Saturday, May 15, 2010

Obama: GOP Drove US ‘Into The Ditch’

"After they drove the car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want the keys back," said Obama.

The president accused Republicans of doing "their best to gum up the works; to make things look broken; to say 'no' to every single thing."

George Bush was always so proud that he didn't blink in tough times. Too bad it was as he was driving the economy into a wall.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

Friday, May 14, 2010

Is Barack Obama A U.S. Citizen?

Somehow the State Department, FBI and CIA missed that Obama is not a citizen, but the guy in the middle of nowhere with zero access to documents thinks "the black guy can't be one of us".

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

Obama Creating More Jobs This Year Than Bush In Eight

If the economy produces jobs over the next eight months at the same pace as it did over the past four months, the nation will have created more jobs in 2010 alone than it did over the entire eight years of George W. Bush's presidency.

That comparison comes with many footnotes and asterisks. But it shows how the economic debate between the parties could look very different over time -- perhaps by November, more likely by 2012. More important, the comparison underscores the urgency of repairing an American job-creation machine that was sputtering long before the 2008 financial meltdown.

First, the numbers: From February 2001, Bush's first full month in office, through January 2009, his last, total U.S. nonfarm employment grew from 132.5 million to 133.5 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's an increase, obviously, of just 1 million. From January through April of this year, the economy created 573,000 jobs. Over a full year, that projects to 1.72 million jobs. Job-creation numbers are notoriously volatile, so the actual result could run above or below that estimate. But Obama administration economists are increasingly optimistic that job growth this year will exceed expectations. Few of them will be surprised if more jobs are created in 2010 than over Bush's two terms.

Some context to the jobs created by other Presidents:

"The real point of looking again at Bush's record is to underscore how few jobs the economy was creating even before the 2008 collapse. Bush's tally of 1 million jobs was much less than the economy had generated during any other two-term stretch since World War II: Dwight Eisenhower produced nearly 4 million, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson (together) almost 16 million, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (together) 11 million, Ronald Reagan 16 million, and Bill Clinton more than 22 million."

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Glenn Beck Has Nazi Tourrette's

Lewis Black has an easy time of showcasing Glenn Beck's staggering propensity to compare just about anything to Nazi Germany.
"Mother Theresa had a moustache. Hitler had a moustache. Mother Theresa is Hitler!"

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Back in Black - Glenn Beck's Nazi Tourette's
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorTea Party

Greek Population v Greek Debt

Population of Greece: 11,237,094

Greece's external debt: $582,000,000,000

[About 170 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP)]

11 million people and $582 billion of debt. Wow.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Then Vs. Now: Your Privacy On Facebook

Matt McKeon put together a series of graphics to illustrate the evolution of the availability of your Facebook data since 2005.

See the full set here.

Make sure you check those privacy settings. Now more then ever your default settings are making your profile, photos and feed available to the intenets.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

Video Of Gulf Oil Slick: Larger Than You Can Imagine

"A reddish pink sheen everywhere"

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Interest Rates At Zero Taxes Savers

The government's zero-interest-rate policy is a HUGE tax on people who saved money instead of borrowing. It is a huge giveaway to the big banks. Why no noise about this?

The middle class has been in the cross-hairs for so long, they don't realize these basic principles are crushing them like grapes. They don't know what is good for them, some even vote against their own best interests assuming big business will take care of them or their side of the aisle knows how to govern better. The little guy is screwed and still votes Big Business/Republican.

Outrageous.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

Taxes At Lowest Level Since 1950

Amid complaints about high taxes and calls for a smaller government, Americans paid their lowest level of taxes last year since Harry Truman's presidency, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data found.

Some political conservatives such as "Tea Party" activists have criticized federal spending as being out of control. While spending is up, taxes have fallen to exceptionally low levels.

Federal, state and local taxes — including income, property, sales and other taxes — consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the past half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8.% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010.

The Tea Party platform is about taxes. When they complain about being "Taxed Enough Already" [TEA] as taxes are their lowest in over 60 years, it makes you wonder what is at the core of their argument. Race? Not "one of us"? Automatic rage for anything Democratic?

Don't tell me it's spending or borrowing. Bush borrowed and spent his entire Presidency. You think those two wars and Medicare Plan D were paid for? Or the future VA bills for 100,000s of troops when they get back?

So he cut taxes for the top 1%. Bush and his fellow Republicans wrote enough I.O.U.s to last for decades. For eight years, Bush never balanced the budget and the Teabaggers were just fine.

