July 28, 2011 journal, the American people are for sale by Congress to the highest bidder. The retirement and membership health benefits paid for by the people are in real jeopardy being reported as though it was some handout like Congress receives from the cooperates. The term entitlement means something you are entitled to after you have paid for it and in this case Social Security is fully paid in advance by the worker and their employers while Medicare is paid monthly by the users yet Pat Robertson's 700 Club scorns entitlements putting it in the same category as welfare and that is not fair. Republicans are now being called terrorists and the President giving in to them shows extreme weakness on his part. Ron Paul has the right formula but he is scorned also by the extreme right not considered. It may not be met by God for America to be saved and with the lunatics in Washington. there is no way this boat can float with the war budget and is real piled on top of us. Its coming down baby under its own weight and the rich are untouchable being in charge. No longer is wrong wrong but wrong is right, lies are passing for the truth and sin is legal. The church has been convinced that it is the will of God for them to kill innocent people. The Bible says "they, (Antichrist people, will kill you thinking they've done God a favor". Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "Anyone who characterizes the deal between the President, Democratic, and Republican leaders as a victory for the American people over partisanship understands neither economics nor politics. The deal does not raise taxes on America's wealthy and most fortunate - who are now taking home a larger share of total income and wealth, and whose tax rates are already lower than they have been, in eighty years." Read the Article. Forget Compromise-The Debt Ceiling Is Unconstitutional Ellen Brown, Truthout: "The debt ceiling crisis can be averted by enforcing the 14th Amendment, which mandates the government to pay its debts already incurred, including pensions. That means Social Security, which IS an 'entitlement,' in the original sense of the word. We're entitled to it because we've paid for it with taxes. The game of Russian roulette being played with the US federal debt has been called a 'grotesque political carnival' and political blackmail. The uproar stems from a statute that is unique to the United States and never did make much sense. First passed in 1917 and revised multiple times since, it imposes a dollar limit on the federal debt." "It also hobbles the capacity of the government to respond to the jobs and growth crisis. Added to the cuts already underway by state and local governments, the deal's spending cuts increase the odds of a double-dip recession. And the deal strengthens the political hand of the radical right. Yes, the deal is preferable to the unfolding economic catastrophe of a default on the debt of the U.S. government. The outrage and the shame is it has come to this choice. More than a year ago, the President could have conditioned his agreement to extend the Bush tax cuts beyond 2010 on Republicans' agreement not to link a vote on the debt ceiling to the budget deficit. But he did not. Many months ago, when Republicans first demanded spending cuts and no tax increases as a condition for raising the debt ceiling, the President could have blown their cover. He could have shown the American people why this demand had nothing to do with deficit reduction but everything to do with the GOP ideological fixation on shrinking the size of the government-thereby imperiling Medicare, Social Security, education, infrastructure, and everything else Americans depend on. But he did not. And through it all the President could have explained to Americans that the biggest economic challenge we face is restoring jobs and wages and economic growth, that spending cuts in the next few years will slow the economy even further, and therefore that the Republicans' demands threaten us all. Again, he did not. The radical right has now won a huge tactical strategic victory. Democrats and the White House have proven they have little by way of tactics or strategy. By putting Medicare and Social Security on the block, they have made it more difficult for Democrats in the upcoming 2012 election cycle to blame Republicans for doing so. By embracing deficit reduction as their apparent goal-claiming only that they'd seek to do it differently than the GOP - Democrats and the White House now seemingly agree with the GOP that the budget deficit is the biggest obstacle to the nation's future prosperity. The budget deficit is not the biggest obstacle to our prosperity. Lack of jobs and growth is. And the largest threat to our democracy is the emergence of a radical right capable of getting most of the ransom it demands". S.& P. Downgrades Debt Rating of U.S. For the First Time Binyamin Appelbaum and Eric Dash, The New York Times News Service: "Standard & Poor's removed the United States government from its list of risk-free borrowers... a downgrade that is freighted with symbolic significance but carries few clear financial implications. The company, one of three major agencies that offer advice to investors in debt securities, said it was cutting its rating of long-term federal debt to AA+, one notch below the top grade of AAA. It described the decision as a judgment about the nation's leaders." Read the Article A Historic Opportunity to Cut Military Spending Robert Naiman, Truthout: "The agreement in Washington to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts has made a lot of people very unhappy. But the agreement had one important positive aspect: it created a historic opportunity for significant cuts in projected military spending... Significant cuts in projected military spending are on the table. Indeed, if the joint committee doesn't agree on a plan or Congress doesn't enact it, $1.2 trillion in cuts in projected spending over ten years will be triggered, of which half must come from the military." Read the Article "Meanwhile, in the southern Helmand province, an Afghan government official said Saturday that NATO troops attacked a house and inadvertently killed eight members of a family, including women and children". We are there killing them & they are killing us, it is a killing enterprise, why are we there? 22 Navy Seals were killed in Afghanistan when the U.S. helicopter was shot down Aug 5. These are reported to be the same Navy Seals that killed the big Sam a month or so a go. There was a movie made once entitled hangman also hang and Navy Seals are assassins. My next painting-The greater secret Holocaust, the Bolshevik revolution killing 100 million Christians 1917 Russian Karl Marx Communism. Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky. The image of Lenin will bear a red Star of David on his chest and the word Antichrist. Russian Communism was not from Russia, it was from Germany.