Liberal Forum

Seven United Nations staff murdered in protest against U.S. pastor who burned Koran.At least seven United Nations staff were murdered - two by beheading - after extremists stormed their compound in northern Afghanistan today.According to reports, protesters in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif beheaded two U.N. guards, seized their weapons and began shooting those inside the compound after a demonstration against Koran burnings in the U.S. turned violent.Reports emerged tonight that the Taliban had claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were part of a campaign of violence in the run up to presidential elections.The bloodshed is the worst attack on the U.N. in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.At least four Afghan workers were also killed and officials fear the total death toll could rise to 20.The rampage began when over a thousand protesters flooded into the streets after Friday prayers where they heard reports about the Koran burnings in America last month.After slaying the guards, the armed mob scaled the compound's blast walls before setting fire to a guard tower and several other buildings.An Afghan police source, who asked not to be named, said the chief of the mission in the city was wounded but survived. Among those murdered were Norwegian, Romanian, Swedish and Nepalese nationals. Two were decapitated, it is understood.And tonight pastor Terry Jones, the man many hold responsible for instigating the wave of protests, remained defiant over his decision to hold the Koran burning, saying it was time for 'Islam to be held accountable'.He said: 'We must hold these countries and people accountable for what they have done as well as for any excuses they may use to promote their terrorist activities. The time has come to hold Islam accountable.Read More...Mohandas Gandhi: I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.Before anyone calls me a terrorist lover, that was not meant to excuse the members of the Taliban who murdered those people. I detest spreading hate or killing in the name of religion no matter who does it.

Recently President Obama took all kinds of heat for taking 10 minutes out of his day to fill out his NCAA brackets.So I guess he decided against throwing out the first pitch at the National's home opener.So what does he get for that?From Fox News' website, via Politico:Are things really that bad? Even the traditional first presidential pitch of the season must go the way of all things fun, just because we are in 2.5 wars, a lingering recession and facing a massive federal budget problem?http://nation.foxnew...out-first-pitchThe man can't win.

You're right, the man can't win. But blaming it on FOX news isn't the answer. When was the last time the dems ran a man who didn't play ball like a girl?

When was the last time the dems ran a man who didn't play ball like a girl?Speaking of playing ball like a girl, can you please talk to My Clemmy and ask him to give up playing basketball?....after I play an hour and a half of full court basketball as power forward, I come home and my d**k doesn't work.I wish he'd save some of that power for me. Edited by LittleMissMarxist, 02 April 2011 - 12:22 PM.

