By BobbiV

During the Bush Administration, big energy corporations like Massey got around regulation on a regular basis.  They did this with the implicit okay of the Republican House and Senate with their hell bent rush to remove any and all regulation from corporations.  The way things were set up, a corporation like Massey could file appeals after citations for even gross safety negligence.  The appeals process was a long and delayed one.  During the time the complaint was awaiting adjudication of the appeal, the corporation was free to continue business as usual including the action that drew the citation in the first place.

It didn’t take long with all the paper flying for the government offices overseeing safety and inspections of these corporations to be mired in paperwork and greatly backlogged.  Surprise, surprise!  this entire paper game led to needless and completely avoidable deaths at mines and in other industries.

Now the House of Representatives has taken steps to clear our the backlog and get agencies back on track with enforcement of safety laws and standards.  How did they do this?  By the appropriation of funds that will empower these agencies to catch up to date on their work.  In that way they stop the end around game the corporations have been relying on to delay enforcement of the penalties for their violations.

According to Republican philosophy the” free market will regulate itself without government regulation”. But they always leave out the end of that sentence which is “as long as the government or other enforcement is always looking over their shoulder”.

Tell me Republicans, just how do you do that without government regulation?  The relatives of all the dead workers would sincerely like to know.

Read what the AFL-CIO has to say about this here.

A government regulator reaches toward escape from the tons of paperwork corporations have saddled him with.

By BobbiV

We all are aware that Helen Thomas has left a vacancy in the White House Press Corps.  The recent departure has left her front row seat at White House press briefings vacant.

Fox really covets this front row seat.  But the question is, do they deserve it?  My answer is no.  In fact, I don’t think Fox should really be at the press briefings at all.  They should go to RNC briefings and press conferences held by Republican lawmakers or candidates.  However, since Fox is an arm of the Republican Party and not  a legitimate news network, it seems to me they should not have a seat at the table, any more than other strictly political organizations should.

National Public Radio would also like to have the front row seat in question.  NPR has been reporting on government for four decades and they have given the public some of the best press coverage available during that time.  In my opinion they deserve the seat and have put in the time and effort to earn it.

Bloomberg is the other news group vying for this coveted seat.  I would much rather see a Bloomberg press representative in the chair than any of the Fox want to be journalist lackeys.

It will be decided Monday just who gets the prized front row seat at White House press briefings.  Credo has a petition up which asks that Fox not get the seat and asks that NPR be moved into the vacancy.

If you feel as I do about this, please sign the petition.  Remember, this seat is a big prize to Beltway journalists.  Lets try to keep the communal Fox head from swelling any further and give the seat to the people who have really earned it.  Besides, it will be fun to hear O’Reilly and the rest whine about losing.  Hey, maybe Beck will cry for us!

Below is the link to the petition.  If you sign it please also take the time to post it on Twitter and Facebook too.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/fox_or_npr/

Yup, there he is, right on cue, with the Vicks already spread under the eyes.

Soon the big wigs and big donors of the RNC will be gathering for a rally/dinner/fundraiser/ big party in that bastion of the common working man they claim to represent, Beverly Hills California.

With tickets running as high as $60,800 for a couple this is sure to bring out all the hard working 9-5 Joe the plumber types that have the extra cash in their Glenn Beck gold account.  I am also quite certain that whatever posh retreat they are planning to hold the event in is rushing to add hundreds of mobile home power and sewage hookups to their resort to accommodate all the motor homes the tea baggers will be driving in from around the nation.

Needless to say they are not concerned with security at this event.  They think it is okey dokey, fine and dandy to carry loaded weapons in close proximity to President Obama, so I am certain there will be plenty of firepower at this event.  It would just make security guards armed with mere pepper spray and stun guns redundant.

Once you have paid your thousands of dollars, enjoyed the fine wine and food with your wife, mistress, escort or rent boy you will be in for the thrilling speeches.  Ahhh yes! the thrilling and captivating speeches made by those people who embody what the RNC and Republican party stand for.

