food Safety Working Group I convened in March and charged with making recommendations to improve our food safety system. And that is why we announced a new rule to control Salmonella contamination in eggs and are working to reduce the presence of harmful pathogens such as E. coli in meat and produce; strengthen our capacity to trace the source of outbreaks; and update our emergency operations procedures.

I commend the House of Representatives for its action today and look forward to working with the Senate to enact critical food safety legislation.