The Republican Future Looks Exactly Like the Past FDR once said, Yes, we are on the way back not by mere chance, not by a turn of the cycle. We are coming back more soundly than ever before because we planned it that way, and dont let anybody tell you differently.Republicans (and DINOS) would have us believe that all our economic woes are simply a result of the natural ebb and flow of the market, but they are not. They PLANNED IT THAT WAY.Its the age-old struggle. The dream of America was that We The People ruled ourselves, rather than an inter-generational aristocracy akin to the one we fought a revolution to escape. Republicans (& DINOS) have been putting that oppressive system back together piece by piece since America swallowed the Reaganomics Voodoo we are now dying from.The objective of Right which cares about America as much as it does for Mother Earth as a whole is to return us to the economic order last seen in the Gilded Age. This was an America with incredible wealth disparities, nonexistent labor standards and a government indifferent to the plight of the average citizen. FDR reflected on that society when he said, Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent. The one ironic tragedy of FDRs New Deal was that it created economically stable middle classes who, with the aid of incessant Right Wing misinformation campaigns, were convinced their interests and the interests of billionaires were one in the same.As memory of pre-New Deal life faded with the passing of our grandparents, many Average Joe Americans were thoroughly propagandized into voting Republican and therefore voting for their own demise.Its the age-old struggle between the haves and the have-nots. In the Right Wing vision of America, the tiny minority in possession of colossal wealth rules over the large pool of working poor and wealth is so concentrated in the hands of a few; there is essentially no remaining middle class.Its a dismal existence for the have-nots who, ideally for the haves, toil their lifetime away and patiently await their reward in Heaven. (All the more reason Republicans are bent on whittling away at the slim line separating church and state, as churches have always historically worked in tandem with the ruling elite to keep the huddled masses subjugated and passively resigned to their natural place.)From the assault on unions, cutting OSHA safety regulation and yes even proposing the end of child labor laws, this vision is on display in all of todays Republican policies.Economist Robert Reich in his book Aftershock: The Next Economy and Americas Future, has labeled the 40 years between the New Deal and Reaganomics, The Great Prosperity. He says, It is still possible to find people who believe that government policy did not end the Great Depression and undergird the Great Prosperity, just as it is possible to uncover people who do not believe in evolution.In other words, proactive egalitarian government policy is essential for creating a society that works for ALL not just the top 1% who also happen to be pouring unfettered wealth into the political campaigns of Republicans and corporate-owned Democrats sent to Washington to turn the government of the United States into a mere appendage to their own affairs, as FDR said.A study by Michael Norton and Dan Ariely on how Americans think about income inequality concluded that, given a choice, Americans would prefer to live in a society more equal than even highly egalitarian Sweden.Not ones to let a crisis go to waste, Republicans are using the economic crisis their policies created as an excuse to dismantle policies that made the economically secure, vibrant and stable middle class possible by disingenuously labeling these policies job-killing when, in fact, the only killing as a result of deregulation would be visited on the workers forced into the same unsafe working conditions their ancestors fought and died to prevent.We dont have to be a psychic friend to predict the end of the story. If we allow Republicans to triumph in their Class War and return us to the policies of the Gilded Age, we need only look to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire of the past to see the American future.As Andrew Schneider wrote in his must-read article, The Lessons of Triangle Shirtwaist Fire May Be Lost 100 Years LaterDavid Von Drehle wrote what many consider the definitive book on the tragedy in 1911, Triangle: The Fire that Changed America. He said in the book that history can run backward, and that even much-needed reforms like worker safety gains can be lost again.Many of the initial post-Triangle reforms were strenuously opposed by conservative businessmen who were soon back in the saddle and able to halt, hamstring or reverse liberal initiatives, he wrote.The recent GOP sweep has many believing the same thing is happening again.No Surprise That OSHA Was a TargetWhen the Republicans swept back into power in the House in January, Rep. Darrell Issa, the newly appointed chairman of the House Government Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, told major industries, lobbyists, trade associations and companies large and small that, as head of the congressional watchdog committee, hed appreciate their views on what government regulations they didnt like and what he should change.It surprised no one that the Environmental Protection Agency and OSHA were the favorite targets of the hundreds letters that were hand-carried or express-mailed to him.The California Republican insists that these changes that big business wants will save jobs, but he hasnt explained how to the satisfaction of even some in his own party. Republicans budget cutters say that environmental regulation is harmful to the economy and that OSHAs worker safety actions are unnecessary and detrimental to businesses large and small.Those involved with worker safety cringe.With conservatives in Congress decrying the supposedly job-killing effects of OSHA protections, we could be on our way to becoming a First World economy with Third World working conditions, said Tom OConnor, executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, a federation of local and state committees or coalitions on occupational safety and health.The U.S. has made progress in worker protection, but, he quickly added, it is 29th out of 30 industrialized nations when it comes to safety and health protection for workers, managing to beat out only Turkey.Crippling budget cuts like these can only come from lawmakers who are willing to throw hardworking Americans under the bus once theyve extracted a vote, Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist for health and environment with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told AOL News.Posted by Taradacktyl at Republican Dirty TricksRead the rest of Schneiders article (which includes a wrenching eyewitness account of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire) in my next post.