As these pillars of what you stand for look out over the gun packing, date purchasing crowd of’ working Joes and people from small town America that you so vocally represent I am sure they will be inspired.  They will know that they are speaking straight to the heart of the common man and will give a speech that must be  recorded for all the world to hear and for all posterity.

The main man for the event, the one who shares your values the most is sure to give the best speech of all.  He will after all be the keynote speaker for the entire gathering.  He is the one you paid the $60,800 to see (plus the extra cost of a date and the motor home hookup) and you are looking forward to him inspiring you and telling you how things are in real America.

Enter Andrew Breitbart!!!

Yes, you will be inspired by the master of video tape editing himself Andrew Breitbart!  Yes, the Andrew Breitbart!  The one that is a proven liar!  The man that single handedly took down an organization that represents the dreaded minorities with lies and selective editing of a video.  The man that destroyed what should have been a speech on racial tolerance and turned it in to a racial issue.  The man who ruined another persons life for no better reason than he could!  That Andrew Breitbart.

The man that most represents what the RNC is all about will inspire you with tales of his truthiness.  He will regale you with his video magic.  He will lie to you over and over again just like he lies to everyone else and you will eat it up.

Enjoy your squab, capons, hired dates and fine wine.  Lap up the lies that Andrew Breitbart tells you from the sterling silver bowl they will place in front of you.  Feel good about having lies told to you and the day after you leave Beverly Hills take a drive in your motor home through the rest of Los Angeles and look long and hard at the world around you.

Then you can go home with dose of real truth and not just your own truthiness.

Below are copies of the invitation from Talking Points Memo.  I am posting them here for you to look over until you get yours in the mail.

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By BobbiV

Republican Senators, especially those who were roomies at C-Street, claim to be very good Christians with the highest of family and moral values.  How they do this while at the same time keeping a straight face, I will never understand.

The latest in the saga from the C-Street boys is Oklahoma Republican member of the Senate Dr. Tom Coburn turning on his very good buddy Nevada Republican member of the Senate John Ensign.  Yes, that Senator Ensign.  The one who was involved in a salacious affair with the wife of his friend and employee.  The one who had his Mommy and Daddy pay off the friend.  The one who had Tom Coburn by his side during the hyjinx, including having Coburn negotiate the pay off amount for the wronged family.  The one who is being investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee.  The one who is under investigation by the FBI.

Now it seems, Senator Coburn has dropped the dime on Senator Ensign, so to speak.

From Politico;

Coburn told POLITICO that he is cooperating with the Justice Department in the investigation of Ensign, and says he’s willing to submit himself to an interview with the FBI or Senate Select Committee on Ethics, which is conducting a parallel investigation into whether Ensign broke Senate rules.

“We’ve given them everything they wanted,” Coburn said, referring to the Justice Department.

Coburn would not reveal what was in the e-mails he is sharing with federal authorities, but a Coburn aide said the Oklahoma Republican turned over more than 1,200 pages of documents to the Justice Department.

But Coburn’s decision to provide potential evidence to the Justice Department is another blow for Ensign, and could help federal investigators build their case against his fellow Republican colleague.

Read the rest here.

What is that old saying about tangled webs and deceiving?  Looks like Ensign might be remembering it sooner rather than later.

I just know because he is one of the Senators from the state where I live, I wish he would just resign and get it over with.  After all, that is what he said Bill Clinton should do.  What a consummate hypocrite.

Senator John Ensign (R-NV)

The writers here at LunaCanus are not, and have never claimed to be journalists. We try to look at the world and our nations issues from the standpoint of a common everyday person. Then we tell you what we think about what is happening and hope that you will agree. We try to present you with facts that back up what we say and never intentionally lie about a topic or a person.

That being said, I would like to ask all the wing nut, tea bagger, holy rolling, gun packing, right wing fringe followers out there why they are so loyal to FOX news? Is it that you like having lies told to you? Do you really want your news to come from the equivalent of a five year old child attempting to lie their way out of the last lie they told you?

On this topic I think we can all agree on one thing, when we look for news we are seeking some kernel of truth. Granted that different outlets will slant that truth in a wide variety of ways, but that same kernel of honesty should be at the core of the issue.  This is not the case with FOX news, nor has it been the case for some time, if ever.

