Prairie Fire Journal

If you want to know why most of the world believes that Texas is populated mostly by stupid inbred hillbillies, just take a look at the Republican idiots representing the state in Congress. Rep. Joe Barton is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Republican Senator John "Cornhead" Cornyn was quick to concur with Barton's "shakedown" remarks. The Texas electorate is, indeed, a bunch of really stupid morons. What else would explain this?

The Republican leadership was quick to tamp down Barton's remarks, even though many of them have been saying basically the same thing for weeks. Apparently a light finally went on in their thick skulls and it dawned on them that the American people might not share the Republican's love of Big Oil at this particular point in time. Barton's apology to BP CEO Tony Hayward was more than just some flippant remark from a teabagger squarehead loon like Michele Bachmann. This was the equivalent of prime time, with millions of Americans tuned in to see what Hayward had to say for himself and his company.

This was too in-your-face, even for Republican teabaggers. A ranking Republican member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was showing all the cards. Of course, those on the left really weren't surprised by Barton's blush-faced apology to Hayward and Republican's unwavering support for Big Oil. Barton was only stating the obvious: His love of Big Oil and his disdain for working-class Americans. Now maybe all you Joe and Jane Smoes will understand that the Republicans don't give a damn about the working class. And even if it was a shakedown of BP, it's about time the oil companies got some of what they've been giving us for years.

It's been said that if elections really changed anything, they'd be illegal. No fundamental change has ever come to America without the people getting in the streets by the millions and showing their discontent. Will the Summer of 2010 be the moment when the fuse is finally lit for major civil unrest? Will the legions of unemployed, poor, and marginalized workers finally say enough is enough? Is it finally sinking in that the government continues to give to the rich, even as it has already given them the greatest tranfer of wealth in the history of the world? Let's hope so. It's time for Americans to take their outrage to the streets. That's the only thing that will finally drive home reality to the corporate puppets. Make this summer one the politicians won't soon forget.

Here's what the Democrats are doing to help the poor and long-term unemployed:
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Yes, that's right, they're doing nothing. No hopes of a job? Too bad. Bed down at the Salvation Army or take the family on an extended "camping" trip. The kids will be thrilled to live in a tent. That's pretty much what the Democrats are offering America's jobless millions. Do you feel stimulated? Just a continuation of Bush-League politics.

If you really want to know what's wrong with the health care system, you can begin by looking at doctors. It's not fancy high-tech treatment that is causing the system to buckle under its own overpriced weight, it's doctors who continue to raise their prices that is a large chunk of the problem. And if that's not bad enough, now many doctors are threatening to stop treating seniors on Medicare because of a scheduled 21 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors.

It isn't enough that Texas doctors got their special-interest tort reform passed several years ago by the Legislature that deprives parties injured by doctor malpractice of their right to have damages determined by a jury. Now they want to bar poor old grandma and grandpa from entering their office for treatment. What a pathetic bunch. They all think they're the earthly equivalent of God and whined endlessly that the high cost of malpractice insurance was a burden on them and the leading cause of rising health care costs.

Well Texas passed tort reform and even added an amendment to the state constitution putting a cap on damage awards, but most people didn't see a concommitant decrease in doctors fees. That's how doctors are, they want you to get less in damage awards when they cutoff the wrong leg or remove the wrong organ, but they don't feel like they should also reciprocate with some price reductions of their own. Oh no, heaven forbid that the Gods of Medicine should accept a reduction in Medicare payments. Doctors are basically telling the most vulnerable members of our society to go get screwed. Seniors already struggling to make ends meet on fixed incomes now have more to worry about.

Any doctor in Texas who refuses to treat a Medicare patient should have their license revoked. Bunch of shameless prima donnas, many of whom are still literally "practicing medicine."

As has been reported the past week by ABC News and others, in the early days following the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon, BP and the Obama Administration withheld videos from the public showing the massive scope of the oil spewing out from below.

The Coast Guard claims that it couldn't release the videos because BP told them not to. That shows you who really controls the government. Not only did the Obama Administration abide by BP's demand not to release the videos early on, but also continued to downplay the serious of the situation with a very nice disinformation campaign.

