Sunday, November 28, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
The Republicans Are Deliberately Sabotaging the Economy. Why? To Regain Power.
Steve Benen chronciles the anti-American economic policies of our "patriotic" Congressional Republicans and comes to a jarring conclusion:
Excerpts:
The Republicans are actively opposed to an economic recovery, and are doing everything they can to stop it--or even to make the economy worse.
Excerpts:
Imagine you actively disliked the United States, and wanted to deliberately undermine its economy. What kind of positions would you take to do the most damage?
You might start with rejecting the advice of economists and oppose any kind of stimulus investments. You'd also want to cut spending and take money out of the economy, while blocking funds to states and municipalities, forcing them to lay off more workers. You'd no doubt want to cut off stimulative unemployment benefits, and identify the single most effective jobs program of the last two years (the TANF Emergency Fund) so you could kill it.
You might then take steps to stop the Federal Reserve from trying to lower the unemployment rate. You'd also no doubt want to create massive economic uncertainty by vowing to gut the national health care system, promising to re-write the rules overseeing the financial industry, vowing re-write business regulations in general, considering a government shutdown, and even weighing the possibly of sending the United States into default.
You might want to cover your tracks a bit, and say you have an economic plan that would help -- a tax policy that's already been tried -- but you'd do so knowing that such a plan has already proven not to work.
Does any of this sound familiar?
It sounds familiar because the Republicans have been actively pushing or threatening ALL of these things. The Republican Party leadership DOESN'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT AMERICA, AND IT DOESN'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE SUFFERING OF AMERICANS.
It just wants POWER. It wants power in order to shovel money into their own pockets and the pockets of their friends, and to impose their radical Right Wing so-called "Values" on everyone else. And if they have to destroy all efforts at pulling the economy out of the mud, they'll do it--HAPPILY.
Anti-American hate radio ranter Rush Limbaugh has been calling for Republicans to root for Obama's failure from Day 1. His view has now not only become prevalent, it has been "improved" on: The Republicans are actively working to DESTROY the recovery for political reasons.
And the major media in the U.S. are letting them get away with this.
It's time for that to change.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
SEDITION. Cantor Works Against HIS OWN GOVERNMENT in Foreign Policy
Remember when Republicans threw a hissy fit about Nancy Pelosi supposedly "undermining" President Bush in a visit to Syria in 2007 (an out-and out lie)? The House Minority Whip, Eric Cantor, is ACTUALLY acting to undermine President Obama's foreign policy by ILLEGALLY and SEDITIOUSLY negotiating with Israel's government behind Obama's back. Amanda Terkel has the story here:
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday during a meeting in New York that the new GOP majority in the House will "serve as a check" on the Obama administration, a statement unusual for its blunt disagreement with U.S. policy delivered directly to a foreign leader.
"Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington," read a statement from Cantor's office on the one-on-one meeting. "He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other."
Cantor also took issue with Obama administration policies in other areas, including Iran, with the statement from his office saying the congressman "believes that it is time for the administration to fully and aggressively implement the Iran Sanctions Act passed by Congress earlier this year."
Ron Kampeas from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news agency found Cantor's comments extremely surprising, writing, "I can't remember an opposition leader telling a foreign leader, in a personal meeting, that he would side, as a policy, with that leader against the president. Certainly, in statements on one specific issue or another -- building in Jerusalem, or somesuch -- lawmakers have taken the sides of other nations. But to have-a-face to face and say, in general, we will take your side against the White House -- that sounds to me extraordinary."
It IS extraordinary. It's called sedition to actively work against your own government by illegally negotiating with or making promises to a foreign government. Cantor should be prosecuted, but of course, he won't be. He's a powerful conservative. They can do anything they damned well want to with impunity.
Oh, and the person who complained the loudest about Nancy Pelosi in 2007, and even went so far as to suggest that she had broken the law?
