Progressive Anger

John Boehner: Time For Government To Stop Helping Homeowners

2012-02-02T09:43:00.001-05:00

"None of these programs have worked. I don't know why anyone would think that this next idea is going to work," Boehner continued. "All it does is delay the clearing of the market. As soon as the market clears and we understand where the prices really are -- [that] will be the most important thing we can do in order to improve home values around the country."

Bonehead is actually right. Had we bailed out the homeowners at the beginning of this crisis rather than the banks, the market would have been cleared out. The bad banks would be gone, their CEOs and investment officers in jail, and the economy restored by now. The nation would be richer, because the PEOPLE would hold the mortgages to those properties, and if the homeowners could not pay off the new mortgages then the property would go to the state which would in turn sell tose properties and recover the money invested to start with.

Instead we drone on with banks still foreclosing on homeowners that are under water and never will be able to sell those houses to pay the mortgage off, nor will the banks once they take possession. RIPublicans forced this option under TARP, pre-Obama, and have made every effort to prevent real resolution to the housing crisis, off shoring of jobs and China's most favored nation trading status.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Republican Presidential Debate Defined By Crowd's Silence

2012-01-24T08:50:00.001-05:00

These are supposed to be debates, even though there is little real debate to them. The audience should not make a sound during the debates. This is not some version of TV's fake reality show, or a spots event, or a game show. Applause and cheering not only helps the candidate that the audience favors, it also limits the amount of time for a rebuttal, and can influence those watching at home.

The current debate structure makes them look like a joke. Our elections are a joke to start with, with all of the money that is poured in and the lack of honesty in political ads. This election cycle for president will cost well over $1 Billion. What could we have done with a billion toward the debt or, god forbid, job creation by the wealthy?

We waste money on useless things. Elections, not primaries, should be government funded. Candidates should get air time, both radio and tv, cable and satellite, for free. All candidates should get the exact same amount of time per week during primetime listening/viewing. Let's give them 30 minutes per week to get their issues and stances across.

Primaries should be totally funded by the political parties, and more importantly, they should be closed to non party members. Democrats should not be able to influence Republican party politics and vise versa. If independents want a say in who runs for office, they should join a party or create one for themselves.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Newt Gingrich 'Irritated' By Outrage Over His Comments On Food Stamps

2012-01-09T07:31:00.001-05:00

No politician of either party talks about real jobs, or bringing back jobs to the US. All those jobs shipped over to China has made that country rich; not because of all the people that are employed at just above poverty wages, but the fact that every company in China is 49% owned by Chinese companies. The wealth stays there. US companies cannot move money out of China.

We need politicians that will make it hard for companies to ship jobs overseas, that will penalizes one that do. All Americas end up paying for those that are unemployed somewhere down the line. Fewer good paying jobs, trades jobs, mean that more cheap goods must be imported because people cannot afford the quality products that we used to build here.

Politicians have supported the corporate mantra of increased share price at all costs to the detriment of the country. It is well past the time to put PEOPLE first. If we take care of the PEOPLE first, profits will follow. Let's call it trickle up economics.
About Newt Gingrich
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

More Defendants Would Admit Guilt Under New SEC Policy

2012-01-07T08:03:00.001-05:00

"The SEC's traditional explanation for including the boilerplate language had been that defendants will not agree to settle a case if they have to admit wrongdoing because doing so would expose them to future lawsuits from whoever might claim to have been harmed by their actions."

If the SEC has enough information to file civil charges, then they should take the case to trial. Allowing the defendants to neither admit or deny the charges because they could then be open to civil lawsuit by the people that were actually harmed is total BS. How do those people get compensated? How does this practice prevent future cases from happening?

This is why OWS and the 99% are made as hell. We are no longer going to take this. Big business and their executives must be held responsible just as the guy who robs a convenience store. They all must be prosecuted to the fulled extent of the law!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

America's Education Reform Lobby Makes Its Presence Known At The Voting Booth

2011-11-23T07:08:00.001-05:00

Charter schools are not the answer. Privatizing the education sector has not proven itself over the years to be any better, and in some case worse than public schools. Increased testing is not the answer either, especially when they are "standardized" tests of multiple guess and T/F questions.

So what is the answer? In my humble opinion, our students are not taught to think critically, to analyze questions and formulate answers. Testing should be less about standards and more about thinking. Less about the correct answer, and more about how you got that answer. No calculators on math tests, show the work and the answer. Maybe the wrong formula was used but the formula was solved correctly. You now have an idea of what the student is not understanding and what they are. It is not the dates in history that are important, but the issues that lead up to that date that are important. Knowing that there were economic crashes in 1837, 1873, 1896, 1929, etc are not important. It is the circumstances that led to those crashes.

Continuing education should also be a part if education reform. Teachers should have to continually refresh their training, and they should be evaluated for "burnout". Teaching is tough, especially when parents are not involved in their children's education. Teachers that are "burned out" should get time off for retraining/further education. We loose too many good teachers to private sector jobs that pay more for less stress.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Campaign Blasts Romney's First TV Ad As 'Deceitful'

2011-11-22T06:28:00.001-05:00

Obama promised that he would fix the economy in 2008, however, before he was even sworn in, when the Congress was sworn in the Senate majority leader with the rest of the RIPublican leadership stated that their only job was to see that Obama was a one term President. They have ended all bipartisanship in order to make that happen. They have made the economy worse by preventing all of the jobs legislation from passing. They have gone so far as to blame the American people for being lazy not finding jobs, and refusing all efforts to reduce the busget deficit without putting self funded programs into ruins.

Romney, like the rest of the RIPublicans will do whatever they can to get control of the government, and that includes out right lies and deception.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Militarization of Campus Police

2011-11-20T07:16:00.001-05:00

Police have been slowly militarizing in this country for decades. However, it now seems that we have gone beyond just militarization, they have started taking action like you see in the Middle East. People defending their right to protest are shot, and killed, here in America. Flash bangs, tear gas, and pepper spray are used indiscriminately. If politicians, and campus presidents in this case, took the time to hear the grievances, all of this could be avoided. When people feel that they have lost the power that THEY have granted government, they will protest. When confronted with violence by the authorities they start out peaceful. These protest will eventually escalate to violence. Politicians have lost the faith of the people, and they are just trying to hang onto power. The lessons of the Middle East are lost on our politicians, and we will slowly devolve into the same kind of chaos.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Repubican's Jobs Plan Will Cost US Jobs and Revenue.

2011-11-05T08:17:00.000-04:00

RIPublicans claim that their American Job Creators legislation is being stalled by the Senate, and if only they would pass it, we could be back on the road to recovery. Yet their plan really calls for reduced regulations, many of which create jobs, and more importantly protects workers and the public from harm. Included among the regulations they would end are preventing the EPA from regulating greenhouse gasses, the FCC from enforcing net neutrality, and "burdensome pesticide regulations."

Their plan calls for reduced taxes for "job creators", reducing the top corporate rate from 35% to 25%. This can only mean that more companies will receive tax refunds each year. As it is, the largest US companies pay no taxes, and many receive refunds now. So where are those jobs? Giving them more money will not create new jobs. They also call for ending tax on foreign earnings. The last time there was a "tax holiday" no new American jobs were created, rather CEO bonuses went up, dividends increased and more jobs were shipped out of the country.

The RIPublicans think that "free trade" agreements will bring more jobs to America. That has been anything but the truth. NAFTA, CAFTA, and other trade agreements have seen a net loss of jobs in the US. MAybe if these agreements were "Fair Trade", ones that equalized import tariffs on both side and standardized regulations on products to meet our higher standards, then maybe there would be job created here.

There ia a backlog of 700,000 pantent applications. The Patent office is overwhelmed, eyt the plan by RIPublicans to fix it is to "discourage frivolous lawsuits, expedite reviews, and provide better protection for job creating entrepreneurs. Streamlining the system will make it easier for existing businesses to grow and allow more start-up companies to flourish." How are they going to expidite reviews when the USPTO is so overwhelmed now? Surely they don't plan on increasing the filing fee of $1000, or hiring more government employees? Hank Nothhaft, CEO of Tessera Technologies, told CBS News recently, that "Medium-sized and profitable companies like ourselves -- we'd be willing to pay a significantly higher fee in order to fund the patent office correctly." Congress sets the fees charged by the patent office. The legislative branch also does not permit the patent office keep all $2 billion in its annual revenue, by diverting $200 million dollars a year for other federal budget items. Legislation that would end fee diversion and empower USPTO to adjust its own fees, as well as other reforms, is working its way through Congress. A bill sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont has passed his Judiciary Committee but has not come to the Senate floor for debate.

RIPublicans call for changing the visa system to allow more "highly shilled" foreign workers into the country, because of a shortage in this country. This is counter productive, and does not create jobs, rather gives those jobs to foreigner. It would be in the interest of this country to improve and promote those jobs to high school students to encourage them to seek those degrees. Helping to finance education in those skilloed jobs would create more jobs in the long run than it would cost to fund the education.

RIPublcians claim that speeding up the approval process for the FDA would also increase jobs in the US. That somehow this would also improve efficiency and transparency in the process. As it is now, drug manufacturer and medical device manufacturers do not have to report every study they make. They only have to report those studies that support their claims. Unless RIPublicans are going to force companies to report every study conducted, this plan is worhtless.

American Energy Initiative legislation is designed to expand energy exploration and production, or so they say. What it will do to prevent this country from becoming the leader in renewable energy, keep this country from developing new techologies, and not create anywhere near the job growth that renewables would. Fosil fuels is a dead end. Renewable will require build a new infrastructure, form generation to delivery and possibly to develop new end use products to use that energy more efficiently.

Finally, RIPublicans point out that non-defense discrestionry spending has increased 80% since Obama has taken office. What they won't say is that they destroyed the economy during the Bush Administration, driving people out of work, out of their homes and onto the dole to survive. They also won't talk about the increase in military spending during that same time. The US now spends more money of "defense" that the entire world combined. If we used that money to fix the economy, to rebuild our infrastructure, we would not be in the position we are in today.

In short the RIPublicans plan will not create more jobs. What it will do is shift more the this country's wealth to the richest 1%.

Rick Perry Flat Tax Plan Unveiled

2011-10-25T09:55:00.001-04:00

A flat tax never works for the middle class and the poor. No matter how you look at it, the rich will always have more disposable reserves after the tax than the middle class. 20% tax when you make over $1 million still leave you with $800K to live on. With 36% of US households making less than $35K a 20% leaves $28K to live on. That leave $528.46 per week net to buy food, clothes, pay rent/mortgage, and other household expenses for a family of four. The millionaire has $15K per week to spend on those same things, or more than half of 1/3 of the households have per year to spend.

I am not advocating wiping out the wealthy through taxes, just some fairness. If the money that those people have to spend per week were used to help grow the economy, create jobs in the US, and promote the general welfare of the rest of us I would not have a problem. But they don't. They hoard their money and demand more that they can keep, because enough is never enough.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Occupy Wall Street Raises $300,000

2011-10-17T07:43:00.001-04:00

Of course Wall St has the power to take money away from you. They take it from you with every fee that you do not see attached to you debit/credit card. They take it from you with the interest they charge on money they have been given by the government(the People) to bail them out. They take it by every other fee that they attach to loans (which they make on money given to them in good faith by depositors) and not spreading that acquired wealth around.