The Lessons of Triangle Shirtwaist Fire May Be Lost 100 Years LaterScreams of "Don't jump!" echoed through the canyons of tall buildings. More than 50 bodies littered the streets surrounding 23 Washington Place, so many that New York City's firetrucks were unable to get close enough to raise their ladders. Even if they had, the ladders from nearby Company 20 were too short to reach the eighth, ninth or 10th floors of the burning Triangle Shirtwaist Co. factory.New York Fire Department reports say the flames, which were probably sparked by a cigarette tossed into a pile of cotton scraps on the eighth floor, rapidly spread to the floors above. The maelstrom of fire was knocked down in 18 minutes -- brief, but long enough to snuff out the lives of 146 workers who were just minutes from heading home from their 52-hour workweek that sunny Saturday afternoon on March 25, 1911.The victims of that inferno 100 years ago today (3-25) were almost all new immigrants, mostly women and girls -- Italians, Russians, Hungarians and Germans. Few spoke English.The youngest victim was only 11, according to the death reports. Most were in their teens, and a few in their early 20s. There were 500 seamstresses and tailors working in the factory. Many on the eighth and tenth floors escaped. Few on the ninth floor had much chance of surviving.Some stood on the narrow window ledges, alone or clutching friends, waiting for rescue that never came, then jumped or lost their balance and fell to their deaths. The height of the fall was so great that the jumpers tore through the safety nets that a circle of firefighters were frantically moving up and down the street to catch them.The 146 lives lost in the fire ignited a passion for worker safety laws and indirectly led to the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Yet a century later, the laws that could have saved lives had they been in place on March 25, 1911, are being threatened by budget cuts proposed by a Republican-controlled Congress.The Lessons From the TragedyMany of the deaths from the 1911 fire were preventable.A flimsy iron fire escape quickly gave way under the weight of the first trying to flee. The single elevator was immobilized by dozens of bodies falling into the shaft as some tried to shimmy down the grease-covered cables.But the main route to living another day, the exit doors, were blocked by boxes of trash and fabric scrap, or locked by the bosses to prevent workers from stealing the fancy blouses with puffed sleeves and tight bodices that the Triangle Shirtwaist sweatshop produced by the thousands.After the tragedy, the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union led a parade of more than 100,000 mourners through the streets of lower Manhattan, and politicians realized that they'd better pay attention to what just happened in their town.The cry "This shall never happen again" echoed through city halls and state capitols. Officials in many major U.S. cities looked around and found identically dangerous conditions in their factories. Workers in their communities faced the same risk.Whether it was shame, guilt or genuine concern for the safety of the American worker, politicians promised to do better. First in New York City and then in Albany, lawmakers, ignoring strident objections by the business community, forced through the country's first and strongest worker safety protection laws.Massachusetts, New Jersey and Illinois soon passed similar safeguards. Fifteen other states tried to do the same, but intense lobbying by industry either blocked the attempts or watered down the legislation to the point of uselessness.But the fire also produced a champion for a national system of worker safety regulations.Dedicated to Protecting WorkersThe afternoon of the fire, a young social worker named Frances Perkins was having tea with a friend in Greenwich Village when she heard clanging firetruck bells and screams. As she raced toward the noise, she saw black smoke bellowing from the building and watched as the seamstresses leaped or fell to the ground.Twenty-two years later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Perkins as U.S. secretary of labor, recalled Hilda Solis, who now holds that job.Perkins never forgot the fire and the trapped workers, and she did much during her 12 years on the job, including creating what would become the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Solis said in recent speeches and op-ed pieces.Worker safety advocates cite the painful irony that, precisely 100 years to the month after the fire, the House of Representatives has passed a budget bill that would slash nearly $100 million -- about 20 percent -- from OSHA's current budget. About 40 