Eric Cantor
Thursday, November 11, 2010
On Veterans Day, Let's Give Our Gratitude
There are so many millions of men (and women) who gave and sacrificed in the service of their country. Thank you, thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I will NEVER forget you, and I will always be a small (but real) voice in your support.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Monday, November 08, 2010
The Conservative "Good Old Days" Were HELL
This post at Consortium News is a stunning summation of what life was REALLY like in the America of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the rich and powerful owned our nation's government from top to bottom. Some highlights:
Politicians often evoke warm and fuzzy feelings for “the good old days,” but this nostalgia is usually for a past that never was. Some pols make up the history while others “misremember” it.
...in this election year, pro-corporate politicians felt free to offer their cuddly fictions of a time – a century ago – that, in reality, produced happiness for only a few. Still, many American voters seem to have been sold.
But when the rosy tales of a Rand Paul persuade voters that this was the best of times, we are in trouble.
People need to look back clearly at this past to understand where these politicians want to take the nation now. The free enterprise system that arrived at the dawn of the 20th Century brought with it a grim and gloomy inequality.
One per cent of the population owned as much as the other 99 percent. A small elite, sitting on the boards of dozens of companies, controlled 40 percent of U.S. industry and their monopolies and trusts dominated economic life.
The media surrendered early. In 1900, the New York Times proclaimed “Millionaires will be commonplace and the country will be better for them, better for their wealth, better for the good they will do in giving employment to labor in the industries which produce their fortunes.”
“We accept and welcome great inequality of wealth and environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial in the hands of the few, as not only being beneficial, but essential for the human race,” Andrew Carnegie declared.
In Chicago, retail store magnate Marshall Field made $600 an hour and paid his clerks $3 to $5 a week, after they had put in three years of satisfactory service.
Chauncey Depew’s steel mill laborers worked from six in the morning to six in the evening, seven days a week, in 115-degree heat for $1.25 a day.
Tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt boasted he could “buy up any politician” and claimed reformers “the most purchasable.”
“We hire the law by the year,” claimed a railroad magnate.
The 14th Amendment, designed to protect the citizenship rights of former slaves, was altered by the Supreme Court to mainly protect corporations as “persons.” This was just the high court’s first twist of the 14th Amendment to serve the powerful.
Similarly, laws intended to limit the powers of business were turned to the advantage of the wealthy. The Sherman Act of 1890, passed to curb monopolies, instead was used to stop strikes and jail union leaders.
Government officials dutifully identified corporations with the public good. When choking industrial smog blanked Chicago, a leading politician said smoke was beneficial to children’s lungs.
Governments saw no need to protect workers from unsafe working conditions despite shocking numbers of deaths and injuries every year.
President Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill to hand seed grain to Texas farmers stricken by a drought, saying “it weakens the sturdiness of our national character.” Instead, he gave rich bondholders $45 million more than the value of their bonds.
Republican and Democratic presidents used the Army to crush nationwide strikes.
Government concern for the upper class and neglect for everyone else had these consequences: widespread poverty, child labor, and homeless families. Homeless children (100,000 in New York alone) scrounged for food, searched for shelter, and begged.
Employers at mills and mines preferred to hire children since at 50 cents a week, they were the cheapest. Ministers and other influential opinion leaders stepped forth to proclaim that work kept children out of trouble.
“The most beautiful sight that we see is the child at labor; as early as he may be at labor the more beautiful, and the most useful does his life get to be,” said Asa G. Candlers, founder of Coca Cola.
Working children suffered an accident rate in factories double the adult rate and saw their plight less favorably than did the silver-tongued apologists for industry.
The painful truth is that the start of the 20th Century was not a golden age, except for those with the gold. It was a dark and desperate time for much of the American population.
This is the "glorious past" that the right-wing Republicans want to return America to. The nostalgia for a "simpler time" is based on historical illiteracy and ignorance. With the acceleration of the wealth concentration in America and the constant lies flooding from the right-wing media, America is again being pushed into the darkness. PLEASE HELP US STOP THEM!
Politicians often evoke warm and fuzzy feelings for “the good old days,” but this nostalgia is usually for a past that never was. Some pols make up the history while others “misremember” it.
...in this election year, pro-corporate politicians felt free to offer their cuddly fictions of a time – a century ago – that, in reality, produced happiness for only a few. Still, many American voters seem to have been sold.
But when the rosy tales of a Rand Paul persuade voters that this was the best of times, we are in trouble.