Wall St take money from you where you can't see it happening, financing and managing local government bonds, fees for checking, ATM withdrawals, now debit/credit card purchases. The TEA Party is backed by these thieves. They want nothing more than no regulations so that they can openly steal from you and no taxes so that they do not have to support the government. Wall St takes, but gives little back. This economy is the result of trickle down economics, except the trickle down has stopped.
About Occupy Wall Street
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Republican Presidential Candidates Divert Focus From Economy

2011-10-11T12:27:00.001-04:00

"The biggest applause lines on the campaign trail usually have little to do with a candidate's economic positions...The absence of debate over the economy is perhaps most apparent in the increasingly contentious relationship between the GOP front-runners...Republicans give more attention to other issues – immigration, abortion and a candidate's religion – than Democrats and independents do."

Nearly 12 million illegal immigrants are estimated to be living in the United States. The vast majority work in low-skill, low-wage jobs. More than half work in construction, manufacturing or leisure and hospitality. The most respected recent studies show that most Americans would notice little difference in their paychecks if illegal immigrants suddenly disappeared from the United States. Most Americans don't directly compete with illegal immigrants for jobs.Illegal immigrants seem to have very little impact on unemployment rates. Undocumented workers certainly do take jobs that would otherwise go to legal workers. However, they create demand that leads to new jobs. They buy food and cars and cell phones, they get haircuts and go to restaurants. There is close to no net impact on unemployment rates.

More than a third of illegal immigrants live in just three cities: New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. But even in these places, economists believe there is minimal impact on wages. That's because many Americans from other parts of the country choose not to move to areas with large numbers of immigrants, because they want to avoid competing for jobs.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Koch Industries Expose: Inside The Secret Dealings Of Koch Industries

2011-10-03T10:00:00.001-04:00

Profits, profits, profits at all costs. The best things in life are free

But you can give them to the birds and bees

I want money

You love gives me such a thrill

But your love won't pay my bills

I want money

Money don't get everything it's true

But what it don't get I can't use

I want money

I want money

I want lots of money

In fact I want so much money

Give me your money

Just give me money
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Many Government Retirees Simultaneously Collect Paychecks And Pensions: Report

2011-10-03T09:53:00.001-04:00

A very poor article that is repeated all over the country. There are over 23.9 million state and local government employees. Of these, a whopping 66,000 in 5 states are double dipping. Since the largest public employee states are listed in this piece, even you extrapolate this to the rest of the country on the high side, you are talking about 2% of the total work force. That is not a disaster, and not a major problem. It might need to be rectified, but if these people are the best qualified for the position, and why shouldn't government have those people, then they should get the job. The fact that companies no longer provide pensions, let alone start paying for retirement when an employee works for 20 years for the same company, should not be a reason to attack productive workers. What is also not noted in the article is that these pensions are contributed to in part by the employees themselves. (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-1156).

This is just another attack on workers, many of whom are union members. It is sad that AOL/Huffington Post is perpetuating this propaganda.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mary Bach, Consumer Activist, Wins Lawsuit Against Walmart -- Over 2 Cents

2011-10-03T09:21:00.001-04:00

She proved her point that Wal-Mart lies and steals money from its customers purposely. There was nothing to stop this company from fixing the price of the product, either in the computer or on the shelf to reflect to true price. Instead they choose to continue to take 2 cents from every customer that purchased this product. This means that there may very well be other products that are priced wrong, possibly knowingly, generating thousands, if not millions of unknown over charge dollars.

Wal-MArt rarely if ever charges whole dollar amounts on anything they sell. So this would seem to be a deliberate case of fraud, possibly on a very large scale. Since it is the 5th such case this women has won against the same store, it would seem to me that the state attorney general's office should be investigating.
About Photo Galleries
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Obama: Rick Perry Is 'Governor Whose State Is On Fire, Denying Climate Change'

2011-09-26T09:23:00.001-04:00

It will be about being more inclusive v. discrimination and hate. It will be about everyone having a share in fixing the economy v. the rich getting richer. It will be about being a 21st century leader v. living on past greatness.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

U.S. To Hand Over Iraq Bases, Equipment Worth Billions

2011-09-26T09:19:00.001-04:00

The real reason for the war was the looting of the treasury by the RIPubplicans to their political donors. Billions wasted in hiring contractors to do what the military has always done itself: security, construction, meals, etc. Then we just leave the stuff for the Iraqis when it could all be brought back home, used for parts, rather than buy more, sold in the US to recoup some of the money spent, or destroyed to prevent it from falling into the hands of criminals (what you call terrorists).

Any time we have a war, police action or get involved with UN peacekeeping, the draft should automatically start, and there should be no waivers for anyone, period.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Palestine Statehood Bid: Obama's U.N. Visit Could Bring Another Troubled Middle East Moment

2011-09-18T07:53:00.001-04:00

This is all the fault of Israel and their policies of continually building new settlements in disputed territory. Regardless of how you feel about Israel, when they became a nation they confiscated property and displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. This issue is still unresolved as to compensation or repatriation. This is one of the major issues that never get press in the US.

The US should not veto or vote against a Palestinian state. The vote will only mean that that countries recognize the Palestinians as a country. This will mean that Israel will have to negotiate in good faith, rather than delay and antagonize.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Millionaire's Tax: President To Seek New Tax Rate For Wealthy

2011-09-18T07:43:00.003-04:00

Entitlement reform is a load of BS. Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid are self funding and NOT part of the deficit. In fact, the government OWES money to Social Security Trust Fund, which it has been stealing cash from for decades and replacing it with government bonds. That is cash that has to be repaid with interest down the road. Rather than take money from people that are waiting to collect their retirement money, the government should have been increasing revenue.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Millionaire's Tax: President To Seek New Tax Rate For Wealthy

2011-09-18T07:43:00.001-04:00

How can we increase revenue? We can change the tax code for starters. The pre Reagan system was much better with multiple tax brackets. Most people never had to deal with that, only those making more than $125K in today's dollars. You could change the capital gains tax rates to reflect the time the security was held i.e. less than 1 day pay 90%, bracket down to 10 years and pay nothing in taxes on that money. That would stop speculation on a grand scale, yet still allow for investors to take a chance. We could change the laws on imports, by taxing companies that import products a "worker displacement tax" based on the declared value of the goods, to bring those prices back in-line with American job rates. This would make American workers competitive, encourage local sourcing, cut down on green house gasses, and push the economy forward.

Changing the tax code encourages reinvestment in the business, rather than payout to corp. execs and dividend demands from stockholders. That increases revenue into the government. More Americans working, increases that further, allowing us to pay off our external debt, and maybe have money to fix (not repair) our crumpling infrastructure.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Italy's Largest Union Threatens To Strike Over New Austerity Package

2011-08-14T18:42:00.001-04:00

We are witnessing the beginning of the end of modern capitalism. The banksters will force countries to make austerity cuts to their budgets and lower taxes. Economies will slow further which will lead to banks demanding more austerity measures. The economies will slow even more. Companies will continue to hang onto cash and not invest in the local economy, choosing instead to relocate jobs overseas. Fewer and fewer people will be able to buy the things that are imported, more jobs will be lost and the world economy will collapse.

Few, if any country has a spending problem, they have a revenue problem. The more taxes are cut, the fewer jobs that are created locally. Cut taxes and profits, both personal and corporate, increase. Cut taxes, and investments move to where there are less costs (read wages and supplies) in order to increase profits.

We saw this happen when NAFTA was made law and jobs shot to Mexico. US workers lost jobs that were then replaced with lower paying jobs. Wal-Mart went from a company that advertised Made in the USA to one that exported jobs to China to increase profits. Now Mexican workers are too expensive.

Tax laws in all countries have to be restructured so that investors and corporations plow money back into the local economy. When tax laws make real investment possible, rather than speculation, the world economy will get better. Until then we will slowly slide into depression, anarchy and war.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paddy Chayefsky's Network was right then as now

2011-08-09T09:20:00.002-04:00

NETWORK was a biting, hilarious, prophetic satire of empty minded entertainment mills masquerading as news programs chaired by pontificating talking heads, a biting indictment of an America heedlessly, destructively rushing to global dominance, recklessly driven by a totally out of control financial sector that cares about nothing except about its bottom line and special privileges. Paddy Chayefshy's screen play for this movie was on the mark then, as ABC went after ratings and gimmicks rather than real news, and the rest of broadcasting followed. What was true then, is even truer today. Diana Christensen: I'm interested in doing a weekly dramatic series based on the Ecumenical Liberation Army. The way I see the series is: Each week we open with an authentic act of political terrorism taken on the spot, in the actual moment. Then we go to the drama behind the opening film footage. That's your job, Ms. Hobbs. You've got to get the Ecumenicals to bring in that film footage for us. The network can't deal with them directly; they are, after all, wanted criminals. Diana Christensen: Well, in a nutshell, it said: "The American people are turning sullen. They've been clobbered on all sides by Vietnam, Watergate, the inflation, the depression; they've turned off, shot up, and they've fucked themselves limp, and nothing helps." So, this concept analysis report concludes, "The American people want somebody to articulate their rage for them." I've been telling you people since I took this job six months ago that I want angry shows. I don't want conventional programming on this network. I want counterculture, I want anti-establishment. I don't want to play butch boss with you people, but when I took over this department, it had the worst programming record in television history. This network hasn't one show in the top twenty. This network is an industry joke, and we'd better start putting together one winner for next September. I want a show developed based on the activities of a terrorist group, "Joseph Stalin and His Merry Band of Bolsheviks," I want ideas from you people. This is what you're paid for. And by the way, the next time I send an audience research report around, you'd all better read it, or I'll sack the fucking lot of you. Is that clear? Arthur Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel. Howard Beale: All human beings are becoming humanoids. All over the world, not just in America. We're just getting there faster since we're the most advanced country. Howard Beale: [arms outstretched to the heavens] Edward George Ruddy died today! Edward George Ruddy was the Chairman of the Board of the Union Broadcasting Systems, and he died at eleven o'clock this morning of a heart condition, and woe is us! We're in a lot of trouble! Howard Beale: [calmly strolling toward the audience] So. A rich little man with white hair died. What has that got to do with the price of rice, right? And *why* is that woe to us? Because you people, and sixty-two million other Americans, are listening to me right now. Because less than three percent of you people read books! Because less than fifteen percent of you read newspapers! Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube! This tube is the Gospel, the ultimate revelation. This tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers... This tube is the most awesome God-damned force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls in to the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA - the Communication Corporation of America. There's a new Chairman of the Board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome God-damned propoganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network? Howard Beale: [ascending the stage] So, you listen to me. Listen to me: Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth... Go to God! Go to your gurus! Go to yourselves! Because that's the only place you're ever going to find any real truth. Share this quote Howard Beale: [laughing to himself] But, man, you're never going to get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear; we lie like hell. We'll tell you that, uh, Kojak always gets the killer, or that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker's house, and no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry, just look at your watch; at the end of the hour he's going to win. We'll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in *illusions*, man! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds... We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you! You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even *think* like the tube! This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing! *WE* are the illusion! So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off! Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I'm speaking to you now! TURN THEM OFF... [collapses in a prophetic swoon as the audience erupts in thunderous applause] Share this quote Howard Beale: You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do. Why, whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion. Watch the movie, and tell me if Chayefsky wasn't a prophet himself.