percent of those cuts will be to the agency's enforcement and safety inspectors -- those on the front line of protecting workers."Lives will be lost because of these proposed cuts. They're devastating," Joel Shufro, executive director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, told AOL News on Thursday."Since its founding, OSHA has been underfunded and understaffed. They currently have enough inspectors to inspect every workplace just once every 143 years. The proposed cuts will cut OSHA's effectiveness even more," he added.OSHA administrator David Michaels says the House's cutback "would really have a devastating effect on all of our activities."David Von Drehle wrote what many consider the definitive book on the tragedy in 1911, "Triangle: The Fire that Changed America." He said in the book that history can run backward, and that even much-needed reforms like worker safety gains can be lost again."Many of the initial post-Triangle reforms were strenuously opposed by conservative businessmen ... who were soon back in the saddle and able to halt, hamstring or reverse liberal initiatives," he wrote.The recent GOP sweep has many believing the same thing is happening again.No Surprise That OSHA Was a TargetWhen the Republicans swept back into power in the House in January, Rep. Darrell Issa, the newly appointed chairman of the House Government Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, told major industries, lobbyists, trade associations and companies large and small that, as head of the congressional watchdog committee, he'd appreciate their views on what government regulations they didn't like and what he should change.It surprised no one that the Environmental Protection Agency and OSHA were the favorite targets of the hundreds letters that were hand-carried or express-mailed to him.The California Republican insists that these changes that big business wants will save jobs, but he hasn't explained how to the satisfaction of even some in his own party. Republicans budget cutters say that environmental regulation is harmful to the economy and that OSHA's worker safety actions are unnecessary and detrimental to businesses large and small.Those involved with worker safety cringe."With conservatives in Congress decrying the supposedly "job-killing" effects of OSHA protections, we could be on our way to becoming a First World economy with Third World working conditions," said Tom O'Connor, executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, a federation of local and state committees or coalitions on occupational safety and health.The U.S. has made progress in worker protection, but, he quickly added, it is 29th out of 30 industrialized nations when it comes to safety and health protection for workers, managing to beat out only Turkey."Crippling budget cuts like these can only come from lawmakers who are willing to throw hardworking Americans under the bus once they've extracted a vote," Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist for health and environment with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told AOL News.Her organization is one of the nation's largest environmental action groups, but Sass's concern for worker safety came from her grandmother, Clara Weinstein, a seamstress who was working the day of the fire in another Garment District sweatshop neighboring the Triangle factory building.Clara was only a young teenager when she left her parents behind in Russia to work in New York City's garment factories and send money home -- "a story repeated every day by immigrant workers, many of them teenagers like my grandmother was," Sass said.Her grandmother never went to college, but she spoke and read in three languages -- English, Russian and Yiddish -- and she knew wrong from right, Sass recalled. "She always told me she was a dressmaker, but in fact she was an unskilled piece worker on an assembly line in a loud, dusty and very dangerous factory."Her grandmother was spared death from fire, but not from the factory conditions that destroyed her lungs, her sight, her hearing, and her back, the scientist said.The Deaths ContinuedPassing laws alone isn't enough to save lives.On Sept. 3, 1991, 25 workers died from burns or suffocation and another 54 were injured when a 25-foot-long deep-fat fryer burst into flames at the Imperial Foods Products chicken-processing plant in Hamlet, N.C. As with the Triangle fire, the fire doors were locked to keep workers from stealing chickens. The plant had never been inspected -- not by OSHA or any other federal or state safety agency -- during its 11 years in operation, North Carolina accident investigators reported.The deaths continue today. Just look at what