When you knowingly edit video tapes to forward your political agenda, when you knowingly lie about an issue, when you set out to destroy a persons reputation and career you are no longer a news network.  You are a weapon in the hands of those you serve.  Your credibility is reduced to nothing and your so called news stories are viewed as political hatchet jobs.

Then you commit the crime that any parent would skewer their child for.  When caught in a lie, you tell an even bigger lie in a vain attempt to cover your ass.  Of course, you have already done the damage you set out to do by telling the lie in the first place, so you are happy.  In the meantime the entire neighborhood is left cleaning up after your dirty diapers.

FOX news is now more like a 24 hour a day infomercial.  They no longer report the news, they just make it up.  Just like the products you buy from the 3A.M. loudmouthed salesman on an infomercial, the product they sell never seems to be quite what they said it was.

So, as it is proven over and over and yet over again that FOX is a network of liars, I am forced to ask how long will you believe them?

Fox learned a valuable lesson from a TV show I watch.  On it a character talks about the story of the boy that cried wolf and why by the end of the story people did not believe him.  Upon hearing the tail the character named “Garek” says the problem was not that the boy lied, but that he told the same lie twice!

That is the level to which FOX news has sunk.  Attempting to fill the airwaves 24 hours a day with lies, while never repeating a lie.  They solved it by just hammering the same lie for a short period of time into the eyes of the viewers over and over and over and over and over again and again and again and again.

Shame on FOX.  Shame on their lies. Shame on their cover ups.  Shame on their lame ass excuses.  Shame on the so called journalists that make up the news and do not report it.  Shame on all those who have been lied to over and over and still believe the  children at FOX when they lie to you yet again.

Your brain extends beyond emotions and bodily functions.  Ir developed over a long time so that you can actually THINK!  I know it may hurt some of the hardcore FOX news junkies to put their brains through that much work, but I would like to ask them to think once in a blue moon for themselves and not just let Billo, Beck and Hannity do all the thinking for them fill their minds with falsehoods.

Just to illustrate how deluded the typical FOX viewer is, watch while Rachel Maddow shows Bill O’Rielly lies as he tries to cover for the lies his network already told.  They lie about their own lies folks!

By BobbiV

Ever wonder where the tea baggers “grassroots” movement came from?  If you watch Rachel Maddow, you know the whole movement is sponsored and paid for by Republican front groups run by the likes of Dick Armey.  Suffice it to say sleaze begets sleaze.

Finally national polls are starting to investigate the party affiliations of the tea baggers.  Guess what?  You got it, the vast majority is Republican.  Tea baggers are just the far, far right fringe of the Republican Party.  In other words the crazy uncle everyone hopes will stay in his room when people visit.  But during the health care debate, when the Republicans needed loud and possibly a little deranged people to protest Obama and grab press attention, they dragged the crazy uncle from his room and put him on public display.

Now we all know the reason you don’t want the crazy uncle out is because he is an embarrassment and you can never predict just what he might say or do.  The Republicans in their haste to garner attention and to stop the Democratic Administration from making progress, forgot about how embarrassing the crazy uncle could be.  Besides their over sized egos told them they could control the situation and they really thought Fox could deflect close scrutiny of their creation. They were wrong.

Now we are finding out more and more about the real history of the tea baggers.  We know they are liberally sprinkled with racist white supremacists and just completely bat guano crazy John Birchers.  In fact, if you attend a tea bagger rally you will get high from all the delusion in the air wafting off the gathered wing nuts.

As far as the make up of the tea baggers group, here it is  according to pollster Gallup;

Conservative Republicans outnumber moderate/liberal Republicans in the general population by about a 2-to-1 margin; among Tea Party supporters, the ratio is well more than 3 to 1. More generally, almost 8 out of 10 Tea Party supporters are Republicans, compared with 44% of all national adults.

These findings are based on three surveys Gallup conducted in March, May, and June of this year. Thirty percent of Americans, on average, identify as Tea Party supporters — a percentage remarkably consistent across the three surveys.

You can see the rest here.