Dow Jones Industrial Average Closes Down More Than 630 Points, Sixth-Worst Point Loss Ever

2011-08-09T07:51:00.001-04:00

The fall in the market has many reasons, but the government's credit rating is meaningless, especially as the government has not only the funds, but the means to raise the funds to pay its debt. What prevents this is the money spent by corporations and the rich to pressure the representatives of ALL the people from raising taxes and closing loopholes.

According to the Washington Post "Tax cuts are estimated to have totaled $2.8 trillion, which we guess would count as “trillions,” as the president put it. Strictly speaking, the two big tax cuts during the Bush years are estimated to total about $1.5 trillion, But many continued into the early years of the Obama presidency, and in December he cut a deal with Republicans to extend them even more, which brings us to $2.8 trillion.

(In case you are wondering, the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was $1.26 trillion through 2011 and the Medicare prescription drug program totaled $272 billion.)"

$2.8 trillion over ten years is what raising the debt ceiling cost Americans in terms of benefit cuts. Which means that it will cost us $5.6 Trillion over the 20 years the tax cuts will have been in place plus the loss of benefits.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

DOW FALLS 400 POINTS; NASDAQ DROPS 100 ON GROWTH FEARS

2011-08-04T15:06:00.002-04:00

The budget law was supposed to make Wall St feel better that we are getting our financial house in order. What it proved was that Washington, the RIPublicans in particular, are unable to compromise on anything to create a balance approach to solving problems. Just when the economy needs a boost, as in 1938, the RIPublicans have pushed through an austerity measure that will doom the economy to a double dip recession. The austerity measure did not work in '38, in fact, the economy did not improve until massive government spending was initiated on entering into WWII. I have stated this before, like many Keynesians, that government creates jobs during recessions, not business. Business will do everything it can to hang onto capital, regardless of the effects on the economy. Without government spending money on job creation through infrastructure development, there will be no knock effect to the economy. We will drift further into the red. Tax revenues will decrease further, making the "debt ceiling" arrive even faster as the government will have to borrow more fund to make up the lost revenue. The only way to make the economy move is for the government to spend money to create jobs. The only way to pay for that is to increase tax revenues and change the tax code to make it unfavorable to hold onto capital, move it overseas, or to speculate. Loop holes need to be closed and fast. Capital gains need to be changed to a time basis for the security help from 90% for less than 1 day to no tax for holding it for 10 years or more. Jobs shipped overseas should fall under a special tax to compensate the country for lost revenue for loss of jobs and not being able to tax earnings made in a foreign country. The RIPublicans are running this country into a ditch, just as they did after taking over from Clinton and after controlling the government during the 1920s. This is the Party of the rich and not so famous, but powerful. This is the Party of corporations, wealth generation, and subjugation of the working people. This is the Party that, as Karl Rove said, is looking for one party rule-the RIPublican Party. This is the Party that is a 5th column for the fascists. What the base of the Tea Party doesn't understand, is that they are supporting the destruction of the country as they know it, and will put corporations firmly in power and out in the open.

FAA Shutdown and Republican hate for human beings.

2011-08-04T13:55:00.000-04:00

Yet again the failure of Obama as a leader and President to solve an issue. Under the Constitution, Article II, Section 3, the President has the authority to convene both houses of Congress. In other words, he can cancel their summer vacation (the House scheduled 150 days of vacation this year) and work until they pass legislation to reauthorize the FAA. $200 million per week in revenue is at stake, potentially $1 billion before Congress actually does something. The real issue is that Republicans wanted to scrap new rules which give airline employees greater trade union rights. Again it comes down to the rights of workers over the rich and powerful, and corporations. RIPublicans do not care a lick about this country, just about money.

Workers continue to suffer

2011-08-04T09:28:00.000-04:00

Holly Sklar points out what is true about job creation in this country in general, and what wages have become, an enslavement to the middle class and the poor. This enslavement is caused by the loss of income on a real level when adjusted for inflation since the 1960s. because of that, households NEED two incomes to stay current with their parents era of cost of living and prosperity. This leads to other problems in the breakdown of families, reduced health care, education, and economic growth for the country. The rich continue to syphon off the wealth of the nation, as the income disparity is the highest of any OECD country.

Published: 7/27/11 @ 12:00

By Holly Sklar
McClatchy-Tribune
Big company CEOs got a 23 percent raise last year and corporate profits are at record highs. But the minimum wage has less buying power now than in 1956 — the year Elvis Presley first topped the charts, videotape was breakthrough technology and the Dow closed above 500 for the very first time.
It’s no accident wages are down while corporate profits are up. As JPMorgan’s July 11 “Eye on the Market” newsletter put it, “Reductions in wages and benefits explain the majority of the net improvement in (profit) margins... US labor compensation is now at a 50-year low relative to both company sales and US GDP.”
The minimum wage sets the floor under wages, and that floor is sinking. The 1956 minimum wage was $8.30, adjusted for inflation.
Today’s minimum wage is $7.25 — just $15,080 annually.
CEOs make more in a few hours than minimum wage workers who care for children, the ill and the elderly make in a year. Median CEO pay was $10.8 million last year among 200 big companies measured by Equilar.
Minimum wage workers
The $15,080 minimum wage workers have for rent, groceries, transportation, medicine and everything else for the year doesn’t even buy 2 pounds of the imported caviar featured in the Forbes Cost of Living Extremely Well Index.
The last increase in the minimum wage to $7.25 on July 24, 2009, was so little so late it left workers 30 percent below the minimum wage peak of $10.38 in 1968 — $21,590 annually — in 2011 dollars.
Today’s retail clerks, health aides, child care workers, restaurant workers, security guards and other minimum wage workers have $6,500 less in annual buying power than their 1968 counterparts.

That doesn’t help our corner stores, our communities or our national economy. It hurts.
We didn’t have to go backwards. U.S. income grew $11,684 on average between 1969 and 2008, the year Wall Street drove our economy off a cliff. But there was nothing average about the actual income distribution. Every dime of income growth went to the top 10 percent. Income for the bottom 90 percent declined.
Compare that to the period between 1917 (when the data began) and 1968. Income growth averaged $26,574. The top 10 percent got 31 percent of that growth. The bottom 90 percent got 69 percent.
You can’t have a strong middle class or a strong economy if the bottom 90 percent gets none of the nation’s income growth.
If the minimum wage had stayed above the $10.38 value it had in 1968, it would have put upward pressure — rather than downward pressure — on the average worker wage. Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, our nation’s largest employers, couldn’t routinely pay $7.25 or a little above.
McDonald’s wages would be more like In-N-Out Burger, which has an entry wage of $10 plus good benefits and beats McDonald’s and other fast food chains in the new Consumer Reports ratings for food, service, value and speed. Wal-Mart’s wages would be closer to Costco, which pays starting wages of $11, has the lowest employee turnover in retail, doesn’t need to spend money on advertising and outperforms Wal-Mart.
The 2010 American Values Survey found that 67 percent of Americans supported increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.
Wrong claims
Critics routinely oppose minimum wage increases in good times and bad, claiming wrongly they will increase unemployment. The most rigorous studies of the impact of actual minimum wage increases, including two studies published recently in the journal Industrial Relations and the Review of Economics and Statistics, show they do not cause job losses — whether during periods of economic growth or recession.
In the words of John Shepley, co-owner of Emory Knoll Farms in Maryland and a member of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage: “The notion that raising the minimum wage will kill jobs is just bunk. People at the lower end of earnings tend to spend 100 percent of their after-tax income. They put it right back into local businesses buying food, clothing, car repairs and other necessities. ... When the minimum wage is too low it not only impoverishes productive workers, it weakens the key consumer demand at the heart of our local economy.”
Holly Sklar of Boston is author of “A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future” (www.letjusticeroll.org) and “Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us.”

Koch-Funded Americans for Prosperity Sends Dems Wrong Voter Info in WI Recall Elections

2011-08-04T08:13:00.000-04:00

Associated Press
Wis. Dems cry foul over recall ballot mailing
By SCOTT BAUER , 08.02.11, 04:46 PM EDT

MADISON, Wis. -- The Wisconsin Democratic Party is calling for an investigation into whether a conservative group tried to suppress turnout in next week's state senate recall elections by misinforming voters about the deadline for absentee ballots.

State Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate on Tuesday asked U.S. Attorney James Santelle to investigate an Americans for Prosperity mailing that erroneously stated that absentee ballots received before Aug. 11 for an Aug. 9 election would count. Only ballots received by Aug. 9 will count.

Americans for Prosperity state director Matt Seaholm blames the error on a typo and says complaints over the mailing are frivolous.

This is the ONLY election fraud that happens on any scale in this country. There are not millions of votes that are fraudulent, but the RIPublicans and their backers do everything they can to influence elections on grand scales. If not sending out misinformation to Democrats so that their votes won't count, it changing the laws to access their rights to votes, to out right tampering with the voting machines themselves. RIPublicans are more concerned with power then they are with democracy. Had it not been for vote tampering on their part, GWB would never been elected either time, and nor would the RIPublicans have held Congress for those 6 years.

It is time for the Democrats to STOP playing nice. They need to press this case until someone goes to jail. The Democratic Party needs to get tough at the local level before the national party will do anything. Terry McAuliffe has caused more long term damage to the Democratic Party than any RIPublican has, by making the party so dependent of corporate financial support.

The Dems need to wage an all out war on changing the laws that the RIPublicans have passed that have restricted the rights of Americans to exercising their Constitutional right:

Americans have the right to vote without meeting a means test.
Americans have the right to form unions, without hinderance from corporations, and to collectively bargain.
Americans have the right to clean water, clean air, and uncontaminated soil. It is the government s job to ensure that fror the people.
Americans have the right healthcare, and when corporations make it so that it becomes unaffordable, the government has the Constitutional responsibility to provide it.

The RIPublicans and their Tea Party allies are not democratic. They are tyrannical, not just against the American people, but against themselves. If someone does not toe their party line, they are threatened with removal from office. Their party is right in all things and no deviation is permitted. These people are no different then the Leninist philosophy that there should be one party, and that party is the only way to force their economic philosophy on the people. It is just that the RIPublicans and the Tea Party are extreme capitalists rather than Marxists.

Which Three Democratic Senators?

2011-08-03T08:15:00.001-04:00

It seems to me that this committee system established by the debt increase legislation will end up being a taxation without representation issue. There is a good possibility that none of my representatives to Congress (both Democratic and RIPublican) will be on it. Yet my representatives only egt a yeah or nay vote on whatever proposal is made. Congress essentially become a rubber stamp of a more elite establishment within government. Since we will not know what they debated and who spoke to/lobbied this commission, we do not know who has applied pressure and influence on their deliberations.