happened during one month last year.On April 2, an explosion at the Tesoro petroleum refinery in Anacortes, Wash., killed seven workers. Three days later, in West Virginia, 29 miners died when Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine exploded. Fifteen days later, on April 20, 40 miles off the Louisiana coast, the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling unit exploded and killed 11 workers and injured 16 others.These multiple-fatality tragedies garner headlines and cause politicians in Congress to bang their fists on tables, demanding action," said O'Connor."Our country suffers from a silent epidemic of workplace deaths that elicit little or no outrage, he said, citing the construction worker with no harness who falls to his death from an unguarded roof. Or the sanitation worker with no protection or training who enters a confined space permeated with deadly chemical fumes. And the 18year-old kid in his first week on the job who is buried alive in a collapsed trench.The owners of the Triangle factory were indicted by a grand jury on seven counts, charged with manslaughter in the second degree under the U.S. Labor Code, which mandated that doors should not be locked during working hours. They avoided prison with the help of New York's finest, most prestigious and highly paid lawyers, as well as a judge in their pocket, according to published reports.To prevent his son from being charged, Emmett J. Roe, owner of Imperial Foods Products, pleaded guilty to 25 counts of involuntary manslaughter. He admitted that he had personally ordered the doors to be locked from the outside. He received a prison sentence of 19 years and 11 months.OSHA Has Problems Beyond Budget CutsThousands are expected to gather in lower Manhattan and in other cities today to remember the tragic loss of lives caused by uncaring bosses and disinterested politicians. Many of the speeches are expected to talk about Congress's gutting of federal worker safety inspectors and the need to improve the capabilities of national programs."OSHA badly needs an upgrade. The penalties are too low to be a deterrent to all but the smallest employers. The criminal provisions are insulting to workers: The maximum penalty for a willful violation that kills a worker is six months, while the penalties for environmental crimes like harassing [not killing] protected animal species are five years or more," Michael Wright, director of Health, Safety and Environment for the United Steelworkers, told AOL NewsWright praises the dedication of OSHA's staff, calling them "dedicated public servants, in a tough job, trying to do more with less," and added that OSHA is significantly under-resourced as it is, so the House-proposed budget cuts would be catastrophic.Professor David Goldsmith, a former consultant to OSHA, is an occupational and environmental epidemiologist who teaches at George Washington University's School of Public Health. He told AOL News that workers must be given much more education and training on the basics of health and safety before they enter the labor force."There must be a compact between workers and managers to find mutual ways to reduce on-the-job risks," he said. But Goldsmith admits that there are no incentives to reduce risk, only incentives to delay prevention by corporations and industry associations, stopping the adoption of better rules.Dr. Michael Harbut, an occupational medicine specialist with years of working the front lines of worker safety, says OSHA has enough challenges without the budget cuts."OSHA can only operate within the confines of the law, and the law did not adequately contemplate the types of illnesses and deaths which can be caused by chemicals and other potentially harmful agents such as nanoparticles, which have been and will be introduced since the law was passed," Harbut, a cancer specialist, said.The National Park Service declared the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. a national landmark in 1991. The owners, Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, may have been acquitted of criminal charges, but their notoriety has long outlived them.Their insurance company paid $400 for each worker who died that day -- about $60,000. According to documents collected by Cornell University, Harris and Blanck doled out just $75 to each family and pocketed the rest.The final note to this tragic epic is that the remains of six of the workers were so badly charred their names were never known, but this year, a century later, Michael Hirsch, a historian and and amateur genealogist, tracked down the identities of the missing six.For the first time, their names will be read with the other 140 who died that horrible day.

