Good Morning, Where are our friends? Can’t figure out when I started getting up so early…Imagine starting every day with a Koch….Yikes.

Good morning BT.

Rachel makes Koch Bros sound like D-Is in Prop H8: It’s so obvious what the ‘right’ story line is, they think that anything they throw up in its defense will be sufficient.

Morning, Bev and eCAHN
People with too much money make ME want to throw up.
PS, Morning to Mr. Blue, too.

OT. Sad news from western New York: Mott’s workers end strike

The nearly four-month-long strike at the Mott’s plant in Wayne County is coming to an end and workers are expected to be back on the job next week…

Late Monday evening, Mott’s parent company, Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. of Plano, Texas, confirmed that the union and management had agreed to a three-year contract for hourly workers…

Key terms of the contract included: freezing wages for three years; maintaining the pension plan for existing employees and reducing the 401(k) retirement plan match from 5 percent to 2 percent; eliminating pensions for new employees and giving them a 4 percent 401(k) match; requiring employees to pick up 20 percent of health insurance premium costs and half of any premium increases above 10 percent.

Left you a message on the previous thread: who was the boss you were talking about? Sorry you got modded…looks like Ive missed alot. How you doing?

democracynow: USG refuses to pay $500,000 bail on Sarah Shroud’s bail to get her out of Iran.

democracynow: renowned photographer of civil rights era, Ernest Withers, was CIA agent.

If I tell you, I’ll have to kill me. The taking my words off the page wasn’t that big a deal. It wasn’t a fight or anything like that. Some one just didn’t like my opinion. And, I wasn’t the only one in the penalty box either. :)

Civil Rights Photographer Unmasked as Informant

Did they say why not?

Sorry I missed so much action….Very busy day and again on this one. I missed all of Caturday on Sunday.

I kinda missed it, but I think they’re thinking about it as a kind of ransom, and USG claims it doesn’t pay ransom (though, of course, it often does; depends on how impt you are & whether there is plausible deniability).

Disgusting, no?

Mornin’, BT, pups

You got modded? Wow. I’d better watch me p’s ‘n q’s. Had to hold myself back on a troll yesterday.

We missed ya.

You must be doing your job, because I haven’t seen many trolls lately.

Thank you….Angela is her usual cute self. Wish I had been there;) How’s your new schedule at work?

Speaking of teh kittehs, we saw a women walking her cat on a leash at the campground. Never saw that before.

Oooh Demi….got modded HERE? I wasn’t online much yesterday so I missed the excitement I guess.

Good morning everyone.

Any time I ever tried to walk a kitteh on a leash, the kitteh would turn its body into a snake and slither along the ground. I guess some will walk with a leash, but mine never would.

It’s the same old “Communist Negro” bullshit that segregationists were peddling during the Civil Rights movement. And it became the basis of the Republican movement conservative Southern Strategy to defeat communism. Another funder of this nonsense was oilman H.L. Hunt. The ghost of the busting of Standard Oil trust haunts the oil industry. And was apparent even before the environmental movement gave them another reason to hate government regulation.

There was no excitement. None. I’m a bad pussy cat.

Good morning everyone!

The apples didn’t fall far from the Koch tree.

Good morning. I’ve often wondered aloud where the new William F Buckley Jr is. Who is the conservative today with the stature and the moxie to call out today’s John Birchers, (the teabaqggers), for the violent, racist eliminationists that they are? Apparently there isn’t one.

Do we need a leash for you? ;)

Nobody I know is ignorant of the Kochs. Nobody I know is buying their products any more. Nor those of Target. Nor from vendors in Nebraska while Nelson holds a senate seat. Wickedness should be starved.

I’ve been modded here before for what I felt were really innocuous comments, though not often. It seems pretty random to me. Mostly the moderators around here seem pretty reasonable but there are times when I’m convinced that moodishness is involved.

It appears that almost anyone will sell out for the right price.

But almost anyone does not mean everyone.

Good coverage this am about the non-debate…along with very bad news on the TX budget (big cuts on kids’ immunization) that Hair blames on the gov. & Pres. O. He cannot quit being a jerk.

I’m off. Be well.