Also, it is possible that the Boehner will appoint TP members as they have the most influence in his caucus. This will result in a failure to get any bill sent to Congress and subsequently initiate automatic cuts to the budget without any new revenue ( which is the whole problem with the budget). These automatic cuts are again illegal as Congress has abrogated their responsibility to the American people.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Lawrence O'Donnell Explains His Belief In Socialism (VIDEO)

2011-08-03T06:44:00.001-04:00

Socialists argue that socialism is about bringing human social organization up to the level of current technological capability to fully take advantage of modern technology. They argue that capitalism is either obsolete or approaching obsolescence as a viable system for producing and distributing wealth in an effective manner. Socialists generally argue that capitalism concentrates power and wealth within a small segment of society that controls the means of production and derives its wealth through a system of exploitation. This creates a stratified society based on unequal social relations that fails to provide equal opportunities for every individual to maximize their potential, and does not utilise available technology and resources to their maximum potential in the interests of the public, and focuses on satisfying market-induced wants as opposed to human needs. Socialists argue that socialism would allow for wealth to be distributed based on how much one contributes to society, as opposed to how much capital one holds.

Socialists hold that capitalism is an illegitimate economic system, since it serves the interests of the wealthy and allows the exploitation of lower classes. Capitalism is the unfair distribution of wealth and power; a tendency toward market monopoly or oligopoly (and government by oligarchy); imperialism, counter-revolutionary wars and various forms of economic and cultural exploitation; repression of workers and trade unionists; social alienation; economic inequality; unemployment; and economic instability.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kathy Hochul House Debt Debate Previews Democrats' 2012 Strategy

2011-07-31T06:43:00.001-04:00

The Democrats may think that they have a winning strategy come next November, but many will wonder if they are progressive enough or are they just using their usual line of "We're less bad the the RIPublicans, so vote for us".

I think that the American PEOPLE know where both parties stand, on the side of big business, and the wealthy. The Democrats just make it less obvious. What the Dems need to do is read Teddy Roosevelt's speech that he gave in Louisville, Kentucky in 1912 on Who is a Progressive. Many would fail TR's definition.

http://current.com/community/93366397_who-is-a-progressive.htm
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Ceiling Talks: President Addresses Nation About Debt Limit Negotiations, Economy (VIDEO)

2011-07-26T07:39:00.001-04:00

Cutting spending without increasing revenues will only solve half of the problem. Ending the wars will save some money short term, however, we will now have medical bills for years because of the amount of service personel with injuries and mental illness. So long term those costs will increase along with our aging population for medical coverage.

The tax cuts under Bush were unfunded. causing loss revenue for the government at a time when expenses were rising due to the war. This caused increased borrowing to pay for the two wars. On top of this, the RIPublican controlled Congress passed the Medicare Drug Plan which again was unfunded. That has caused even more borrowing.

Obama has backed off of every demand that he made, a plan must have revenue generation, must be "grand" and long term, and has essentially gone for the original Ryan plan. Yet the RIPublicans say that is not enough. The also say that the savings form ending the wars is a gimmick. But that was the heart of their plan under Ryan.

The Tea Party will wreck this country. They want to reduce the government to nothing more than any group of RIPublicans ever wanted. They want a balanced budget amendment to the constitution, which will destroy this country the first natural disaster we have. ALL THEY CARE ABOUT IS HOW MUCH MONEY THEY CAN MAKE AND HOW MUCH MONEY THEY CAN KEEP. They are the most unChristian Christians on the planet.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

CFPB: Republicans Vow To Block Richard Cordray Nomination Without Reforms

2011-07-19T09:16:00.001-04:00

The only reason that RIPublicans want to block Cordray is because the CFPB will actually do something about banking and they way that they rip the American people off. When the Prime rate is near ZERO, it is unjustifiable that credit card rates should start around 12%, less so went they go to 25%. RIPublicans just want to continue the cycle of killing off the middle class.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Michele Bachmann Criticizes Black Farmer Settlement

2011-07-19T08:50:00.001-04:00

It must be nice to make statements about fraud in a program without having to provide specifics. There will be fraud in every program as someone will get in under the radar. The real question is to what extent, what is the percentage and what are the dollars involved, and if there is fraud, why is it not being prosecuted?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

John Boehner Rejects Obama's Grand Bargain On Debt Ceiling

2011-07-10T06:55:00.001-04:00

Why not make this agreement? They get to kill Medicare and Social Security, just like they wanted. The reason is because the bakster want to take over the country. Should we reach the debt ceiling, and Obama not invoke the 14th Amendment, our credit rating will collapse. Banks and countries will charge huge interest rates in order for us to continue to finance ourselves. When we eventually default, they will claim title to much of the country by making us take the same austerity measures that they are making Ireland, Greece and Portugal make.

Niether party will have any control over it. The RIPublicans will be the lackey of the banks (yes, more so then now). They will strip the middle class and the poor of everything in the name of giving it to the rich so that they can create jobs, which will never come. The RIPublicnas will continue to invest in yesterday, while Europe and China continue to look to tomorrow. We will become the largest third world country on the planet. The rich will get richer, and slowly start to suck the live out of the rest of the world until the world is plunged into perpetual war, which will only make the rich richer.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Minnesota Shutdown 2011: State Government Shuts Down

2011-07-01T09:02:00.001-04:00

So the former RIPublican governor screws the pooch on the state budget, declines to run for a third term, then tells fellow RIPublicans to hold the line of the budget. The MN economy will crash shortly as thousands of state employees have no income. No income by anyone slows the economy. No income means no tax revenue for income or sales.

Why are countries with low tax rates suffering from slow sluggish economies. Why are highly taxed countries not having the same problem. Could it be that they live within the means that they wants themselves to live? i.e. cradle to grave healthcare and education for all. Sweden, Denmark, Germany all have high tax rates on both individuals and corporations. All have much lower disparity in income than the U.S.

Where is the economic growth from all of the tax cuts previously? Reagan cut taxes after coming into office and had two recessions. Bush had to raise taxes, Clinton raised taxes further and there was economic growth like not seen since the end of WWII. Bush II cut taxes and the economy stalled before Osama put it in hiatus. Obama allowed the RIPublicans to force and extention of Bush's tax cuts and the economy is about in a double dip recession from it when it was climbing out with the stimulus (that was under financed because of RIPublican pressure).

Tax cuts for the wealthy never creates jobs, ever!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

States That Cut The Most Funding Lost The Most Jobs: Analysis

2011-06-28T07:45:00.001-04:00

Business never drive economic growth. It is always through government spending. The government always leads the way on innovation because it costs too much for businesses to start. Once the technology is shown to work, and business feels there is money to be made, then it will get involved.

Government makes and maintains roads because business cannot charge enough to make back their investment. Government buys land for "Right of Way" because business cannot afford it, public utilities are not public. Government employs teachers, because without government subsidies there would be not charter schools. There are not enough rich people to pay for large scale education. The same goes for fire and police departments, other government agencies and government programs. When there is a cost business avoids it unless there are huge profits to be made.

Government spending drive the economy. Cut spending and the Great Recession quickly becomes the Greatest Depression.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Michele Bachmann Flops 'John Wayne' Reference In Waterloo, Iowa (VIDEO) [UPDATED]

2011-06-28T07:09:00.001-04:00

She is, of coure, consistant with her historical gaffs. This is more than Obamas 57 states, this is Lexington and Concord being in New Hampshire and confusing where John (Marion Morrisson) Wayne came from and John Wayne Gacy (who's parents hoped he would have the spirit of John Wayne) came from.

The fact that John Wayne's parents lived there at the turn of the century, as little bearing on where the actor was noted as his home town. She is just trying to associate herself with an icon so that she will look better.

But why the spirit of John Wayne? He promoted cigarettes for years as a paid sponsor and lung cancer killed him. Waynes stated in a Playboy interview in 1971, "I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them if that's what you're asking. Our so called stealing of this country was just a question of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves...,I believe in white supremacy until blacks are educated to a point of responsibility". And he was pro Viet Nam War.

John Wayne made some good movies, but does not have the Spirit of America that I want.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Anthony Weiner Submits Official Resignation Letter

2011-06-20T17:56:00.001-04:00

To all of you losers cheering Weiner's resignation, why are you not screaming for David Vitter to resign? He was caught using Congressional phones during a legislative session to book prostitutes. When he was re-elected by his constituents (who seem to not have any moral values, just like the family values guy that Vitter claims to be) the RIPublicans cheered him. Weiner has done nothing illegal, just something that was stupid. The real difference is that Weiner stood up for the average guy against big business. Vitter, et el, has done nothing but to make things easier and more profitable for corporations at the expense of the middle class.

Just once, I would like to see the family values party stand up for those values and chastise their member the way the Democrats have to the ones that have made mistakes.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Sarah Palin: Obama 'Noble' For Wanting To 'Go Down With The Ship'

2011-06-06T07:14:00.001-04:00

Palin just continues to spout the RIPublican's talking points that we have a spending problem. The problem is not generating revenue. Continued tax cuts by the RIPublicans to the wealthy have generated zero jobs, created 2 major bubbles (dot com
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Indiana Abortion Showdown Could Cost State $4.3 Billion

2011-06-06T06:53:00.001-04:00

You should care because less than THREE (3) percent of Planned Parenthood expenditures are for abortions. Planned Parenthood provides sexual and reproductive health care, education, and information to more than five million women, men, and adolescents worldwide each year.

Three million women and men in the United States annually visit Planned Parenthood affiliate health centers for trusted health care services and information.

Seventy-nine percent of Planned Parenthood health care clients in the U.S. are age 20 and older.

One in five women in the U.S. has visited a Planned Parenthood health center at least once in her life.

Planned Parenthood health centers focus on prevention: 83 percent of our clients receive services to prevent unintended pregnancy.

Planned Parenthood services help prevent more than 612,000 unintended pregnancies each year.

Planned Parenthood provides nearly one million Pap tests and more than 830,000 breast exams each year, critical services in detecting cancer.

Planned Parenthood provides nearly four million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.

Three percent of all Planned Parenthood health services are abortion services.

Planned Parenthood affiliates provide educational programs to nearly 1.2 million young people and adults each year.

This is health care.
About Planned Parenthood
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Dismal Jobs Report: Job Seekers React

2011-06-04T07:59:00.003-04:00

The Bureau of Economic Analysis: Despite widespread unemployment, the BEA reports that U.S. corporations, reluctant to expand in an uncertain economy, are sitting on $1.6 trillion in cash reserves, a record amount, according to BEA economist Greg Key.

Let's face it, when Ripublicans want to blame a poor economy on the Democrats they say that taxes are too high on corporate America, that the rich need more tax breaks so that they can create jobs. Yet corporations are sitting on the largest cash reserves ever, major corporations pay little or no taxes to the government, and if it were not for the increase in military spending during Bush II there would have been little or no jobs growth, in spite of huge tax cuts.

Jobs are created when the tax code increases corporate and individual tax rates. Sounds counter intuitive but it is not. Increased tax rates mean that the loopholes involve re-investing in the company to lower the tax rate: hire more employees, invest in new equipment. The economy cannot turn around unless more AMERICANS are working, not more low paid employees making junk on the other side of the ocean.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Dismal Jobs Report: Job Seekers React

2011-06-04T07:59:00.001-04:00

RIPublicans are now touting that small business generates jobs in this country. That is true but they are also low paying, just not as low paying as retail. So how do we create new jobs? You start by making the capital gains tax progressive based on time a security is held: less than one day 90%, less than one year 80%, up to 2 years 75%, up to 5 years 40%, up to 7 years 20%, more than 10years you pay nothing.

This encourages investment in a companies future. Investors will have to look at things like the industry's future, stability, company management, executive pay structure as a percentage of costs, plant modernization, etc. All of the things that show that there will be a strong future for that investment.

