How the US got $14 Trillion in Debt and Who are the Creditors

Bachmann Has Cold Shoulder for Tough Questions

LINK

Rep. Michele Bachmann really doesn't want to answer questions about her husband's Christian counseling clinics or about why her district has been dubbed a "suicide contagion area" by Minnesota officials.

Bachmann has an increasing amount to answer for. Mother Jones broke a story this week about the "teen suicide epidemic" in Bachmann's district. Nine teenagers have died during the last two years, and some parents are directly assigning blame to Bachmann.

“I feel if I hadn't moved to this district my daughter wouldn't have died,” one mother told Mother Jones.

So far Bachmann has said nothing about the problem, although she wasn't shy about opposing antibullying measures proposed in her state in 2006.

A photojournalist with TV station WQAD in Moline, Ill., said his station has evidently been cut off from Bachmann in retribution for an anchor just asking about whether so-called reparative therapy, aimed at turning gay people straight, is offered by her clinics.

The Latest Debt Ceiling Demands

"Because of our deep belief in personal freedom..."

Polls: Voters Want Debt Limit Deal to Cut Spending and Raise Taxes.

LINK

Voters appear to favor raising some taxes as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling, two new polls show.

With the U.S. expected to go into default if the debt ceiling isn’t raised soon, Quinnipiac University’s Polling Institute released a survey Thursday showing voters, 67% to 25%, prefer a deficit-reduction deal that includes both spending cuts and higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations rather than only cuts spending. Democrats, predictably, favored a plan with the tax increases, 87% to 7%, independents were less enthusiastic, 66% to 26%, while Republicans were divided, 43% to 48%.

The survey of 2,311 registered voters had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

A Gallup poll released Wednesday concluded that Americans want the majority of deficit reduction to come through spending cuts, but most favor some combination of reduced expenditures coupled with higher revenues.

When asked how Congress should reduce the federal deficit, 30% said “mostly with spending cuts” and 32% chose “equally with spending cuts and tax increases.” Just 20% said the deal should be exclusively spending cuts and 11% wanted a deal mostly or only with tax increases.

The poll of 1,016 adults had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

SEIU "thugs" acquitted

This made national news at the time, the big bad SEIU "thugs" attacking a poor innocent man. Will the acquittal make the headlines? Somehow I think not.

LINK

Service Employees International Union members Elston McCowan and Perry Molens had been accused of misdemeanor assault in the August, 2009 tussle with button salesman Kenneth Gladney. The fight caught national attention at a time when there was rampant speculation the union had been dispatched to tamp down opposition to President Obama’s health care reform.

Jurors heard conflicting testimony in the two-day trial over who actually started the fight, and they viewed video tape showing the end and aftermath of the brawl — but no video showed who threw the first punch.

Gladney, who took the witness stand wearing a neck brace, testified that McCowan had started the fight by cursing him for displaying an offensive President Obama button, and then slapping Gladney’s hand. Gladney testified that Molens then joined in the attack against him.

McCowan testified that Gladney was the first to turn what had been a verbal argument into a physical fight. Molens testified that he came upon a fight in progress and pulled Gladney off his fellow union member McCowan.

McCowan and Molens were represented by high-profile defense attorney Paul D’ Agrosa, whose legal fees, McCowan said, were paid by the union. During his closing argument, D’ Agrosa questioned whether Gladney was wearing a neck brace to the trial for sympathy, saying it reminded him of a “Brady Bunch” episode.

Gladney had testified that he underwent recent neck surgery not related to the August 2009 fight. Later, outside the court, Gladney told a reporter he belived his neck problems were the result of “blunt trauma” he suffered in the fight.

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Pricey Partisanship