Har! A muzzle, more likely.

If you buy gasoline, you’re buying Koch brothers’ products. Period.

Buckley would have considered, rightly, today’s bunch morons. I didn’t much care for Buckley but at least he was intellectually honest.

I bet most of the public has never heard of the Koch brothers,or are aware of their funding of the Tea Party through Americans For Prosperity .

Have a good one. Stay strong.

I didn’t much care for Buckley but at least he was intellectually honest.

I felt exactly the same way about him. He was one of the last conservatives I respected though I had no use for his philosophy.

I pretty much come and go as I please but with the changes brought on by new software take more time so I go in earlier. Takes more time just to stay ahead of the game.

In my shallow view I always thought he was pretty cute and funny. Then aged well, as I recall.

Is the software doing what it’s s’posed to do?

And, speaking of morans…did you see this?

The convenience store couple doors down from work pumps Marathon. I use Citgo.

I think David Frum is trying to be the new Buckley. However, after Rachel had him on and he sneered at her repeatedly I can’t stand watching him. I have a low tolerance for that sort of thing, which is why I won’t watch Lawrence O’Donnell’s new show after he mistreated the guests the last time he subbed for KO.

I can’t think of Buckley without thinking of Gore Vidal.

It always amazes me when children just swallow their parents’ propaganda without even questioning it… as if parents always told the Truth.

It doesn’t matter what the brand name says. Gasoline is fungible and in fact, all comes out of the same tank. it is the ADDITIVES that you are buying when you buy name brand gasoline. The additives are put into the mix at the nozzle when the gasoline is loaded into tank trucks for transport to the retail outlets. Trust me, you are buying Koch brothers gasoline.

If it’s true that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, imagine what millions of dollars will do.

I turned off Ed Schultz yesterday for having Frum on. He can’t keep that look of scornful contempt off his face when talking to somebody not conservative. And yeah, I’ll never watch O’Donnell again after shamelessly trying to prove his conservative creds.

It’s true that money may be like sugar… but I’ve always been someone who can’t stand having anyone tell me what to think. It still surprises me that such old men would have so much less pride.

My supervisor was using an old program on Windoze 3.1, yeah, you read that right. It wasn’t until that old machine finally crashed almost 2 years ago and we bought an XP machine that we found out she was computer illiterate. We got an updated version of the original software and it’s taken until now to get her so she could use it effectively. Checks that it prints take longer for me to post cuz it doesn’t put the same info on them that the old software did. Takes a lot more time.

Well, shit, and I don’t have enough property for a horse.

I just googled the clip of Frum on Schultz. He’s certainly no Buckley, and I think I heard him misprounce Michelle’s name. He said Bashman.

Ah, the pains of having a conservative boss. They have to be dragged out of the dark ages.

Karen, If I could suck up and kiss ass, I’d have a lot more money in my pockets, that’s for sure. And true.

So much confusion….when computers really were forcing their way into the work world, I really hoped/thought I would be dead before I had to learn. Then no such luck…just a take over and I truly had to get serious about the learning PC project. Of course, the kids can completely run around me. Some are pretty patient, however.;)

I’m thinking you’d look pretty cute on a skateboard. A long one.

Watch how you talk…;)

Hey, I’m not finding fault but I used to be in the gasoline transportation business, (when I was a diesel mechanic), and I was as surprised as you are. When the drivers get a lading manifest, they have to set the rack controls for the proper additives but it’s all Koch gas or has Koch gas in it.

I don’t usually write letters to teevee programs, but I wrote a very strong letter to Countdown after O’Donnell’s last appearance. He cut off and talked over his guests and spewed misinformation about Social Security that he didn’t allow them to rebut. This was a side of him I’d never seen and it disgusted me. Not that they care, I’m only one voice, but…

Edit to add: I only watched Ed Schultz once. His yelling style and his blinking flashing set give me nightmares. Bleh.

She and my boss are 2 different folks. Linda is progressive but boss is blind faith Rethug and really not a conservative. More authoritarian than anything else. Everything has to be his way and a lot of it turns to shit.

Boss is definitely in the dark ages where computers are concerned, though. Scared to death of the intertoobz except for Drudge and other wingnut sites.