People need to look back clearly at this past to understand where these politicians want to take the nation now. The free enterprise system that arrived at the dawn of the 20th Century brought with it a grim and gloomy inequality.
One per cent of the population owned as much as the other 99 percent. A small elite, sitting on the boards of dozens of companies, controlled 40 percent of U.S. industry and their monopolies and trusts dominated economic life.
The media surrendered early. In 1900, the New York Times proclaimed “Millionaires will be commonplace and the country will be better for them, better for their wealth, better for the good they will do in giving employment to labor in the industries which produce their fortunes.”
“We accept and welcome great inequality of wealth and environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial in the hands of the few, as not only being beneficial, but essential for the human race,” Andrew Carnegie declared.
In Chicago, retail store magnate Marshall Field made $600 an hour and paid his clerks $3 to $5 a week, after they had put in three years of satisfactory service.
Chauncey Depew’s steel mill laborers worked from six in the morning to six in the evening, seven days a week, in 115-degree heat for $1.25 a day.
Tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt boasted he could “buy up any politician” and claimed reformers “the most purchasable.”
“We hire the law by the year,” claimed a railroad magnate.
The 14th Amendment, designed to protect the citizenship rights of former slaves, was altered by the Supreme Court to mainly protect corporations as “persons.” This was just the high court’s first twist of the 14th Amendment to serve the powerful.
Similarly, laws intended to limit the powers of business were turned to the advantage of the wealthy. The Sherman Act of 1890, passed to curb monopolies, instead was used to stop strikes and jail union leaders.
Government officials dutifully identified corporations with the public good. When choking industrial smog blanked Chicago, a leading politician said smoke was beneficial to children’s lungs.
Governments saw no need to protect workers from unsafe working conditions despite shocking numbers of deaths and injuries every year.
President Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill to hand seed grain to Texas farmers stricken by a drought, saying “it weakens the sturdiness of our national character.” Instead, he gave rich bondholders $45 million more than the value of their bonds.
Republican and Democratic presidents used the Army to crush nationwide strikes.
Government concern for the upper class and neglect for everyone else had these consequences: widespread poverty, child labor, and homeless families. Homeless children (100,000 in New York alone) scrounged for food, searched for shelter, and begged.
Employers at mills and mines preferred to hire children since at 50 cents a week, they were the cheapest. Ministers and other influential opinion leaders stepped forth to proclaim that work kept children out of trouble.
“The most beautiful sight that we see is the child at labor; as early as he may be at labor the more beautiful, and the most useful does his life get to be,” said Asa G. Candlers, founder of Coca Cola.
Working children suffered an accident rate in factories double the adult rate and saw their plight less favorably than did the silver-tongued apologists for industry.
The painful truth is that the start of the 20th Century was not a golden age, except for those with the gold. It was a dark and desperate time for much of the American population.
This is the "glorious past" that the right-wing Republicans want to return America to. The nostalgia for a "simpler time" is based on historical illiteracy and ignorance. With the acceleration of the wealth concentration in America and the constant lies flooding from the right-wing media, America is again being pushed into the darkness. PLEASE HELP US STOP THEM!
Saturday, November 06, 2010
America the Banana Republic
This is what comes from over 30 years of continuous right-wing attacks on government, constant tax breaks for the richest, and the smashing of labor unions. Nick Kristof has it right here.
The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.
C.E.O.’s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.
That’s the backdrop for one of the first big postelection fights in Washington — how far to extend the Bush tax cuts to the most affluent 2 percent of Americans. Both parties agree on extending tax cuts on the first $250,000 of incomes, even for billionaires. Republicans would also cut taxes above that.
I'd just like to add that the United States is the ONLY developed nation without universal health care, and yet we pay TWICE per capita what citizens of other advanced nations do for our care.
The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.
C.E.O.’s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.
That’s the backdrop for one of the first big postelection fights in Washington — how far to extend the Bush tax cuts to the most affluent 2 percent of Americans. Both parties agree on extending tax cuts on the first $250,000 of incomes, even for billionaires. Republicans would also cut taxes above that.