I will make the assumption that most of you are not surprised by these findings.  The only thing that surprised me at all was the few tea baggers who claimed to be liberal or moderate Democrats.  I believe these people were told to say that so the tea baggers could look as though there was some diversity.  But then, maybe they once called themselves liberal or moderate Dems and didn’t know what it really meant , or they are the very few racists we used to have in our ranks.  You can decide that for yourself.

The tea bagger ideal 2012 Presidential ticket.

By BobbiV

An unrepentant Andrew Breitbart told POLITICO on Thursday that the Obama administration and its allies have manufactured a controversy over the video he posted of Shirley Sherrod’s speech to the NAACP as part of an orchestrated effort to take him down.

“I am public enemy No. 1 or 2 to the Democratic Party, the progressive movement and the Obama administration based upon the successes my journalism has had.”

Oh my, aren’t these conservative, Republican, wing nuts a laugh a minute?  Breitbart is actually referring to the smears he perpetrated on ACORN and Shirley Sherrod as journalism.  Can you believe that?

By the way, Mr. Breitbart, you are not public enemy number one or two to the Democratic Party, so please don’t delude yourself with that or try to use it to excuse yourself.  I have been a member of the Democratic Party for over forty years and you don’t come even close to measuring up as public enemy one or two.  In fact, there is little chance you would even make the list at all.

My parents were also proud members of the Democratic Party.  During their time the enemies were Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo.  They were whipped under a Democratic administration.  That was after and partially during the time they whipped Republican President Hoover’s Great Depression.

During my time, one of our biggest public enemies has been bigotry.  We thought we whipped that with The Civil Rights Bill which as you should know, came under another Democratic administration.

Then racists like you come along and prove we drove you underground and didn’t really wipe you out.  But rest assured your time is very, very limited.  People are on to your racist fear mongering and  they aren’t buying your bull.  You are like pale shadows of the racists we have already faced so you don’t scare us in the least.

By the way, journalism is not believing something then altering the facts to fit your bigoted view and sticking your perversion of the truth up on the Internet.  You are about as much of a journalist as I am.  This site gives opinions not perversions, but I am still not a journalist.  However, on a scale of one to ten we beat you by nine.

Breitbart, I am really sorry your parents didn’t give you the attention you craved as you grew up.  It is sad that their lack of attention turned you into the attention whore you are today.  But even with that excuse, you should quit trying to ruin other people to make up for your own ruination.

In case you want to know, I am a sixty three year old woman with only one leg and I have no use of my left arm.  I could still whip you with my good arm tied behind my back.  And don’t try to say I am attacking you because I am black and it is reverse racism.  My lineage has been traced back to the Vikings and I am so white you can almost read through me on sunny days.

I know it rocks your little world to know that even white people see you as the hack and the bigot  you are.  That is just the way it is.  Get used to it, enjoy your fifteen minutes then crawl back under your rock with your tea bagger friends.  The Democratic side is too busy trying to clean up the Bush, Cheney mess to be sidelined  by giving too much time to back bencher wannabes  like you and Drudge.

Breitbart when caught - lipstick, what lipstick? I didn't see any lipstick.

While the controversy over Fox News, Brietbart and the rest of the Shirley Sherrod scandal is still hot, we must continue  to draw attention to it.  Because Fox and pals deserve to be pilloried for their fake journalism and outright lies and also because this  needs to stay sharp in our minds in case anyone, ever again tries to tell us Fox is a legitimate news source.  We must make them understand character assassination is not journalism nor is it legitimate reporting on politics.

The legitimate,  hard working media and press has been responding to the Fox , Brietbart scandal by airing a whole lot of truth about this matter.  I will bring you two videos of popular newsmen responding to the Fox embarrassment.

First up, CNN’s Anderson Cooper;

This time, I must say Anderson Cooper tells it like it is.  Except I do want him to know, some people on the Internet do have standards and care very much about the truth.

Next, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann;

Keith even came away from his vacation to tape this.  Now that is dedication.  Somehow I cannot see Bill O’Reilly doing that.  I think he would put his pleasure before anything else, no matter how important it was.