Good for you, Molly. Speak up and speak often. Since you’ve got the time now.

I used to skateboard down Foothill Blvd when I lived in Tejunga.

I have a friend who is probably more liberal than I am but she still refuses to use a computer. She runs a small business and constantly complains about the time it takes her to do her books, (though no longer to me). So maybe I shouldn’t have spoken in such stereotypical terms. :)

Is that when you lived in one of those rock houses? I see a lot of skate boarders around. My older son gets everywhere on the bus and his board.

Since you’ve got the time now.

Where is all that time a retiree is supposed to have? I am running 6 ways from Sunday, between a bathroom remodel project, rehearsals for a big choir/symphony concert, and my son’s wedding on the 25th where I am in charge of a morning-after-the-wedding brunch for about 50 people.

Retirement? Whazzat?

Yep. Loved those rock houses but heatin’ ‘em was a bear.

Would she buy a computer and hire you to do her books? (If you could do that?)

Good Morning

was a little disappointed with the reporting (not here) on Newt’s latest outburst in that no one connected it to the Koch’s – they have long been his sugar daddies. considering all that Mayer’s article had to say about their campaign to discredit Obama no one connected the little monkey’s dance to the organ grinder

50 for the morning after? Must be a huge wedding.

problem is, the koch brothers fund every body from crystol to rush to everyone on fox, through advertising and subsidies

I used to listen to Schultz on the radio and his metamorphosis has been fascinating to watch. Heck, he even supported LIEberman over Lamont in 2006. Not anymore though. He’s more open to other opinions after that fiasco and his listeners were practically begging him to open his eyes and his mind about Holy Joe. He kept saying, “He was good enough to run for Vice President on the Democratic ticket…”, like repeating that mantra would make him a Progressive.

Not a bad idea. With a bssic textbook I could teach you via email. After that you could teach yourself the higher end stuff.

I could certainly do that but there is no convincing her to bring a computer into it. I’ve even offered to donate one to her when I had two.

It is in someone’s back yard (former neighbor of my son’s) and last I heard they had about 80 RSVPs. Not sure how big the guest list is, but quite a few out of town guests, and they are who the brunch is intended for.

My son and his new wife, with 6 kids between them, won’t be going on a honeymoon just now, but probably will spend the wedding night at a downtown hotel. They are also having an informal dinner the night BEFORE the wedding.

no one connected the little monkey’s dance to the organ grinder

You are a treasure.

Mazel Tov.

I did the books for our homeowner’s association just using Excel and kept the check register in Quicken. Probably not quite what a small business would need, but reasonable Excel skills are pretty much all that’s necessary. We took everything to an accountant to prepare a year end statement. (He asked about a trial balance and I said, “What’s that?” and he didn’t press the point.)

Same here, demi!

I actually have no problem with what the Kochs are doing, the problem is that they can fund this stuff through back channels and make it look like something more than it is, which is a ploy to make their views look like popular views. Moreover it’s hidden just enough so that lazy journalists will just copy-paste from a press release rather than doing about 15 minutes worth of research. Rachel points out that they aren’t trying very hard, but they really do not have to.

All this does is point of the very real need to change the constitution to finally tackle the issue of corporate money and lobbyist money in our system. Public financing and anti-astroturfing needs to be law, and now. Honestly there will be no progressive movement without it.

Oh, and my son’s new wife is Jewish, so Mazel Tov works on several levels.

You know I like that he brings up issues that next to no one else on tv will address, but he is such a DNC shill when it comes right down to it. One day he will rail about something the Dems aren’t doing right and the very next he will tow the party line.

mornin’ doll

I’m having to use QuickBooks for the sales side. Don’t like it. I could write a program in Excel for the stuff we do in QuickBooks.

Check register in Excel’s a snap.

it must be the time slot, but am surprised more folks don’t talk about Dylan Ratigan and his show. so far, he’s kept it far more real than Schultz, KO, and Rachel. frankly surprised he’s still on the air

and yes, this little dfh learned all about the Kochs and their back channel stealth right here at the Lake – gladdened by the Mayer article in that she pierced the veil

All true… He doesn’t know any better. Philosophically he may have allied himself with Progressives but deep down, he’s still a conservative at heart and needs to follow the pack. That’s something fundamental that’s tougher to change than just your alliances.

