113th Congress is the Worst in American History!

Today is Monday September 30th 2013 and we are just a few hours away from a government shutdown that the Republican party has caused because they won't stand up to their far right wing of their party better known as the Tea Party. The quote "mainstream" republicans are too afraid of these crazy tea party members. There have been many Congress' throughout history that have been called the "Do-Nothing Congress" however the 113th Congress is the embodiment of that saying. No important bills have been passed and on top of that now the government is most likely shutting down because the republicans insist on putting Obamacare provisions in their continuing resolution in order to continue to fund the government for just two more months. The Republican party has turned the congress into a waste of money for the tax payers that they claim to protect from wasteful spending. Let's look at some of the wasteful spending that the Republicans have done in this Congress. According to a CBS piece called "Obamacare Repeal Votes Costs Tens Of Millions" The cost of each vote to repeal Obamacare was 1.45 million dollars to the tax payer, so if we do the math on that the cost of 42 votes to repeal Obamacare was $60.9 million dollars to the taxpayer. (1.45 million times 42 votes to repeal Obamcare = 60.9 million dollars) $60.9 million dollars wasted because the Republicans want to fight a law that was already passed by the last Congress. Let's look at the salaries that each Congressperson makes $174,000 dollars a year and there are currently 232 Republicans in the House and since we are paying each of them and we are wasting our money let's look at how much money we are wasting in total. The total is $40,380,000 in salary that we are paying republican congresspeople ($174,000 times 232 House Republicans) That total does not include the house speaker John Boehner. That's a lot of money wasted by the tax payer in this country.

Now we've talked about all of the money that the tax payer has wasted on the Republican congresspeople Now let's talk about who's at fault for this do nothing congress. The conservatives will blame President Obama and that is the most asinine statement I've ever heard. President Obama has been willing to negotiate with the Republicans and at times I've been frustrated with President Obama because he negotiates too much with the Republicans. Now the President won't negotiate with the Republicans are they will have to nerve to blame him for the government shutdown. The Republicans are totally at fault for coming government shutdown, I keep getting tweets from conservatives that they can shutdown the government in order to defund Obamcare and even if they shutdown the government, Obamacare will be funded so that's a foolish idea but conservatives are foolish people. Another point that conservatives make that I hate is that most Americans are against Obamacare. The reason why that's true is because most Americans do not know what's in Obamacare and the media has failed to report the truth about Obamacare and Americans believe whatever the conservatives say about Obamacare which is why they don't like Obamacare. Which is why we must let Americans know what's actually in Obamacare once that happens more and more people will like Obamacare. The Republicans have nobody to blame but themselves when the American people turn their back on their party and vote them out of the house in 2014. Let's make that happen!

Update: The government shutdown is coming the republicans in the house just passed another bill to fund the government and once again it had the provision that delays the individual mandate for one more year. On top of that Boehner had the nerve to mock President Obama, how disrespectful whether he likes him or not he's the President. So the republicans have set themselves up for their political death in 2014 and I do not feel bad for them at all, that's what they get for aligning themselves with the tea party.

Huffington Post Piece: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/30/john-boehner-mocks-obama_n_4019867.html

Gun Violence Costs Taxpayers too much Money!

Another day, another blog post I woke up this morning and went on my laptop as I usually do and I came across a piece, which pissed me off. I know that it I get pissed off a lot but this is something that not only progressives but conservatives should be pissed off at as well. This piece came from the Huffington Post and the piece was called "Taxpayers Shoulder Bulk Of Gun Violence Health Care Costs: Study" Just reading the title should upset any taxpayer in the country no matter if you conservative or progressive. I can't say that I'm surprised because it seems like taxpayers pay for a lot of things that we should not pay for. Tax cuts for the rich and corporations that cost us billions and billions of dollars as an example. I don't understand the gun culture that this country has. We don't need guns to protect ourselves and to the people that think that you need a gun or hundred guns to protect yourself then you are a coward and you are trying to compensate for something that you don't have either a backbone or balls excuse me for being or crude but it's the truth, or at least my opinion which is good enough since this is my blog. Just kidding, this first paragraph shows how pissed off I am but this needs to be written because I'm sick of what our gun culture is doing to our country.