The income tax code will hav to be changed for large corporations to encourage AMERICAN jobs. That would mean levying a tax on a percentage of foreign employees the company has. We could also levy a tax on a percentage of the value of the products that are imported. You do not tax the products per se, just the declared value by the corporation. Again, this encourages AMERICAN jobs, as importing become more expensive not just from a labor stand point, but from a transportation stand point.

This is not a failure of the Obama Administration, rather it is a failure of Congress to encourage AMERICAN corporations to create and keep AMERICAN jobs.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Netanyahu AIPAC Speech: Israeli Prime Minister Says Country Cannot Return To 1967 Borders

2011-05-24T08:06:00.001-04:00

The fact of the matter is, that Israel did not exist prior to '48. European Jews decided to make their own country and fought the Palestinians and prior to that the British that were running the area. After they won the war, rather than just take over the government they displaced many Arabs and took their houses, farms and land, forcing them to concentrate in the West Bank and Gaza. Without financial support for the US and UK, Israel would not exist. It is high time that the Israelis come to terms with the disaster they have caused in creating their country at the expense of the Palestinians. The '67 borders would be the least they can do. If not, then the UN should force the issue of the right to return and war reparations for the Palestinians in exchange for continued non military financial support.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Anti-Abortion Measures Flooding State Legislatures

2011-05-09T06:55:00.001-04:00

"In the first three months of 2011, legislators in 49 states introduced 916 measures related to reproductive issues"

Because this is so important. What about jobs, increasing revenue to the government, closing tax loopholes, fixing our crumbling infrastructure, ending dependence on oil? NO, RIPublicans seem to feel that social issues are much more important than economic issuses. Yet they always want to claim that Democrats are trying to control people's lives.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Primary Election 2012: Conservative Fears Of Permanent Welfare State May Create Wild Ride

2011-05-09T06:47:00.001-04:00

I've said this before, Santorum is an idiot!

"Rick Santorum, a possible candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, even raised the specter of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy in a speech here Friday night while explaining why his grandfather emigrated to the U.S. His uncle, he said, “used to get up in a brown shirt and march and be told how to be a good little fascist.”

“I don't know, maybe they called it early pre-K or something like that, that the government sponsored to get your children in there so they can indoctrinate them,” Santorum said".

I guess that he does not know that fascism is corporate control of government, or maybe he does and like all good RIPublicans he has to change the meaning of words, lie and create innuendo in order to seem like he is telling the truth. The fact is that we are very close to a fascist state now with the amount of kowtowing that the RIPublicans do to the corporations.

And what is so bad about socialism? Don't equate socialism with the control of the means of production by the state (communism) with control of the commons. Those things that help society to improve, health, education, infrastructure, defense, and regulation of corporations to protect the people are what socialism does. It does not own the auto manufactures or the steel industry or McDonalds.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitt Romney 'Hang' Obama Gaffe Prompts Attempt To Clarify Remarks (VIDEO)

2011-05-01T07:54:00.001-04:00

Intelligent people understand what Romney was trying to say. The press is just trying to make issues of words that have little meaning, to distract people from the REAL issues.

"Romney went on to say, "I'll tell you, the fact that you've got people in this country really squeezed, with gasoline getting so expensive, with commodities getting so expensive, families are having a hard time making ends meet. So, we're going to have to talk about that, and housing foreclosures and bankruptcies and higher taxation".

So lets talk about 2 million jobs being shipped overseas in the last 10 years, speculators driving up the price of oil, flippers creating the housing boom, while "banks" loaned money to anyone so that they could cut the loans up and sell them off piece meal to high the fragility of the loans, corporations that make billion of dollars in gross revenue paying no tax or getting refunds.

These are the REAL ISSUES, not words that everyone knows the politician did not literally mean.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mayors To Washington: Stop Fooling Around, Help Us Create Jobs

2011-05-01T07:45:00.001-04:00

The Democrats have been trying to give the mayors what they need. Obama's budgets have put money into transportation and infrastructure, the kinds of thing mayors need to create job and keep bridges, tunnels, water lines and sewers from failing. What will make matters worse is the Libertarian/Tea Party enamoration with Austria economic policy. That will only push more jobs to the private sector, increasing corporate profit while lowering work pay and job safety.

Deficits do matter, that is how jobs are created. Corporations only create jobs when the economy is booming, and then they look for the lowest cost workers they can find, which is why they shipped over 2 million jobs overseas in the last ten years.

While we are fighting over budget deficits the real problem is revenue. Countries like China, Korea, Germany and France push ahead with high speed rail, renewable energy for solar and wind, and have higher standards for roads and bridges which keep repair coasts down in the long run. RIPublicans are really only looking at today and not tomorrow. Everyone runs a deficit and needs to to have the things that they want and need. Every family that "owns" a house, has a mortgage, a car note, and credit cards. That is deficit spending. You plan on paying for things tomorrow that you need today. Our tax burden as a percentage of GDP is lower than at any time in the last 60 years.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

White House Correspondents Dinner: Obama Takes On Trump, Birthers, The Media, And More (VIDEO)

2011-05-01T07:14:00.001-04:00

Gitmo is still oppen becuse the Ripublicans use parliamentary tactics to not fund closing it down and made an issue about Real prisons not being able to hold innocent people before a trial. $4 gas is not something Obama caused, rather it is something that the rich have caused through speculation on the futures market. Oil costs about $18/barrel to extract and refine, another $20/barrel to transport and market. The rest is just speculation.

What is needed is a windfall profits tax to solely fund renewable energy, a regulation that you must take delivery of the futures you purchase, and a change to the capital gains tax so that speculators are taxed fairly. i.e. a 90% tax on sales within 30 days of purchase, 70% within one year, 50% within 3 years, 30% within 5 years and 0% if held over 10 years.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Terry Jones, The Quran-Burning Pastor, Jailed In Dearborn, Michigan

2011-04-24T08:53:00.001-04:00

It is usually the most hated speech that defends the First Amendment. There should be no such thing as "Free Speech Zones". Yet, the government does have a responsibility to balance free speech with public safety. Possibly the city could have allowed this idiot the opportunity to protest, but set a barrier between his group and the mosque. He would have been massively out numbered. The mayor and the chief of police could have held a joint news conference extolling the virtues of free speech and asking the rest of the community to respectfully tolerate his small minded and even smaller group of supporters. It seems that they were able to do that on thier own. It would have just made an even bigger mockery of this guy.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

2 Louisiana Amtrak Accidents On Same Day Kill 1, Injure 7

2011-04-21T08:31:00.001-04:00

So Amtrak gets blamed again! At first glance it might appear that the truck driver is at fault. Maybe not. Maybe the crossing gates were not working. No mention of that. Also, no mention of who owned the tracks and the crossing. Most of the rail that Amtrak travels on are owned by the freight companies. They would be responsible for any accident involving the track or crossing they own, except the legislation that created Amtrak also indemnified the freight companies against any lawsuit.

It makes no difference whether or not Amtrak is at fault, they will have to pay.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

JoAnne Kloppenburg To Seek Statewide Recount In Wisconsin Supreme Court Election

2011-04-21T06:54:00.001-04:00

[The margin is within one-half of 1 percent of the total votes cast, entitling Kloppenburg to a statewide recount at local governments' expense. Prosser spokesman Brian Schimming said Wednesday. "Because there is no statistical, logical, evidence-based or even anecdotal reason to do this recount".]

She has a tight to the recount. The anomalies reported in the press are reason enough to do a recount. Why make threats about someone's rights, even if they cost money, unless you do not care about individuals rights, just the rights of the Party.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Lobbying Push Targets New House GOP Lawmakers On Debt Ceiling Vote

2011-04-21T06:45:00.001-04:00

Yet many are standing firm. "I am not going to vote to raise the debt ceiling if it does not include long-term structural reform to reduce the deficit," one Republican freshman said.

So why does that not include raising taxes? We have a revenue problem; two wars, unfunded; prescription drug program for Medicare, unfunded; tax cuts for the wealthy, unfunded. If you include tax increases on those people that saw their taxes decreased during a war, end the two wars we are now in, that would go a long way toward closing the budget gap. Then you could look at ways to increase jobs, good paying jobs, that would increase revenue to the government. We could try taxing companies that import products to the US at a higher rate than companies that produce products here. We could close all the loop holes that allow companies like BoA, Exxon, GE, etc to not pay any taxes or get refunds on the billions of dollars they make in profits each year.

Tax the rich? Hell yeah, but also tax the corporations. They are the ones that are causing massive US debts.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Lindsey Graham Declares ‘No Nominations Go Forward’ Until He Gets A $50,000 Project

2011-04-14T07:43:00.000-04:00

So nothing is more important for this country than deepening Charleston Harbor. Why should we spend any money to deep a harbor? if it is not deep enough, then maybe it cannot continue to be used for the newer cargo ships. The only deep water port in the country is New York Harbor. With hundreds of mile of Interstate highway surrounding it, and plenty of rail lines leaving the harbor on both the New York and New Jersey side. Cargo ships getting bigger, don't spend money deepening a port that will have to be dredged every 5 years, send the ships to a deep water port that already exists.

Lindsey Graham Declares ‘No Nominations Go Forward’ Until He Gets A $50,000 Project: "

Following in the footsteps of Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), who placed a hold on over 70 of President Obama’s nominees last year in order to extort tens of billions of dollars worth of pork for his state, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) threw a similar tantrum yesterday over a mere $50,000. Graham (R-SC) promised to shut down all executive branch and judicial confirmations in the Senate until he gets $50,000 to conduct a study on deepening the Port of Charleston:

Graham and fellow Republican, U.S. Rep. Tim Scott, spoke at a news conference in Charleston about $50,000 in federal matching funds to move along the process of deepening Charleston Harbor to 50 feet to allow the next generation of larger cargo ships to dock there.

“There is nothing that I will not do to right this wrong,” Graham said. “I talked to the vice president. I made it clear to him that none of their nominees are going forward, that the squeaky wheel seems to get the oil. Well nobody’s going forward in the Senate until we address this.”

Graham is able to get away with this kind of extortion because the Senate failed to fix its utterly broken rules when it had the chance to do so last January. Under these rules, a tiny minority of the senate can force up to 30 hours of pointless delay before the Senate can vote on nearly anything. If these 30 hours are multiplied across all the Senate-confirmed jobs a new president needs to fill, it adds up to more time than the Senate works during two entire presidential terms:

Nor is Graham the only senator manipulating the Senate’s rules to prevent completely uncontroversial matters from moving forward. Earlier this year, eight senators threatened to place a hold on any bill they deem unconstitutional. While this threat may not sound so bad on its own, the list of senators making the threat includes Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who believes that all federal involvement in education violates the Constitution, and Sen. Mike “a noun, a verb, and unconstitutional” Lee (R-UT), who believes that child labor laws, FEMA, food stamps, the FDA, Medicaid, income assistance for the poor, and even Medicare and Social Security violate the Constitution.

Texas GOP Rep. Introduces Sharia Ban Because He Heard Sharia Is A Threat On The Radio, Asks ‘Isn’t That True?’