The treasurer I took over from was keeping a manual check register, so Quicken was a step forward, and I didn’t bother to set up an Excel spreadsheet to do it, since I was already using Quicken for my own check register. I’ve never used QuickBooks — someone suggested I convert the homeowners’ assn. books to QuickBooks but it seemed like overkill when all I did was collect association fees and pay bills.

I was just thinking that since Margaret already has a lot of ability and is looking for work, she might be able to take over her friend’s bookeeping.

(Sorry Margaret, we’re talking about you like you aren’t here…)

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

US KIA Afghanistan: 1,278

US KIA Irak: 4,418

Iraki and Afghan casualties: estimates vary to over 1.5M

US MBS 2010: 31,744 and counting

Tom Sawyer

Happy Birthday, WMNF. 31 years young today.

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

Outta here….life of a working girl…Thanks for a good start.

I actually have no problem with what the Kochs are doing, the problem is that they can fund this stuff through back channels and make it look like something more than it is, which is a ploy to make their views look like popular view

sort of contradicting yourself there, none of us have a problem with the koch’s expressing their point of view, it’s what you said that makes it so bad

Shine that light, babe.

morning all…time to boycott motts,snapple………….hey APPLES in general mofos

yah just plenty of graft,and buying of whole governments….what a joke

New post up top…

Bummer, cannot get the clip to play.

Don’t use any of that stuff. Honeycrisp apples just coming in locally. Yum.

im a sap for winesaps,never had a honey crisp

I get apples from my trees in my yard and juice as well as can apples for weeks.

Just finished a batch of apple sauce, apple butter and dutch apples.

We juice apples and freeze the juice. Sometimes I make cider.

I’ve got 100 lbs to go. We also donate apples to the food bank and the zoo.

If you havn’t read Jane Mayer’s piece in the New Yorker, you really should. It will give you an whole other perspective on the Koch brothers. They ARE the tea party and they are so many other things. From the left’s view I would call them anarchists. But that is who we are up against and they have 33 billion reasons to win on their side.

Agreed. Her piece is an important read.

People think they are becoming empowered but they are being used by wealth. Citizens better wake up and realize they are allowing themselves to be duped.

Just got the clip above to run finally. Rachel did a great job breaking down their “sickness”.

I am so disappointed that an award winning paper like the Akron Beacon Journal failed to get the story correct and got their investigative behind handed to them on national TV by Rachel. If I was in charge at the paper, I would be firing a few reporters and then I would run a retraction, apologize to the readers for failing to investigate the truth on the front page story and then publish the correct story on the front page. Then, I would resign as the editor. It would be the honorable and just action.

I know, THAT will not happen.

That’s is a problem that can be turned to an advantage once the relationships are clearly proven.

Karl Rove was smart about two things. (1) In politics you need to do the math to win; you don’t need a majority but for Rove you needed it to be close enough to steal; that still required doing the math. You have to know how many votes you have to get in order to win and mobilize to get them. (2) A political operation’s strength is also a point of weakness if attacked properly. Case in point, Kerry’s honor. Another case in point, Republican party unity; it killed them in 2006 and 2008.

The close ties of billionaires to the Tea Party movement in general and the Republican Party in general is a financial strength that can become a weakness. Which is why the Citizens United decision was so important to them. It allows astro-turfing to continue.

problem is, the koch brothers fund every body from crystol to rush to everyone on fox, through advertising and subsidies

That’s is a problem that can be turned to an advantage once the relationships are clearly proven.

I get what you’re saying and hope you’re right. The biggest stumbling block I see for the “progressive side” is that we have no one in real power backing or funding us.

Tea Partiers will claim that they’re not astro-turfed by the Koch’s; that this IS how they really feel. Well maybe they really feel that way after endless hours of rightwing programming brought to them by the Kochs.

It’s a real conundrum, but I agree with prior comments that everyone should read Mayer’s article in a recent New Yorker, and I commend RM for her efforts in exposing these billionaires and how deep, far and wide their reach extends into our gov’t. Exposing this is very important.