The Huffington Post was quoting a study which was done by the Urban Institute which was released today. By the way all of the numbers that are going to be quoted are from the year 2010. The study was 16 pages long and I read the study and I found it to be credible and very well done. According to the Huffington Post "About 80 percent of the cost of treating victims of gun violence in 2010 was borne in part by taxpayers, according to an analysis of hospital and insurance data by researchers at the nonpartisan think tank. That means taxpayers paid for victims' care either through government programs like Medicaid or through publicly-funded programs that subsidize hospital care for those who don't have insurance and can't afford to pay." According to the study the estimated total that was spent by hospital was $628,928,222 (pg.4) and according to the Huffington Post the Medicaid cost alone are $327,000,000. That's a lot of money that the tax payer has to pay just because people get shot with guns and to me that's an outrage. Embry Howell, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute said that “The victims are concentrated among young, poor males,” and “This is the population we're talking about and their costs are very high. It's one group that is heavily uninsured." Howell also said that Lawmakers could significantly shrink these costs by making firearms less widely available “This is a preventable cost. If more could be done to prevent these firearm incidents, then the cost will go down,” she said. “Society is paying for this, very few of these people have private insurance.” And that cost us the tax payers even more money and this one of the many reasons why we need some sensible gun regulation or we need to ban guns it's costing too much money and lives. In my opinion the cost is way to high in lives and money and it's time for our lawmakers to step up and do something about this serious problem. This graphic down below shows the cost in 2010 by insurance status:

However according to the Huffington Post the true economic cost of gun violence is much worse "The true economic cost of gun violence is much larger that what hospitals are spending on care. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that gun violence deaths cost the U.S. economy $37 billion and gun injuries $3.7 billion in 2005, the last year the public health agency conducted an analysis. In addition, taxpayers often end up footing the bill for social services for gun violence victims, as well as building the expensive hospital trauma units needed for their treatment." I understand that these numbers are from the year 2005 however these numbers are startling to me, because that's a lot of money that is lost and our lawmakers don't do a damn thing about it and it's sick that they would rather take money from the NRA and other lobbying groups in order to make it easier for Americans to buy guns then to stand up to the NRA and say no enough is enough.

The last point that I want to make in this post is that why do conservatives go crazy when anybody tries to pass background checks? I don't understand why, the second amendment through out history has been understood as a collective right or only applying to militia not an individual right. According to Jeffery Toobin in his piece for the New Yorker it says that "For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The courts had found that the first part, the “militia clause,” trumped the second part, the “bear arms” clause. In other words, according to the Supreme Court, and the lower courts as well, the amendment conferred on state militias a right to bear arms—but did not give individuals a right to own or carry a weapon" In other words through out American history the second amendment has only applied to the militia or as Toobin called it "the militia clause" Then in 2008 the Supreme Court ruled in the case District of Columbia v. Heller the Supreme Court embraced the individual-rights view of the Second Amendment. This is a crazy ruling in my opinion but Scalia opinion just made the whole case even dumber he wrote that “handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home, and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid.” This is like saying that if one day in the future if Americans decide that the most popular weapon for self-defense was a nuclear weapon then Americans should be able to have that weapon. That is the dumbest argument I've even heard for why the second amendment should be a individual right.

PS: I know that this is a long post today and I'm sorry for that but this had to be written and I'll try to keep my blog post shorter for now on...but I can't promise anything I hope that everyone has a great weekend.

Link to Huffington Post piece: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/13/taxpayers-gun-violence_n_3915434.html#slide=2323553

Link to New Yorker piece: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/12/jeffrey-toobin-second-amendment.html