2011-04-14T07:37:00.000-04:00

Lies, Lies, Lies. Tell it enough time and it become a true fact. RIPublicans no longer use any facts when they open their mouths, they just say the most outlandish thing they can about a subject, place or person, and hope that some part of it sticks in the publics mind. Here is a supposed representative of people in the state of Texas, and he proposes legislation based on something he heard on the radio, not fact checking anything, just acting based on whatever the crazed right wing talking heads tell him. RIPublicans are dangerous people!

Texas GOP Rep. Introduces Sharia Ban Because He Heard Sharia Is A Threat On The Radio, Asks ‘Isn’t That True?’: "

Texas is now joining over 15 states that have introduced bills to guard against the non-existent threat of Islamic Sharia law. In proposing legislation to ban state courts from considering foreign religious or cultural laws like Sharia, Texas state Rep. Leo Berman (R) — the bill sponsor — said, “We want to prevent it from ever happening in Texas.”

Berman insisted one U.S. city offered unquestionable proof of this supposed threat: Dearborn, MI. Dearborn is home to one of the largest Muslim populations and the largest mosque in North America. Therefore, according to Berman, Sharia law necessarily is being implemented there. “It’s being done in Dearborn, Mich., because of a large population of Middle Easterners,” Berman said, “and the judges in Dearborn are using and allowing to be used Sharia law.” He mentioned the city six times throughout his testimony. However, when pushed for details, the only actual evidence Berman could offer was, “I heard it on a radio station”:

Rep. Berman himself acknowledged knowing nothing about Dearborn.

“I heard it on a radio station here on my way in to the Capitol one day,” Berman said Monday in an interview. “I don’t know Dearborn, Michigan but I heard it (Sharia is accepted law here) on the radio. Isn’t that true?“

No, says Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly (D), who must repeatedly debunk Islamophobic theories about the city. “These people know nothing of Dearborn and they just seek to provoke and enflame their base for political gain,” he said. But such cultural ignorance doesn’t stop “Dearborn-Sharia theorists” from citing the city as proof of a Muslim threat. Likely GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich cited the arrest of four Christian missionaries during a Dearborn Arab festival as an example of “radical Islamism” to argue against the Islamic Center in New York City. Perpetual candidate Sharron Angle (R-NV) said Dearborn faces “militant terrorist situation” and is ruled by Sharia law.

But even Berman, who is no stranger to outlandish extremism, must realize “I heard it on a radio station” fails as evidence for anything. Unless, of course, he’s planning an anti-Martian bill in response to War of the Worlds.

2011-04-14T07:23:00.000-04:00

Just another example of how the RIPublicans are destroying the country while at the same time enriching the wealthiest Americans.

Budget Deal Needed To Avoid Spending Train Wreck, Government Shutdown

2011-04-04T10:18:00.001-04:00

The budget dead lock is continually being played in the media as a deficit problem when that is not the case. The continuation of the Bush tax cuts cost the federal government $70 billion. Proposed RIPublican tax cuts for fiscal 2011 are only $60 billion. They are not even covering the tax cuts that they "forced" on Dems in December. The fact that Exxon paid not taxes for the last 3 years or that GE got a refund, or any of the other companies that paid little or not tax, doesn't even get mentioned in any article on the budget impasse. Those should be headlines with every article on the budget.

The American middle class continues to be ripped off by corporations with their corporate welfare. How is it that any corporation that pays no tax should be giving their corporate officers bonuses? That money comes directly from your pocket. Corporations pay less than 10% of all federal revenue, yet during the 1950's prosperity they paid close to 30%. The wealthy paid a top rate of 90% with and effective rate of around 50%. Yet today their effective rate is lower than 15%.

The spending is not a problem, it is revenue or the lack there of. RIPublicans talk about keeping taxes low, yet has that improved the economy? Clinton increased taxes and the economy improved after Bush I and Reagan. Taxes were clearly higher during the 1950 and 1960 and the economy was very robust.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

When Zero is not enough.

2011-03-26T08:48:00.000-04:00

Corporations used to pay the majority share of the governments revenue. Before the income tax was passed, tariffs paid for the government budget. However, as corporatism has taken over the government, this rate has steadily gone down to the point where major corporations pay no tax on billions of dollars in revenue or they get a refund. Who has to make up that difference? That's right, you and I. And by you and I, I mean those making less than $250K. Because their effective tax rate is lower than what you and I pay. We pick up the rest. We are constantly fed the lie that corporations will leave the country or the state if the tax rate is increased. Well, they already have. They have moved their profits "offshore" as a way to avoid paying any tax. The rich do it too, sending billions to the Caymans and other private bank accounts.

Reactor Core At Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Plant May Have Been Breached

2011-03-25T08:31:00.001-04:00

After listening to Professor Michio Kaku on Rachel Maddow last night, the pumping of sea water into the reactors was a very bad idea. As they continued to heat and boiled off the water pumped in, the remaining salt woud have coalesced around the reactor rods creating an insulator that would keep the heat in and the cooling water out. As the temperature increases, this salt will eventually become molten and melt with the rods. Not amount of water, fresh or otherwise, will be able to control the temperature. A meltdown at one or all of the reactors is inevitable at this point in time. The China Syndrome will happen in Japan and right next to China. We, and our posterity, will all suffer from not planning for the once in a hundred years accident because it would affect profits.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

House Lawmakers Draft Legislation To Defund Libya Operations

2011-03-24T08:10:00.001-04:00

The crazy thing is that under the War Powers Act, the President can commit troops without Congressional approval, as long as he give notice within 48 hours of committing those troops. Without approval from Congress, the President has 60 to end the conflict with an additional 30 withdrawal period.

There is nothing to defund. It falls under the DOD's current operating budget. I am not one to advocate for war, but we should strongly consider it when humanitarian interests are involved. That, however, means that you have to look at all international internal conflicts and determine if it is a legitimate attempt to overthrow a repressive regime with a democracy or not. It no longer becomes a question of whether it is in the U.S. interest, it is a question of moral responsibility to protect people from their own government.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Workers Exposed To Radiation And Injured At Nuclear Plant In Japan

2011-03-24T07:49:00.001-04:00

"The two workers likely suffered "beta ray burns," citing doctors. They tested at radiation levels between 170 to 180 millisieverts, well below the maximum 250 millisieverts allowed for workers"

At what point does suffering an injury no long considered safe. When it applies to management. Where are the execs at TEPCO? Why are they not on the ground at the plant? Because it is too dangerous. It is better to let the lower classes get irradiated and stay at the office to find ways to avoid blame and liability.

It was insane to build nuclear plants in one of the most active earthquake zones on the planet. There is no way to control a nuclear plant once they are damaged. This plant will leak radiation into the air, ground and water forever. Not only will the people of Japan suffer, but so will animals and fish in the area surrounding the plant, and possible the rest of the world as the fallout from this plant will not stop for millennia.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Afghanistan Withdrawal Acceleration Resolution Defeated In The House

2011-03-18T08:00:00.001-04:00

"War is expensive, and it should not be measured in the cost of money, which has been the discussion today."

Peace is expensive: educating children, building and maintaining roads and bridges, providing for police and firefighters, caring for the elderly, and providing for the general welfare of the people.

We need the military, however, the current military budget equals the total budget deficit this years. Rather than looking for ways to cut the budget, how about we look at ways to make corporations pay their taxes. Michigan just cut corporate taxes 84% then cut government services by $1.4 Billion. It is time to take back our country!

http://www.usuncut.org/
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Crisis in Japan Prompts Questions About U.S. Nuclear Safety

2011-03-18T07:40:00.001-04:00

Here in lies the problem: Government regulating industry that relies on inspectors that essentially work at the place they inspect, employing inspectors and regulators that have worked in the industry. The inmates are in charge of the jail. Government regulators should be coming from watchdog (legitimate, not astro turf organizations) groups, no inspector should be assigned to one place for longer than one year, and random inspections should occur up to once a quarter.

With utilities, they were once "public" and had to operate in the public interest. They are now private corporations that operate in the interest of making profits. Profits come from raising prices, which in this case is regulated, from increasing productivity, or from cutting expenses. Business, when declared persons by the Supreme Court, have no moral values. They may state that somewhere in there company literature to their employees and their stockholders, but their only values is based on profit at all costs.

Is it the corporations fault they are this way? No, I don't think so. We have made them this way because of our tax policies. Stockholders don't hold stock, they trade it like chips at a craps table. Make the capitals gains tax work for companies by making it progressive: hold a stock for one day or less and you pay 90% capital gains, hold it for 5 years you pay 50%; hold it for 10 years, you pay nothing. That could eliminate Wall St. influence over how companies operate.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Japan Plans Spending Package As Quake Slams World's Most Indebted Economy

2011-03-14T13:42:00.001-04:00

A national disaster and CEOs say they will except a temporary tax hike to help pay for the rebuilding. If that was here, the CEOs and the RIPublicans would just tell everybody to spend their way out of the problem, act like nothing happened. Wait, that IS what they did after 9/11, and then they gave themselves a tax cut. That is the difference between people that care about thier country and those that don't.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Further Analysis Finds Deceptive Editing In Sting Tape, As NPR Gains An Unlikely Defender

2011-03-14T12:36:00.001-04:00

NPR never said that. Rober Schiller sid that as part of his personal opinion, which he prefaced the whole interview. What Schiller said was not that bad, in fact it was correct, with the exception of public financing. I understand his point, but it would mean the end of NPRs impartiality. As such, why do you want someone that does not believe in public finance soliciting contributions to make up the shortfall?

The Right does not like NPR because they can't be bought, and they fact check their stories, something FOX and the rest of their mouth pieces never do.
About NPR
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Bank Of America Anonymous Leak Alleges 'Corruption And Fraud'

2011-03-14T12:20:00.001-04:00

The fascists have full control of this country. They allow a certain amount of freedoms as it suits their goal of total control. As long as people think that they have some control the will tolerate much duplicity. The framers knew this and included it in the Declaration of Independence: "accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security".

It is time to throw off the shackles of economic slavery, and return control of this country to the People!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Rick Santorum: Newt Gingrich's Past Infidelity 'Not An Issue' With Respect To Positions He Takes

2011-03-12T08:41:00.001-05:00

If his infidelity is not an issue, why was it impeachable for Clinton? Why is it that every time a RIPublican is caught, it is not an issue to their ability to govern, yet for DemocratS it means they should be run out on a rail? Why, because RIPublicans have no standards. They want everyone else to play by the rules that they make, and those rules never apply to them.

Gingrich is a hypocrite, and a liar, yes a liar, not just someone who misspeaks or got is facts wrong that one time. His views are detrimental to this country, our economy and our future.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tsunami Relief And Preparedness Cut In GOP Budget Proposal: National Weather Service

2011-03-12T08:35:00.001-05:00

Again and again we continue to talk about reducing the deficit, when the real discussion should be on how to increase revenue. We would not be talking about defunding important parts of the government, social services, etc., if we would instead focus on why corporations that make billion of dollars profit each years get away with not paying a dime in taxes. Exxon, Bank of America, G.E., and Citigroup have paid ZERO in taxes to the federal government.