I want to thank all that participated in this thread, and for a variety of reasons.

As Native Americans/Chicanos, in looking at our demographic changes as they occur over the next many years, the arch-conservatives, will have to be addressed in a politically forceful manner, and that still means that we will have to contend with the Koch monies and the next generation of Kochs espousing their bullshitista regimen.

Therefore, in ‘prepping’ the next generation, understanding fully the John Bircher Menatality is critical since the ‘communist’ mindset has now morphed into attacking the Brown People, and yet, the wealth of votes among our community, currently impacts 28 Senate Offices, and thusly, arriving at the proverbial tipping point of “45″ is critical to our suvivability and prosperity.

And it’s for this long term “rationale” that progressives must continue to excoriate the arch-conservatives, and especially the Koch monies and their various uses for astro-turfing. To wit, the major Hispanic think tank does not have the time or the financial resources to address this important element and in the requisite manner as it pertains to our politics.

Otherwise, Hispanics will be “used” to the max. A case in point, an Hispanic was the “face” of Arizona’s arch-conservative effort to establish the “Right-to-Work” state, and unbeknownst this Hispanic “face” that he was the “tool”. However, he eventually found to his dismay, that he was “used” and thusly, his self-acknowledged Shame and prior to his recent death of a few years ago.

Jaango

My wife worked for a refinery in California. They held company rallies in 2006 and 2008 where they presented the critical issues for the refinery. The rallies were optional, but HR harassed you until you RSVP’ed to at least one rally. At the rally, there was a pitch for the employees to contribute to the refinery PAC. The suggested donation was $25/month. My wife and I were both surprised at how many of the employees would fill out the form and contribute. The biggest contributors were those in higher levels of the company. Many considered the voluntary contribution as mandatory (if they wanted to get ahead). The event was peer pressure to the max AND shameless.

true but hunt is dead. koch is alive and nuts and a billionaire. from the polemical pamphlet referenced in the write up which he published in the 50′s as a bircher one can hear all of the current loony, hateful , ultra reactionary talking points of the tea baggers and glen beck. Even down to the calling the democratic party the “democrat” party. I always thought that was weird and petty even for the likes of newt and the orange cybaby but now we see it was a bircher thing. or maybe just a koch thing.he is obviously THE active force behind the kooky neo fascist american right of today.

Yeah, the old man was quite a Bircher. But the younger Koch brothers apparently put a little distance because they didn’t like that reputation. And the gist of the article was that the modern libertarians were just as much Koch astroturf as the Tea Party movement. Something that has trouble actually getting verbalized on the blogosphere. Charles G. and two friends started the Cato Institute. They brought luminaries like Ayn Rand and Frederick Hayek far more popular attention than they would have otherwise attracted, and they funded Grover Norquist’s assault on the Obama administration, this past year.

In 1958, Fred Koch became one of the original members of the John Birch Society, the arch-conservative group known, in part, for a highly skeptical view of governance and for spreading fears of a Communist takeover. Members considered President Dwight D. Eisenhower to be a Communist agent.

Looks like the only requirement to get this label from tea party sponsors is to enforce individual progressive taxes. So let us sympathize with tea party agitators who are trying to make ends meet and do not know how to express it and ignore the tea party sponsors comments.

President Eisenhower incurred responsibilities which the current leadership cannot even fathom taking care of allies, past foes and most importantly people of his own country, ensured fair & just progressive taxation in a just manner to pay for those responsibilites so that rich pay same taxes as the poor for the income poor make and only higher taxes for the higher income and transformed this nation into the worlds super-power. This is conservative, deficit free spending to achieve organic growth and I hope the commission members take note of this fact instead of spending full time on how to gut the American savings instead of reinstating progressive taxation seen during Pres. Eisenhowers era.

BTW on a unrelated side-note in my opinion if any third world country wants to transform into a first world nation all that it has to do is to remove debilitating VAT taxes, enforce individual progressive taxation and plow the tax earnings to educate all its children atleast to senior school minimum without exception. Within a generation their country will have a standard of living rivalling any first world nation with this simple recipe.