Update: BillO’s Ads
OK, folks, as promised, here are the advertisers on Bill O’Reilly’s show. There are a lot of em.

KIA
Tums
Progressive Insurance
Ambien CR
Utah’s Tourism Board [no surprise there]
Florida’s Tourism Board [a bit more surprising—tho not much]
Gillette
Courtyard Hotels
Spiriva
Direct TV
Phillips Colon Health

For Tampa Bay Florida residents only:
Brighthouse [BH may have other markets—but I don’t think it’s nationwide]
Bay News 9
Beltzruth law office
If you want to know the local companies in your area that advertise on BillO, I'm afraid you'll have to watch the show [or record it and scan for local advertisers] yourself. fwiw, those ads were aired during the 3rd ad break.

And, here’s the one that shocked and saddened me:
Downy fabric softener—made by Procter & Gamble.
I’m sad because my dad worked for this company all his life and, as a result, I’ve used their products all of mine.

I’m shocked because:
P&G’s headquarters is in Cincinnati, Ohio. Some years ago, early in the time when the issue of gay marriage was beginning to get press, that city was poised to make discrimination against gays legal—over and above the fact that marriage is denied them.
P&G stepped up to the plate. They issued a press release stating that, while they took no stand on gay marriage, they were adamantly against legalizing discrimination against any group.
They told Cincinnati in no uncertain terms that they would move their headquarters to another state should Cincinnati or Ohio move forward with the plan.
Cincinnati backed down.
I emailed the company when I heard about that and thanked them for standing up for equality for all.

Given P&G’s action in that situation, I can only think that they are unaware of the actions of Bill O’Reilly. You can bet I’ll enlighten them!

UPS vs. BillO the Clown

I just had a thought:
Had you heard about Bill O'Reilley of Fox News stalking a reporter of another news organization who wrote a piece in which she disagreed with him? Actually, he didn’t even have the guts to do it himself. He sent a couple of goons to do it for him.
The reporter had written that she believed he should not speak at a fund raiser for an organization that supports women who have been raped. She wrote her opinion based on the fact that O’Reilley had, on national television, reviled several women who had been raped-- saying they had asked for it.
He went on to describe the clothing of a woman who was raped and killed. He berated her for walking on a public street at night.
So, after the reporter described his behavior and stated her disagreement with his actions, he sent two men to stalk her to the hotel she was going to for a vacation. They followed her from her home and accosted her in the hotel's parking lot shouting at her that she was harming rape victims.
xxx
After this story broke, UPS pulled its advertising from Bill O'Reilley's show.
Yesterday, I went to the UPS site and sent them an email thanking them for refusing to advertise on his program.

I'd like to ask you if you'd be willing to do the same.
We need to let companies that do the right thing know that people are paying attention to what they do. They probably get plenty of complaints — and very few kudos.

What makes me sick though, is that other companies will continue advertizing on his program just as if none of this had happened. So, now, I'm thinking seriously of breaking down and watching that **vomit** program to see what companies are still advertising there. Then I’ll confront them. I plan to tell them I will boycott their products and urge others to do the same.

I think that should be our next step. Will you join me?
Monday night I’ll watch the program and post the names of the companies here.
Will you send emails to them and pass on this request to others? We need as many people as possible to do this to ensure that they'll listen.
Together, we can make a difference.

We must protect our government from religion—and vice versa. Our forefathers knew it. Somehow, our current leaders seem to have lost sight of that basic fact:
President Obama failed to deliver on his campaign promises.
When creating his Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Obama did not adequately prevent discrimination on the basis of religion by those organizations that receive government grants.
Although he had originally proposed a new take on the Faith-Based Initiative, one that would not maintain the constitutional and civil rights obstacles of the Bush Administration, the executive order President Obama signed last week leaves the ENTIRE architecture of the Bush Faith-Based Initiative intact—every executive order, every rule, every regulation.
And thanks to a hard line anti-civil rights push from the Department of Justice toward the end of the Bush Administration, almost every social service tax dollar distributed by the government can be used for discriminatory hiring.
In this time of unparalleled need, this is even more unacceptable than ever.
xxx
So, once again, it's up to us.
The Blog Against Theocracy Blog Swarm is on again. Scheduled for Easter weekend [April 10 - 12], it will address the urgent need for the continuing struggle to keep church and state away from each other.
So, please go here to learn how to participate and get ideas for your post. And link your post to the swarm.
Oh, and one other thing. You can go here and tell Obama's administration directly that you are watching what they do and that you perceive this issue as urgent.