To fascists like RichClem, worker safety regulations "violate" our freedom. (And, of course, cuts into corporate profits)

Tea Party fascists whine about "no press coverage." Tea Party Rally? Alert the Liberal Media!04/01/2011 by Peter HartI was struck by how much coverage yesterday's rather small-looking Tea Party rally in Washington got in the national media. Slate's Dave Weigel has a piece (3/31/11) explaining that the event wasn't as "extreme as Democrats would like it to be," as the subhead says.But the movement's also not nearly as popular as the media coverage would lead you to believe. As Weigel notes, this rally was rather sparsely attended--especially if you weren't counting reporters: About 200 Tea Party activists trod over damp grass to hear their leaders respond to [House Speaker John] Boehner. There was at least one reporter for every three or four activists. They were there to hear conservatives rip into Republicans for statements like the one Boehner had just made. "I think there are more press than Tea Party Patriots here," joked freshman Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., in an aside to one of the organizers.Liberal media! The Tea Party media blackout continues....http://www.fair.org/blog/#post-17820What a bunch of ****.

$1.5 trillion: Total amount of wealth owned by billionaires in the U.S. $4.5 trillion: Total amount of wealth owned by billionaires in the entire world.The combined wealth of all U.S. millionaires and billionaires in 2009 is $10.7 trillion. That's not income, that's total assets. Your claim of $3.9 trillion in tax cuts is out right wrong. $3.9 trillion is 36.4% of the total value of all millionaires and billionaires in the U.S. If all the millionaires and billionaires combined earned $10.7 trillion in one year then the Bush tax cuts would have to be 36.4% change in tax rate of with the Bush tax cuts vs. without. But these millionaires and billionaires didn't earn $10.7 trillion in one year, That's their total assets combined, not annual income.In reality the doing away with the Bush tax cuts on the rich had a much smaller affect on collected taxes. Without the Bush tax cut, the federal income tax rate on millionaires is 36%. Only a 3% change. With the Bush tax cuts it's 33% On billionaires without the Bush tax cuts it's 39.6%. With the Bush tax cuts it's 35%. Only a 4.6% change. Regardless of wealth, investment taxes would have increased from 15% to 20% if the cuts expired.Lets assume most of the wealth a millionaire/billionaire earns comes from investments, since the change in investment taxes are the largest. Further, lets assume the $10.7 trillion total combined wealth of U.S. millionaires and billionaires was income for one year instead of it being a combined wealth of total assets. We will assume this so that we can tax their entire wealth not just what they earned in 1 year.5% increase in taxes on $10.7 trillion is only $535 billion. Over 5 times less then the $3.9 trillion claim you made. In reality, it's no where near $535 billion, because $10.7 trillion wasn't millionaire and billionaire income for a tax year. It is their combined asset wealth.I find it very interesting, Chris, that you had NO IDEA who spayandneuterlibs was, and then when confronted with the identical IP, he suddenly turned out to be your "cousin." Just couldn't stay away, huh? And after all that self-righteousness about the "tone" of this forum, which your screen name had NOTHING to do with, right? Well, whatever name you decide to use, I am happy to see that you are TRYING to bring something more than what your erstwhile screen name promised. It WOULD be nice if you could come in flying anything other than a false flag - but that is ever so much to ask of cons. It is quite common for cons to come in pretending to be libs, or otherwise flying false flags. Even teacher comes in here preaching neocon pabulum right down the line while insisting he is a "hunch-backed libertarian," or some such nonsense. It is so rare to see any of you folks just come in clean and represent yourselves honestly. And here we are with you, on the one hand claiming not to know old spayandneuter, and in the next instant he's your uncle's kid...Make up your mind, son. Anyhow, Chris, welcome back.

I find it very interesting, Chris, that you had NO IDEA who spayandneuterlibs was, and then when confronted with the identical IP, he suddenly turned out to be your "cousin." Just couldn't stay away, huh? And after all that self-righteousness about the "tone" of this forum, which your screen name had NOTHING to do with, right? Well, whatever name you decide to use, I am happy to see that you are TRYING to bring something more than what your erstwhile screen name promised. It WOULD be nice if you could come in flying anything other than a false flag - but that is ever so much to ask of cons. It is quite common for cons to come in pretending to be libs, or otherwise flying false flags. Even teacher comes in here preaching neocon pabulum right down the line while insisting he is a "hunch-backed libertarian," or some such nonsense. It is so rare to see any of you folks just come in clean and represent yourselves honestly. And here we are with you, on the one hand claiming not to know old spayandneuter, and in the next instant he's your uncle's kid...Make up your mind, son. Anyhow, Chris, welcome back.I can tell you right now, Julia is not Spray. If she is, the guy had an almost COMPLETE flop on not only stances but personality as well.That would be like Rich leaving, coming back, and being damn near an outright progressive liberal with some actual culture. Not to mention, Spray wasn't nearly as intelligent. So he must of gotten educated while he was gone as well? Edited by Kelliak, 04 April 2011 - 05:17 AM.