Every tax cut story posted on HuffPo should preface with the companies that pay no taxes as well as the "wealthy" that sponge off of our (middle class) taxes.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Florida, Idaho Push For Merit Pay, Could Set National Precedent For Teacher Contracts

2011-03-12T08:15:00.001-05:00

The reason teachers unions are against merit pay is because most plans are based on test score. So what are we really teaching our kids? Just how to pass the mid and end year exams and SAT/ACT tests. But do these tests really show what someone has learned? Not really, as the majority of questions are multiple guess. There is no testing of understanding, no testing of root causes behind the history, no opportunity to express yourself and you UNDERSTANDING of the information you were taught. I remember when tests had on a couple of multiple guess/true/false questions, but the majority was written answers.

To pay teachers based on merit alone, you would have to pay on a graduated scale, to include what kind of facility are they in (i.e. run down, totally new, safe, etc), available technology, economic status of the students families (although poor children learn as well as anyone else, their home environment can contribute to poor learning), and other complications to a healthy learning environment.

RIPublicans like to paint things in black and white terms, but most issues have a huge grey area. By avoiding the grey (complicated) areas of an issue, RIPublicans create wedges between those that want to understand the issue and those that want a sound bite they can shout at a meeting.
About Education Reform
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Melting Ice Sheets Now Largest Contributor To Rising Sea Levels: Study

2011-03-12T07:43:00.001-05:00

The problem with environmental reporting is that it is seen in a vacuum. We hear of ice melts, due to climate change, we hear of rising temperatures because of an increase in man-made greenhouse gases, there are rising sea levels, and yet there is no consolidation of these events.

Climate change is do to an increase in greenhouse gasses. This is raising the temperature of the planet as a whole. Oceans are getting warmer, which means that they are rising just from the expansion of water molecules. But this is causing other problems. Increased ocean temperature is causing underground methane deposits to escape, multiplying the greenhouse effect. Increased ocean temperature causes the leading edge of ice sheets to melt faster, and more water is evaporating into the atmosphere because of increase air temperatures. This makes for bigger, strong hurricanes/cyclones, heavier snow falls, due to the increase in moisture and temperatures closer to freezing rather than being colder during the winter. This causes greater in-land flooding during melt off and heavier rains in spring and fall.

Increase temperature will make it harder to grow crops in Southern California, Florida and the Southern states at there wil be less water available as lake and rivers dry up. Yes, I know about the increased water from melt off, but that will be in the northern part of the country. RIPublicans would not want to spend public money to move the water south.

Nothing happens in a vacuum.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

House Panel Passes Bill To Stop EPA Climate Regulations

2011-03-12T07:07:00.001-05:00

It seems that everyday the RIPublicans are on power, they show how little they care about people and how much they care about corporations. Will preventing the EPA from regulating greenhouse gasses create any jobs? No, of course not. In fact it will eliminate jobs. Companies will not need those people that have been ensuring that environmental regulations are being followed, which will not only put the general population at risk, but will also put the workers at greater risk of inhaling pollutants directly while at work. So the RIPublicans will also have to defund OSHA so that corporations can't be fined for putting workers lives at risk.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Hayabusa High-Speed Train Debuts In Japan (PHOTOS)

2011-03-07T07:39:00.001-05:00

There was a time when America was at the forefront, not only of creating technology, but applying that technology as well. Today, we no longer lead in technology development but we do not lead in the application f that technology. We ceded rail technology to the rest of the world in the 1950's as we plowed money into highways, buses and cars. LA lost their Subway because of our lack of vision. Germany leads the world in solar technology and its application; the Danes and the Dutch lead in the application of wind technology. Yet we continue to look the future in the eye and spit at it. Governors giving away money over ideology, when it could create jobs, long term jobs for that matter, for their states. High speed rail and lower pollution levels caused by high flying jets, and by freight traffic as less bulky materials could be transported faster.

Where is the vision. It is not with the RIPUGlicans; it is not with corporations that do not want to part with profits to invest in tomorrow; it seems that it is only in PROGRESSIVE Dems that see the future and want to invest in it.

Give the money away Rick Scott, the future will not be in flooded, boiling Florida but in the dreaded Northeast and West coasts, who's leaders see the future quite clearly.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

U.S. Uncut Disrupts Service At Bank Of America

2011-02-28T07:46:00.001-05:00

What makes his real is that there is not only no central organization, but also no central banking account. The organization does not take donations, just helps to co-ordinate action across the country. This is in contrast to the "Tea Party", both of its organizations, that take money not just from angry libertarians, but also from large corporations and benefactors like the Koch Brothers.

"I believe there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think it will be based on the color of our skin". Malcolm X

http://www.usuncut.org/

http://www.facebook.com/usauncut?ref=ts&sk=wall
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Democrats Warm To GOP's Short-Term Budget Cuts

2011-02-26T08:36:00.001-05:00

What is there for Dems to warm too in discussion with RIPublicans over budget cuts? If the RIPublicans are not offering to compromise on increasing revenue, there should be no discussions about budget cuts!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Are These People Overpaid?

2011-02-25T15:36:00.001-05:00

Isn't it amazing that government workers are over paid and burdening taxpayers? Aren't these self same government employees taxpayers as well? I don't believe any of them are out there supporting the Gov. to eliminate collective bargaining so that they can be told how much they will make and what little if any benefits they will get. No collective bargaining means that worker have the right to be poor!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Senate Democrats Meet To Find More Cuts For Long-Term Funding Deal With GOP

2011-02-24T19:50:00.001-05:00

What a bunch of losers the the Senate Dems are. All they seem to do is to give, give , give, and what do they get for it; Nothing! Yet, We The People, will get screwed once again. When will our legislators understand that they are there to serve the People, not the rich and large corporations.

It is time that what is happening in Wisconsin spreads to the rest of the country. We need to start rallying at every state capital and D.C. and let these people know that the end is now. We need to take back government and make it do what it was intended to do: insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to Ourselves and Our Posterity. This can not be done while we continue to allow the rich and large corporations to bleed us dry.

I say SHUT THE GOVERNMENT DOWN! You want spending cuts, fine cut spending only when you agree to increase revenue from the rich and corporations. Stop giving tax breaks to to the largest corps that now pay now taxes and ship our jobs overseas. Stop giving breaks to the wealthiest that create scams to destroy the financial system in order to increase their own wealth.

SHUT IT DOWN!!!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Government Funding Talks Dissolving, Shutdown Now Floated As Negotiating Tactic

2011-02-23T23:16:00.001-05:00

Shut it down. Obama gave his concession to RIPublicans with the extension of the Bush tax cuts. Now they want to gut everything that is a social program. Forget it. If the RIPublicans want to put the budget back in balance, they should start with repealing the Bush tax cuts, closing loop holes that allow multi billion dollar corporations to avoid paying taxes, and tax corporations that import product to the US. When we make the tax system equitable, and bring good paying jobs back to this country, we will be able to sustain all our social programs. However, as long as we allow the wealthiest individuals and the largest corporations to not pay their fair share, we will continue down the road to third world status.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Warns Of 'Dire Consequences' If Budget Bill Fails To Pass

2011-02-23T07:35:00.001-05:00

The only "dire consequences" of not passing the legislation is that the RIPublicans will not have busted the unions, but made them stronger, made them realize that they can have a major influence on people, and may, just may get new legislation to make it easier for workers to join unions.

If the Gov wants to balance Wisconsin's budget, he should rescind the tax breaks that he just signed for the rich and large corporations.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

George Soros Responds To Glenn Beck, Fox News Attacks (VIDEO)

2011-02-20T08:57:00.001-05:00

Soros did what RIPublicans sya the system should be able to do...produce millionaires. The truth is that it is the rare person who can do that, no matter what the tax system is. Soros is not afraid of taxes, and is in favor of increasing them on the wealthy. That does not make him an elitist. It makes him someone who cares about the rest of society. Without a strong middle class, no countries economy can service. Just look at the third world, plenty of millionaires in the elite classes, mostly stolen money from the government and subjegating the poor, but they never develop a strong economy. Why, because they have no middle class. The middle class is the driver of the economy, the ones that spend money on everyday products and durable goods that create real wealth for the manufacturing country. We have shipped the wealth creating jobs overseas, and if we do not find a way to bring them back, we will be on a long slow road to third world status.
About Glenn Beck
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Fox Reporter Greeted With 'Fox Lies' Chants In Madison

2011-02-20T08:41:00.001-05:00

What else could you say. Fox is nothing but a manipulator, spin machine, and propaganda arm of the right. What keeps it going is the fact that they actual have great sports coverage and a decent entertainment division. Their coverage is never accurate, and always contains opinion either from the reporter or the person at the anchor desk.

Notice you did not see anyone yelling Ed lies or MSNBC lies or CBS lies or the New York Times lies, just FOX.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

'Flash Crash' Panel Calls For U.S. Market Overhaul

2011-02-20T08:13:00.001-05:00

There are a lot of people on this thread calling for new regulations. But don't you understand that the market will always correct itself, that business will always do what is bets so that they don't go out of business? Self regulation, that is what capitalism is all about.

Well, that and telling the government that they have to bail them out after they ruined the economy of the WORLD! Capitalism without regulation is at best destructive, not only of itself but the rest of humanity. There must be regulations in a capitalist economy, or business will eat itself and everything around it.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Madison Protests Hit Largest Numbers On Saturday

2011-02-20T07:25:00.001-05:00

What about the tax breaks that Walker gave to big business in his first budget. How can you expect to even maintain your programs when you continually give away revenue? What the RIPublican strategy is is to starve the government to show that it does not work. Government work fine when everyone put in the same percentage of actual disposable income. That means a true progressive tax on both people and businesses. They use the services that government provides, and they should have to pay for it.

http://robertreich.org/post/3317811319
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Republican Amendment Would Strip Funds For Obama 'Czars,' Plus Elizabeth Warren

2011-02-17T19:53:00.001-05:00

The only way to make government not work is to starve it. The Ripublicans are doing that to show how bad government is. What would be worse, paying people to regulate business that routinely puts profits before workers, or the country for that matter, or not funding the government so that business can make profits at all costs?

Ripublicans will destroy this economy in two years if they put their budget proposals in effect. Cutting defense spending (there is more waste there then any other department in the country) could go much further to restoring the economy then cutting programs that keep Americans employed, healthy, and safe.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Philadelphia Man Forecloses On Wells Fargo

2011-02-17T19:42:00.001-05:00

OK, but you have to laugh at the ingenuity of the guy for using the law against the banks. He is probably correct in determining that he does not need a $1 million insurance policy to rebuild his home if it is destroyed. The bank tried to do that to me to insure the home for much more then is was worth to rebuild. We even had quotes for replacement from exactly as the house was build to replacing the foundation and putting up the same square footage home. What banks are trying to do is to stretch your budget to the breaking point so that you miss or are late on e on payment. Read your mortgage, you will find that the bank has the right to initiate foreclosure if you are 30 days late on a payment, even if you double pay to get caght up.
About Foreclosure Crisis
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Wisconsin Protests: State Police Pursue Democratic Lawmakers Boycotting Vote

2011-02-17T19:34:00.001-05:00

Ripublicans will do anything they can to subjugate the American people. First step to doing that is to destroy the unions. Once there is no collective bargaining, people will have to accept what business and government offer them for pay. If they do not lit it or the work conditions they can go somewhere else. That of course will lead to the same. People will fall into poverty, go hungry, die because of lack of health care, and then the jobs will come back here because we will make less income than the Chinese and we could then undercut them. The Ripublican future!
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Clinton: Nations Suppress Internet At Own Risk

2011-02-15T15:26:00.001-05:00

So where is the money to protect Internet freedom here? Once again we send millions out of the country when we have an issue here. We spend $3 million a day funding Egypt's military alone. That kind of money funds universal health care for all Americans if we did not send it overseas to dictators.
About Hillary Clinton
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John Boehner On Entitlement Cuts: 'Everything Is On The Table'

2011-02-15T15:20:00.001-05:00

If everything is one the table, then that should include increasing taxes on the wealthy, increasing inheritance taxes on estates over $1 million, ending all subsidies to oil companies, nuke power companies, and reducing Congress' salaries by 10%.