Reality

The other night I was channel surfing and came across a program called 30 Days. It was a real eye-opener.
It’s a reality program—only, this is the real thing. In this episode, a young couple [Alexia and Morgan] moved to Cincinnati, Ohio and tried to live on the minimum wage.
They left their credit cards behind. They found an ant-infested apartment upstairs from an apartment that had, until a few days earlier, been a crack-house. And they were glad to get it because their landlord allowed them to pay the deposit over time.
A few days into their adventure, they found a free store. They got their first furniture [they had been sleeping on the floor and eating while sitting on the floor or standing at the sink.] Suddenly, they had a kitchen table with two chairs, a mattress with sheets and a blanket, a couch, two end-tables and two lamps. They felt as if they’d died and gone to heaven.

A few days later Morgan sprained his wrist at his landscaping job. He tried to ignore it—since he didn’t have health insurance. The following day, though, he decided that he couldn’t risk losing the use of his hand. After all, he was working two manual jobs.
So, he went to the free clinic. They were accepting only 20 patients that night and he was 38th in line. With no other options, he went to the emergency room. Just to walk in the door cost him $551.00. I don’t remember what the doctor’s fee was. His ace bandage cost $40.00. And he was told to stay home from work the next day. Two jobs—16 hours—about $118.00 in lost wages.

If they hadn’t had bad luck, Morgan and Alexia would have had no luck at all. Alexia came down with a urinary tract infection a few days later. Walking into the emergency room cost $448.00. The trip to the drug store cost them $.85 [they had only one bus pass]. Her prescription cost $24.00. And another $.85 to get home.

As you can see, they were behind the eight ball—and they were one week into their experiment.

Not having children of their own, and wanting to experience what people with kids go through, they borrowed a niece and nephew for a weekend. Before they arrived, Morgan went to the library to research free recreation to take them to. He found things like: ‘Call your bank and ask for a tour. If you’re wearing a ski mask, take it off before arriving at the bank.’ ‘Call a bakery and ask for a tour.’ ‘Call a manufacturing plant and ask for a tour.’
In other words, there are no free activities available in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Buying blankets and sheets at the Salvation Army before the children arrived and taking them to a movie during their visit cost about $80.00.
If Morgan and Alexia had had children of their own, daycare would have cost about $833.00 for the month [10,000.00 per year]. One job at minimum wage brings home about $15,000.00. Would it have been worth going to work outside the home in order to pay 2/3 of their wages to daycare? No wonder so many couples work different shifts from each other — in order to care for their children at home — and rarely get to see each other.
xxx
Here’s something I hadn’t known.
The minimum wage was last raised in 1997. Since then Edward Kennedy has introduced bills EVERY YEAR to raise it again. None have passed. Meanwhile, Congress has voted itself a “cost of living” raise every year.

Yes, the cost of living has gone up. Who do you suppose is having a harder time keeping up with it—Congress or people who are living on the minimum wage?
xxx
Alexia and Morgan survived for the month. Their relationship was strained—but they made it through. They don’t know if they would have remained together if they hadn’t been doing this as only a 30 day experiment.

In fact, couples who make less than $25,000.00 per year experience twice as many divorces as couples who make above $50,000.00.
xxx
Interestingly, as I was hunting for pictures to include here, I found numerous photos of homeless men, men holding signs asking for help, men in unemployment lines and food bank lines. Women and children were notable only by their absence.
This is one way we continue to ignore the issue. If we pretend women and children are not affected by poverty, it’s easier on our consciences.

We interrupt this blog for a commercial

[I wrote this on November 6th, slated it for November 8th and promptly forgot all about it. I was just cleaning up some stuff and stumbled across it.]
xxx
On Election Day [well, technically, the following morning] I got to bed at 8:00. That afternoon, when I woke up, my back was in excruciating pain. [Maybe a result of hunching over the TV, biting my thumbs? Just a wild guess.]

Several months earlier I had ordered a Teeter Hangup. The model I bought wasn’t the one they profile on all their ads. It had seemed kind of scary to hang totally upside down. So, I bought one that allows me to hang from my hips.
Anyhow, rather than take a pain pill the day after Election Day, I went in and hung my back out for about 3 minutes. And the pain was gone!
So, if you have back pain and don’t want to destroy your liver with medications, you can do a whale of a lot worse than investing in a Hangup. jfwiw.
[ok, Teeter, I assume the check is in the mail???]

Just in case you don't know Rachel, get acquainted with her here-- and watch her on MSNBC. I doubt you'll be disappointed.

The Drivel-Heads Just Keep Talking

I'm so sick of all the talking-heads that spout only drivel, second-guessers, back-seat-drivers, know-nothings and do-nothings that I could vomit.

At the same time that they're telling Obama that he's not doing enough: that he should have solved the economic crisis by now— you know, the one that took at least all the years since Reagan took office to create —they're telling him that he's doing too much. Somehow, they've managed to convince themselves he can do both simultaneously.
And they accuse us of calling him Superman.

What they're actually saying is that they don't want to save the environment and create sustainable energy sources. They don't want the rest of us to have affordable health care. They don't want to care for our veterans. They don't want to allow the children of us peons to receive an education. And they absolutely refuse to see how all these matters are related to each other and the economy.