I'd just like to add that the United States is the ONLY developed nation without universal health care, and yet we pay TWICE per capita what citizens of other advanced nations do for our care.
PROGRESSIVE AND LIBERAL POLICIES ARE WHAT AMERICA NEEDS NOW, NOT THIS INSANE SHIFTING OF WEALTH FROM THE MIDDLE CLASS TO THE RICH. THE CONSERVATIVE PROGRAM TO TURN THIS COUNTRY INTO A PLUTOCRACY/THEOCRACY HAS TO BE STOPPED. PERIOD.
Friday, November 05, 2010
More Pathetic Lies from Bachmann
This time the lying psychopath is claiming that President Obama's trip to India will cost $200 million a day. Politifact has the truth right here.
James Gerstenzang, a former reporter who covered numerous foreign trips by presidents for the Los Angeles Times, laughed at the $200 million a day figure, which he guessed was probably "inflated by a factor of 10." And the claim about the entourage of 3,000 also seems grossly inflated, he said. He noted that any members of the press traveling with the president pay their own way, so that's not a cost borne by taxpayers.
"It really bothers me when numbers like that get thrown around by both sides for political reasons, without it being backed up," Gerstenzang said.
Veteran reporter David Jackson, who has traveled on a number of foreign trips by presidents, wrote for the USA Today, "No, President Obama's trip is not going to cost $200 million a day."
"That figure -- first thrown out by a single Indian media outlet and now viral on conservative talk radio -- is wildly, wildly off the mark."
Repeat: Bachmann and the vast majority of other conservative leaders and media figures, will tell ANY lie, spread ANY falsehood in order to gain power. Their sick, demented hatred of President Obama is so intense that they would do or say anything to destroy him. These are the "patriots" that prevailed this past week.
God help America!
James Gerstenzang, a former reporter who covered numerous foreign trips by presidents for the Los Angeles Times, laughed at the $200 million a day figure, which he guessed was probably "inflated by a factor of 10." And the claim about the entourage of 3,000 also seems grossly inflated, he said. He noted that any members of the press traveling with the president pay their own way, so that's not a cost borne by taxpayers.
"It really bothers me when numbers like that get thrown around by both sides for political reasons, without it being backed up," Gerstenzang said.
Veteran reporter David Jackson, who has traveled on a number of foreign trips by presidents, wrote for the USA Today, "No, President Obama's trip is not going to cost $200 million a day."
"That figure -- first thrown out by a single Indian media outlet and now viral on conservative talk radio -- is wildly, wildly off the mark."
Repeat: Bachmann and the vast majority of other conservative leaders and media figures, will tell ANY lie, spread ANY falsehood in order to gain power. Their sick, demented hatred of President Obama is so intense that they would do or say anything to destroy him. These are the "patriots" that prevailed this past week.
God help America!
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
I'm starting the 2012 campaign TONIGHT.
This minute.
RIGHT NOW.
I am personally pledging $20 a month to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee TONIGHT.
I want to see 20,000,000 PROUD DEMOCRATS giving $20 a month to a Democratic committee. That's almost TEN BILLION DOLLARS between now and November 2012 to fight back against the tide of right-wing corporate money and right-wing lies that did so much damage to us this year. $10 BILLION. We can DO IT, if you help. Will you? Will you viralize this appeal?
I DON'T STAY ON THE FLOOR. I GET UP AND I FIGHT BACK.
WE'RE GOING TO RETAKE THE HOUSE.
WE'RE GOING TO KEEP THE SENATE.
AND MOST OF ALL, WE'RE GOING TO RE-ELECT PRESIDENT OBAMA.
No time for regrets or recriminations.
LET'S GET TO WORK!
Monday, November 01, 2010
The "Grass Roots" Tea Party
(Click to Enlarge)
Folks, the name "Tea Party" is just the name for the same radical right-wing extremists who have been a millstone around America's neck for so many decades. And they're being financed by wealthy right-wing radicals intent on establishing Government by the Rich at the top. Period.
Folks, the name "Tea Party" is just the name for the same radical right-wing extremists who have been a millstone around America's neck for so many decades. And they're being financed by wealthy right-wing radicals intent on establishing Government by the Rich at the top. Period.
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