During this time, Coast Guard Admiral Mary Landry and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the public not to get fixated on an estimate of how much oil was leaking. Both officials kept regurgitating the bogus figure of 5,000 barrels a day. They stuck by their lies for several weeks, apparently hoping that BP would get the leak stopped and nobody would ever be the wiser.

The leak didn't get stopped and the Obama Administration was forced to let the cat out of the bag. Then Obama goes on TV and says his administration has been on top of the situation from day one. Oh yeah, they were on top of it all right, trying to keep a lid on the facts. More lies and bamboozling from the capitalist con artists and corporate puppets. Now do you understand that elections don't change anything?

The Obama Administration would like Americans to believe that if the economy just got back to the way it was in 2007 before the depression hit, that everything would be coming up roses. The truth is that prior to the economic meltdown most workers in this country were struggling paycheck to paycheck. Wages were stagnant or in decline and homeowners were forced to cashout their home equity to supplement those declining wages. Businesses were busy reducing or eliminating worker health care benefits and pensions.

After endless congressional investigations and hearings, the corporate criminals responsible for the decline of the American working class have yet to be held accountable. They most likely never will. The Obama Administration has done absolutely nothing to address the fundamental structural problems that have brought total castrophe to working-class families. Again, they most likely never will.

While Obama feins outrage over corporate greed and corruption, the truth is that his administration continues to let the status quo prevail. He's more concerned with seeing the stock market rise than he is with restoring some balance between corporate profits and worker wages. Oh, he talks like he's concerned, but his actions just don't match the rhetoric. Obama has bamboozled American workers.

The only thing that has changed is the economic condition of the American working class continues to deteriorate even more. The Democrats are just as much in the pocket of Big Business as the Republicans are.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve claim that economic recovery is spreading across the country. They join the ranks of the Obama Liars Club who claim the economy is growing at an annual rate of about 3 percent. What a bunch of crap. Perhaps they all firmly believe that if they keep repeating this lie enough times, the 20 million unemployed Americans will begin to believe it's true.

If you cut a tree down to its stump, and then a small branch grows out of the stump, I suppose you could call that "growth." If you reach the top of a mountain peak, tumble back down to the base of the mountain, and then start climbing up the mountain again, I suppose you could say you're "rising" in altitude. However, in both instances, you are still in a negative position compared to where you were originally.

That's exactly the kind of smoke-and-mirrors game that the Obama Administration and the Fed are perpetrating on the American public. The economy is still in a negative position compared to where it was before the economic depression began in 2007. We are still in a deep hole (depression) that will take at least a decade to climb out of before it can honestly be said that America is experiencing economic growth.

In the meantime, the Fed continues to provide free money to banks, while the banks continue to rape the American people.

BP CEO Tony Hayward is scheduled to appear before Congress next week to answer questions concerning the mass murder of 11 workers and the unleashing of the greatest ecological disaster in U.S. history. As soon as Hayward sets foot on American soil he should be arrested, charged with capital murder, and held without bail until trial. It won't happen, but it should happen if there is any justice in this country for the victims of this heinous crime.

Conservative skank and whore for Republican obstructionists, incumbent faux-Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln has won the Arkansas Democratic Senate runoff election, defeating union-backed Lt. Governor Bill Halter. She'll face Republican congressman John Boozman in the November 2 election.

I hope the bitch gets her ass kicked by Boozman. It won't be a loss for Democrats, since Lincoln sided with the Republican obstructionists in helping to destroy any hope of substantive healthcare insurance reform. She opposed single-payer and the public option. When it came time to side with the working class or the corporate class, Lincoln chose the latter.

Convicted ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff sits in his prison cell at a federal facility nicknamed "Camp Fluffy" gloating and talking shit about the people he victimized through the largest ponzi scheme in history.

BP CEO Tony Hayward views the mass murder of 11 workers and the greatest ecological disaster to hit America as being an inconveniance on his ivory-tower lifestyle.

Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship has yet to be held accountable for the mass murder of 29 West Virginia coal miners back in April.

There is a way to prevent, or drastically reduce, such events from ever happening again. Build a giant gallows along one of the fouled Gulf Coast beaches, and then publicly hang about a dozen of these corporate criminals. Leave their bodies hanging and let the birds pick the bones clean, thus providing an example to other CEOs and speculators who might contemplate committing similar crimes in the future.

Now that's a deterrent.