Mods shouldn't accuse, but rather ask, unless they are sure, and should apologize once it becomes apparent they're mistaken. I've seen Cannon make things right after he was mistaken before. Gaily, never. I ran an IP check on Julia the first time I saw her, but didn't say anything because it was obvious she wasn't spayandneuterlibs. I didn't even have to ask. Cannon jumped on the wrong bandwagon this time.

The lessons of Triangle Shirtwaist fire may be lost 100 years later.The country faces certain economic systemic collapse from permanent $1.5 trillion deficits, the real unemployment rate is roughly 11%, yet this moonbat brings up a fire that happened 100 years ago?Hey look, a squirrel!You can't make stuff like this up.How are Obama and Dems going to balance the budget?The Republican Future looks exactly like the past.Yeah, like the Constitution and the Founding Principles, duuh.Onward Socialism, moonbat, even as almost the entire world abandons it.

Livestock producers are causing MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) We now have proof.By: Toby WollinPeople - get on the horn, email, tweet, whatever to your Congress Critters and Senators about this:The groundbreaking study was conducted by genetics researchers who analyzed the genomes of MRSA bacteria from patients and their farm animals, and found the samples to be genetically identical. Published on Tuesday in EMBO Molecular Medicine, the study confirms animal-to-human transmission of MRSA.Study confirms MRSA transmission from livestock to humans.Heres the link to the EMBO study results: Animal to human Transmission of MRSALouise Slaughter (who represents the Rochester area of Upstate NY) has put forward strong legislation to basically shut down the routine and uncontrolled use of antibiotics in livestock food and water which is causing this. Please take the time to read her release AND the legislation (HR 1150), which contains the history of knowledge of livestock antibiotic use in livestock and the promotion of resistant bacteria.HR 1150I leave you with one piece of information which will literally make you ill (because it did me): The USDA ALREADY had study results showing that this routine low-level use of antibiotics in livestock feeds and water would cause the development of reservoirs of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. IN 1977.In 1977, people. And they did nothing.If we have to depend on Congress to fix this, we're all doomed.

One of the latest GOP Talking Points is that the number of people on Social Security disability has skyrocketed under Obama, the implication being that the standards to receive such benefits have been relaxed. More of that 'free stuff' that Obama is supposedly giving away in return for votes. Strange, I've never, ever read one single story that implies that. The key point of the many, many stories is that the economy is so rotten and decent jobs so difficult to find, that more fraud is being committed out of desperation. Did Obama's economic policies work? Come on, "Head Ball Breaker," give us a laugh. If we have to depend on Congress to fix this, we're all doomed. If we have to depend on Obama and Democrats passing good economic policy and eliminating the deficit, we're all doomed. The country will undergo Systemic Economic Collapse. More and more people are warning of that.

If we have to depend on Congress to fix this, we're all doomed.Little Miss Marxist is playing the Democrat game,"Hey look, a squirrel!" Trying desperately to distract from THE key issue now; the dangerously weak economy and the country's impending bankruptcy.Associated Press on the Latest Jobs Numbers: A Recovery ‘Isn’t Supposed to Be This Way’....It isn’t supposed to be this way. After a recession, an improving economy is supposed to bring people back into the job market.Instead, the number of Americans in the labor force – those who have a job or are looking for one – fell by nearly half a million people from February to March, the government said Friday. And the percentage of working-age adults in the labor force – what’s called the participation rate – fell to 63.3 percent last month. It’s the lowest such figure since May 1979....People without a job who stop looking for one are no longer counted as unemployed. That’s why the U.S. unemployment rate dropped in March despite weak hiring. If the 496,000 who left the labor force last month had still been looking for jobs, the unemployment rate would have risen to 7.9 percent in March.“Unemployment dropped for all the wrong reasons,” says Craig Alexander, chief economist with TD Bank Financial Group. “It dropped because more workers stopped looking for jobs. It signaled less confidence and optimism that there are jobs out there.”http://www.theblaze....to-be-this-way/