What they do want is a return to the early twentieth century when the workers had to live in company housing, shop at the company store and there were no workplace safeguards.
Or, better still, they'd like to return to Medieval Times.

And now a bunch of DINO's are switching over to the Rethuglican side and yelling, "Whoa! Put the brakes on! Don't spend any money! Do what Hoover did!"
The truth is, without exception, they hate FDR and they see us headed toward a new New Deal— one that's something like the old one they've been trying to dismantle for the last 70 years.

The Rethugs may be irrelevant and to have run out of ideas. But I can say one thing for them: at least they stood together— even if it was for all the wrong things.
Keeping Democrats together is a lost cause— it's herding cats.

Bush's Bigotry

I just learned of this atrocity. Had any of you heard about it?

The American Atheists wrote a letter to every member of US Congress, asking for the body to pass a resolution condemning the discrimination against Atheists by any elected or appointed official of government. The offered resolution read:

"No person in public life may be free to impugn the patriotism of any minority group because of that group's opinion in respect to religion. President George Bush is herewith censured for his public expression of August 27, 1987, at which time he stated: "I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

A Letter to the Traitors

Frank Schaeffer is the author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.
He wrote an open letter to the Republicans. Of course the fact that he published it in The Huffington Post assures that they won't read it. Still, we can.
xxx
Dear Republican Leaders:
The Republican Party has become the party dedicated to sabotaging the American future....

You ... are the arsonists who burned down our national home. You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire that has consumed America. Now you have the nerve to criticize the "architect" America just hired -- President Obama -- to rebuild from the ashes. You do nothing constructive, just try to hinder the one person willing and able to fix the mess you created.

The good news is that Karl Rove was notable only by his absence on This Week with George Stephanopoulos this morning.
Now, I'm holding my breath. Did they actually hear us? Or will he be back?
Meanwhile, I went ahead and informed ABC that I noticed and appreciated their decision to remove him from the panel. I do think it's a good idea to tell them when they do something right as well as when they stick their collective heads up their asses.

And, I had been waiting to see if the other shoe dropped before writing to the show's sponsors. The producers saved me some work—and, for that, I'm always grateful. :)

This Is News?

OK, it’s official.
After the release of those memoranda that suspended the Bill of Rights, Scott Horton has declared Bush’s presidency a ‘dictatorship.’

Hello?
How many bloggers have been declaring this obvious —you know— FACT for about 7 to 8 years, now?

The current concern is this: no president willingly gives up power. We now have a precedent—a president who had the power to do what the memos said he could do. So, even after the CYA memos that rescinded the original ones and went out days before the end of the Bush presidency, another president could, conceivably, do it again.

And THIS is why we must have hearings and/or trials: to hold all those people —the ones who crafted the memos, knew of the existence of the memos and, to some extent at least, acted upon them— accountable.

Why Did It Take Me So Long?

I'm hearing a Rethuglican talking head diss Obama and it just hit me:
The Republican party is an oxymoron -- emphasis on the last 5 letters of that word.
These people believe the best government is no government.
So, why are these people in Congress? Aren't they doing a disservice to the people by simply being in Washington? In fact, from here, it looks like they're hypocrites before they even open their mouths.

Heard on MSNBC:

"Joe the Plumber" is talking about a run for Congress.

wtf?!?!?!?!?

Considering the ways I've seen some people vote, he could-- ya know --win. And then where would we be?

It's official. This country has gone straight through the looking glass.
xxx
And, another bit:
Steele went running to Rush to do his mea-culpa.
So, for all his denials, WHO is it who really runs the Republican Party?

**deep sigh** Maybe the country will be all right after all. Rush will keep them out of the White House and should help them decrease their numbers in the other two houses, as well.

We may just be saved by the skin of our teeth, here.

Giving Rove a Forum???

This morning on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, I was appalled to see Karl Rove sitting there, being listened to with what looked like respect by George and the other members of his round table.
I immediately went to abc.com and, after considerable hunting around, figured out how to email them my outrage. I informed them that I will boycott their network hereafter and urge everyone I know to do so, as well.

If you agree that a man who refuses to testify before Congress has lost his right to pontificate on his views to those of us who do things like-- you know --obey the law, I'm asking you to register your feelings with ABC. And, if you're interested, please join my boycott of all things ABC.
OK, I know that may be a bit much for some folks. In that case, may I suggest Boycott Lite:
If you want to watch something on ABC, how about recording the program and watching it later--and zipping through all commercials?
Another possibility [and one I plan to follow up on] is to contact all of This Week's sponsors and tell them I will boycott them as long as they sponsor Stephanopoulos' program. Since most of them are, most likely, headed up by Republicans, I don't expect anything to happen unless a major boycott occurs. I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen.
Still, I can't just sit here and watch this travesty happen.

Here's the url for the email site where you can voice your views on this matter.
I'm not positive the link will work-- you may have to register with their site in order to use it.