You will never please everyone on the issue of taxes, but at least use the facts.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

If Kagan's A Novice, Rehnquist Had Training Wheels And A Lolly

It's OK to be skeptical, but let's see a comparison of resumes:
Here's Rehnquist...
1952-1953: Clerk For Justice Robert Jackson
1953-1969: Private Practice in Phoenix, AZ
1969-1971: Assistant USAG, Office of Legal Counsel
...and here's Kagan.
1986-87: Clerk for Judge Abner Mikva, U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit
1987-88: Clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, U.S. Supreme Court
1989-91: Associate in Private Practice, Williams & Connolly
1991-97: Assistant Professor and Professor, University of Chicago Law School (1991-94 as assistant professor)
1995-96: Associate White House Counsel
1997-99: Deputy Assistant to the President, Domestic Policy Council
1999-01: Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School
2001-03: Professor, Harvard Law School
2003-09: Dean of Harvard Law School
2009-10: Solicitor General of the United States
"There have been 111 Americans who've served on the high court, and more than a third had exactly zero judicial experience before being confirmed. Indeed, two of the last four chief justices had never donned a black robe until they took their place on the Supreme Court."

Republican Talking Point DEAD.

The Real Welfare Queens

Welfare Queens

by John Cole

Well look at that:

Trading on Wall Street settled into a pattern Monday afternoon after shares surged almost 5 percent at the open.

Major indexes were still 3 to 4 percent higher in afternoon trading, the increase coming after European leaders and major central banks announced an array of emergency lending measures aimed at easing the sovereign debt crisis.

“There is this collective sigh of relief,” said Alan Gayle, the senior investment strategist for RidgeWorth Capital Management. “There is a clear rally going on in the financials. A lot of the credit risk has been relieved.”

A nearly $1 trillion financial support package from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund came just ahead of a pledge by the European Central Bank to intervene in the bond markets.

For traders, it was a time to reset portfolios and absorb the new measures. Market strategists held conference calls with institutional investors, investment analysts lined up meetings, the financial sector rallied and market indexes jumped.

Wall Street loves a bailout! That way no one has to admit they screwed up, we can go back to business as usual with the casino still open and big bonuses for everyone and even enough piles of cash lying around to swarm DC with lobbyists to kill financial reform.

Assholes, Free Markets Solve Everything | 3:45 pm |

Why get upset at the banks getting TRILLIONS when the Right would want you to envision the fictitious Cadillac driving welfare queen, make sure she is black, too.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

Hannity Flashback: "Elections Mean Something" [Except For Obama]

Sean Hannity on July 19, 2005

"George W. Bush is conservative. So if he has somebody with more of an originalist mainstream philosophy that he picks for the court, shouldn't the Democrats go along with that nominee, based on the fact that the Republican won this election?"

So according to Hannity's logic and beliefs, Obama should nominate liberal judges like Elena Kagan and the Republicans should vote for them.

Fox 2005 is in direct opposition to Fox 2010. Objectivity is a dirty word for them. They stick to the prearranged narrative and call that "news".

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

Monday, May 10, 2010

Cali-FOR-NEE-a Gov Avoids AZ

Never a truer word said than in jest.
"I was going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend. But with my accent I was afraid they would try to deport me." -- Arnold Schwarzenegger
Source: http://www.realitychex.com/

"Blue Families" Model Works, "Red Families" Dysfunctional

"This is one of the themes of “Red Families v. Blue Families,” a provocative new book by two law professors, Naomi Cahn and June Carbone. The authors depict a culturally conservative “red America” that’s stuck trying to sustain an outdated social model. By insisting (unrealistically) on chastity before marriage, Cahn and Carbone argue, social conservatives guarantee that their children will get pregnant early and often (see Palin, Bristol), leading to teen childbirth, shotgun marriages and high divorce rates.
This self-defeating cycle could explain why socially conservative states have more family instability than, say, the culturally liberal Northeast. If you’re looking for solid marriages, head to Massachusetts, not Alabama."
Ross Douthat adds:
"Whether it’s attainable for most Americans or not, the “blue family” model clearly works: it leads to marital success and material prosperity, and it’s well suited to our mobile, globalized society.

By comparison, the “red family” model can look dysfunctional — an uneasy mix of rigor and permissiveness, whose ideals don’t always match up with the facts of contemporary life."
Red States and Red Families are entitled to their values. The real world tends to not back up the lifestyle they are espousing.