And please don't go the whole 'people will want to marry animals' next route.Although judging by your approval of bestiality porn, I'm guessing you'd be in favor of that.Great example of the ugly character of Liberalism; lie and smear.And ignore the horrific problems their philosophy and policies caused.Is there any racism in allowing the collapse of Detroit?Rebuilding a Ruined CityBy Ed Feulner - April 7, 2013Many are warning that the United States could become the next Greece. But there’s no need to look across the ocean to see a poorly-governed area that’s deep in debt and crumbling. Just look to Detroit.That city was once the picture of American industrial might. Henry Ford deployed the production line there and helped create the modern middle class. During World War II, more than a third of U.S. war material was manufactured in the city. And during the post-war boom, cars made in Detroit embodied the American success story.Now, though, the Motor City is collapsing in every conceivable way.The unemployment rate is 18 percent, meaning almost one of every five people is out of work. A big reason for that is that the city’s schools have failed. Just 7 percent of eighth-graders are proficient in reading. Only a handful of Detroit residents (12 percent) have a college degree. Yet Detroit teachers are the best paid in the nation, the Mackinac Center for Policy Policy says, when their pay is adjusted for purchasing power.Meanwhile, Detroit is $327 million in the red and has no credible plan to get back on its feet.http://www.realclear...l#ixzz2PukDcLKw

If you don't want to be called a Nazi, then stop acting like a **** dictator. Oh gosh, my brown shirt is at the dry cleaners. I feel so embarrassed. Speaking of clueless moonbats, Chris Mathews is obviously still having wet dreams about Obama. Or he's hit the sauce again. "Coming up, when is President Obama going to get some credit — and this is like Rodney Dangerfield — when's he going to get some credit for this amazing economy that's coming back?...It really is amazing. And the stock market for the rich is going through the roof. When's this guy going to get some respect?" — REAL! Matthews said this on MSNBC’s Hardball, March 8.http://www.mrc.org/n...eltdown-edition It's amazing that you think at least 11% and still rising real unemployment is something worth praising. What's amazing is that you're so unbelievably clueless.

Misty, on 06 Apr 2013 - 15:45, said:One of the latest GOP Talking Points is that the number of people on Social Security disability has skyrocketed under Obama, the implication being that the standards to receive such benefits have been relaxed. More of that 'free stuff' that Obama is supposedly giving away in return for votes.Strange, I've never, ever read one single story that implies that.There were threads on this forum about it.The key point of the many, many stories is that the economy is so rotten and decent jobs so difficult to find, that more fraud is being committed out of desperation.Typical of you to ignore what it said in my post about the eight former SSA commissioners who said that the growth that we’ve seen was predicted by actuaries as early as 1994 and is mostly the result of two factors: baby boomers entering their high disability years, and women entering the workforce in large numbers in the 1970s and 1980s so that more are now "insured" for DI based on their own prior contributions.Perhaps you can supply some proof that the number of people defrauding SSI or SSDI has gone up?

Little Miss Marxist is playing the Democrat game,"Hey look, a squirrel!" Trying desperately to distract from THE key issue now; the dangerously weak economy and the country's impending bankruptcy.So you think that my concern over the transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which currently kills more Americans each year than HIV/AIDS) from livestock to humans, is just a distraction, and that we shouldn't talk about it Puss?By all means, let's only discuss the subjects that you deem to be important.Jackhole.One more time for my mentally challenged little friend.......This is my thread. I will decide which subjects I want to post about, not you.You don't get to decide what's important to me, or what gets discussed here.You are ruining my thread with pages and pages of your repetitious, regurgitated ****.If all you want to discuss is the economy, then start your own damn thread, or drag up all your old ones and respond to your own posts, which is what you seem to be doing lately anyway.Maybe the reason you have resorted to replying to yourself is that everyone is as sick of you as I am.You're a bully who thinks that you have the right to dictate what every thread is about, and when someone doesn't agree with you, you resort to childish name calling.You're the biggest joke on this forum. No one takes you seriously any more, least of all me.