Why is it that the Ripublicans think that cutting non-defense discretionary spending (which is only one third of the total deficit) will solve anything. How about we end the Bush tax cuts; how about we bring taxes to the level they were under Eisenhower, when the country was considered prosperous; how about taxing companies that move American jobs overseas, thereby reduce government revenue; how about we stop trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and middle classes?
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Berlusconi Indicted: Italian Prime Minister To Stand Trial On Teen Prostitution Charges

2011-02-15T10:39:00.001-05:00

How is it that a sitting P.M. can be indicted on charges (real ones, not fake "I had sex with an adult" like Clinton), yet we still cannot seem to put on trial a former President on war cries that he admitted to in his own book.
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Egypt Labor Unrest Grows After Uprising

2011-02-14T07:46:00.001-05:00

It is imperative that the Egyptians form their political parties so that they can decide on where they want to take the country now. They must also watch the military closely, so that it does not get comfortable in power. The new constitution should take the best elements from the democracies of the West, ensuring that they limit government control of information and retain their right to privacy, and freedoms of religion, speech, and assembly. They should also include term limits for all political offices, from dog catcher on up.
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Obama Budget Proposal: Cuts To Target Working Poor, Middle Class & Students (LIVE UPDATES)

2011-02-14T07:36:00.001-05:00

The Ripublicans and their Libertarian/T.P. cohorts are working hard to ensure that government fails by starving it. They will then be able to convince those that do not care about the details (their supporters) that government should only be about defense and everything else should belong in the private sector. Of course defense spending will not go away as the government will continue to fund development and buy expensive weapon systems that fail to live up to expectation. The deficit will never be reduced, because their will never be the revenue to reduce it.

Reagan was most likely a sleeper for the Communist Party
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Obama To Cut Energy Assistance For Poor; Kerry Urges Him To Reconsider

2011-02-10T09:11:00.001-05:00

What should be cut is the budget for the Dept of Commerce, subsidies for energy companies (except renewables), agricultural subsidies for agribusiness, defense procurement programs for weapons systems that are not needed for the current and future military operation (of course, the Ripublicans are looking to cut military pay raises next fiscal year).

Government will never care about the people until we demonstrate like they are in Egypt. People must come first.
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White House Seeks $53 Billion For High-Speed Rail

2011-02-08T16:02:00.001-05:00

Why does Amtrak have to wait on a siding for permission to continue, and why can't passenger trains travel faster. You have to understand rail transport since the demise of the Penn Central and the creation of Conrail and Amtrak by the federal government.

When the Penn Central failed, all rail corporations were going to end passenger service. In order to prevent that, the government created Amtrak, giving huge concessions to what are now the freight rail companies. Most of the rail remains in the hands of the freight lines, with little incentive to make them better for faster passenger service. Amtrak was given control of the older rails in the east and northeast, very little of which was straight. Amtrak also had to give priority to the freight lines on their own tracks, with the freight lines on giving the same priority to Amtrak. Finally, the freight line were indemnified by Amtrak in case of accidents. Even if it was the fault of the freight companies to properly maintain their track, Amtrak would ultimately pay the bill for repairs and lawsuits.

Building high speed rail in this country could improve transportation, lowering costs to travelers, increasing real competition with airlines and creating high paying jobs for Americans. What has to happen is that we need to do this the way other countries do it and require that any foreign company that is awarded a contract must manufacture in the US.
About Barack Obama
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GOP Senator Proposes Increasing Social Security Retirement Age 'Every Several Years'

2011-02-08T15:39:00.001-05:00

Rather than increasing the retirement age every few years, why don't we increase the amount that is taxable every few years. Rather than the wealthiest not paying any SS tax after $105K, they get to pay tax on every penny earned, just like the rest of us. Social Security will not run out of money in anyone's lifetime, especially someone who has been in the Senate nearly as long as I have been alive.
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Darrell Issa, Republicans Out Front Of Obama On Regulations

2011-02-08T08:08:00.001-05:00

I have read many of the comments posted on this thread and many people seem to think that American business is doing something different than businesses have since the first time someone hired someone to work for them. Marx was right in many respects about the business/labor interaction. Business has beaten down the labor force to the point that it is irrelevant, and government has made that possible by the tax breaks they have given to outsource jobs. Regulations are merely a check and balance on business to keep them from completely exploiting workers, the environment, and the consumers of their products.

Unregulated capitalism is like a parasite, it will continue to feed off its host until it kills it. Capitalism has nothing to to with free trade, innovation, or job creation. A capitalists goal is to eliminate the competition until there is a monopoly, to reduce costs by shifting to the cheapest labor it can find, which will eliminate its own consumers, using the least expensive raw materials while not lowering the retail price to increase profits (none of which make it to the labor force), and to market their products to consumers by making inaccurate statement about what their products are made of or will do.

I am not advocating a different economic system, just one that maintains a check and balance on business so that it does not kill itself (or its labor force or consumers) at the expense of making money.
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Sarah Palin Criticizes White House, Says She Wants To 'Help' The Media (VIDEO)

2011-02-08T07:43:00.001-05:00

It is beginning to look like Palin may make Dubya seem intelligent. She not only mangles the language, but she also has not idea about the topics she talks about. She is Joe the Plumber who's 15 minutes seem to never end.
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Bush Cancels Visit To Switzerland Due To Threat Of Torture Prosecution, Rights Groups Say

2011-02-06T06:47:00.001-05:00

Not only is waterboarding defined as torture, but, the U.S. made sure that it was put into the Convention on Torture. We tried and executed Japanese soldiers after WWII for committing this crime. Most of the Bush Administration will find that they are "prisoners" of the homeland. Once they step outside of this country they will face the same fate as those from Yugoslavia, Chile, and other countries that committed acts violating human rights.
About Harsh Interrogations
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Tucker Carlson: Michael Vick 'Should Have Been Executed' (VIDEO)

2010-12-29T09:15:00.001-05:00

So Tucker thinks that Michael Vick should have been executed for his dog fighting offense. I agree that what Vick did was offensive. He was caught, served time, and his debt to society has been paid. But Tucker thinks that he should be held to some higher standard. OK, so we execute people convicted of dog fighting, what do we do about people that sanction torture, authorize assassination, or fall to provide food and shelter to victims of natural disasters?

The Ripublicans are on the same road that the Nazi traveled. Get rid of all of the people that THEY feel are undesirable. That they alone can be benevolent dictators. That through the power of corporatism, everything can be made better.

Control the media and you control the message; control the message and you control society.
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Iowa, New Hampshire Threaten Nation With Early Start To 2012 Primary Season

2010-12-29T09:05:00.001-05:00

The whole Primary system is "F'd" up. Firts off, the Primaries are for each party to determine who will lead them in the next election. No person that has not declared themselves a party member should be able to vote. Are you an independent? To bad, start your own party and make some changes. Second, there should be no federal matching funds and the parties should declare how much can be spent for the primaries. One "man", one vote. No one should be able to shout over the crowd because they have more money. Third, the primaries should start no earlier then 2 months before the national convention. That being said, no national convention should be held more then 2 months before the general election.

European countries seem to be able to pull this off without any problems. The reason is that leaders are not picked based on the best polls numbers, or the most TV coverage, or the best negative ads. Their leaders are determined every year at party conferences, voted on by party members. If their is a snap election called, everyone in the country knows who is runner for Prime Minister, or President or for their local representative.

If we change the laws governing party politics, we can make our system better, less expensive and involve more party members on a regular basis.
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U.S. Allowed American Companies To Do Business With Blacklisted Nations

2010-12-23T20:41:00.001-05:00

As if this is news. The U.S. has always done business with its enemies. Just look at the U>S. companies that were involved with Nazi Germany during the course of th war. Business trumps all; morality, religion and human beings do not stand a chance.
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9/11 First Responders Health Care Bill Passed By House & Senate

2010-12-22T20:17:00.001-05:00

The first people to wave the flag will always be Ripublicans. They are the first to shout revenge, war, and victory. They are also the last to pay for anything they do. They just borrow the money from someone else and tell us everything is OK. Why did we have to wait 9 years for these people to be recognized for the danger they out themselves in trying to save lives? Why was there even a question that they should get full medical coverage at all? After all, they were living in asbestos for months while the government (Ripublican run 100%) said everything was safe.

Why is it that we have to wait for the Trade Center to be rebuilt. Any other country would have put those building back up ASAP. No, we find it more important to fight over the money, to find a way to justify lowering the costs. What about all the bodies that we have lowered into the ground of those that went there unselfishly to help out? Ripublicans have no excuse for being. Dems that did not throw 100% behind full funding of the legislation to cover medicall expenses are not better.

The "Tea Party" have no idea about finance, accounting, moral servitude or humanity. This country is in for worse times then when "W" was in charge.
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Lindsey Graham Makes The Case For Strike On Iran

2010-11-07T09:08:00.001-05:00

War! We are winding down spending in Iraq, winding down Afghanistan next year so the chicken hawks need to do something to keep the military industrial complex running and money flowing into their election campaigns.

War! Why would we want to take care of Americans health care or create jobs when we can spend money on killing more people. The Ripublicans made this mess with Iran, and as with all messes the Ripublicans make, they declare "WAR" on the problem. Of course, the Ripublican have not won a war they started. The drug/crime problem is worse since they made alcohol illegal, then had to have it legalized only to realize that the created organized crime on a national scale; cocaine and marijuana were made illegal in the twenties and now marijuana is the largest cash crop in the country (legally or illegally grown), and their war has resulted in more people killed and imprisoned then in any other country on earth.

The Ripublicans are going to follow the path of the NSDAP until they can declare marshal law and establish a dictatorship.
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Texas Conservatives Weigh Medicaid Withdrawal

2010-11-07T08:59:00.001-05:00

So the "Death Panels" have come knocking at the door, and who are they, the Democrats? No, they are the very same people that tried to sell America universal health care would be doing that. No, it is the Ripublicans that have come in the black robes carrying the scythe. They will see to it that we cull the herd by taking out the those least able to pay.

America will save money by having taxes reduced and government made smaller, but it will be at their expense; lives will be lost that need not be lost, people will go homeless, and education will get worse. The Ripublicans will ensure that all Americans get the same quality education as everyone is driven to the levels of Texas and Mississippi.

If people thought that the end was near when Bush was in office, they were mistaken. The TP and conservative Ripublicans will be ringing in the end of America as an economic and technology leader. Watch how fast they borrow money from the Chinese to pay for the taxes reductions they intend to put in place.

Of course they will not be reducing defense spending, as the chicken hawks are already calling for a first strike on Iran. Armageddon is coming, and the Ripublicans will start it.
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