Republicans are great at starting wars and backdoor drafting vets, but they are horrible at taking care of them for the rest of their lives.
"Pro-life" seems to avoid the lives of veterans and their families.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Newsweek: Obama Approval Jumps, Dems More Fired Up
President Obama’s approval ratings have jumped substantially, crossing the magic halfway threshold to 54 percent, up from 48 percent in late September
via newsweek.com
Still going to be close elections, seats will be lost, but this is good news.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Vets’ Group: 92% Of "D" Or "F" Grades Went To Republicans
A new report by a leading veterans group has awarded grades to members of Congress based on their support of veterans issues. One party failed miserably.
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) gave out 154 D and F grades. 142 of those went to Republicans and 12 to Democrats -- meaning that 92 percent of the D and F grades went to members of the GOP.
Of the 94 congressmen that received A or A+ grades, 91 are Democrats and three are Republicans.
via rawstory.com
Talking point and stereotype DEAD. Republicans DO NOT SUPPORT OUR TROOPS.
Republicans can add the military to the list of things they are the worst at.
Stiglitz: We Need To Stimulate Or Face Shrinkage
Nobel-laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz:
"…we cannot afford not to stimulate the economy. So, you know, anybody that says we should go back to austerity or we should not have a second-round stimulus just doesn’t understand economics.
And let me be very clear about this. If we don’t stimulate the economy, the economy is going to get weaker.
When the economy gets weaker, tax revenues go down and expenditures go up. Already, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps. Number of people on Medicaid is reaching record levels. So, revenues go down, expenditures go up, deficits get worse. If you stimulate the economy, then people get jobs, they spend money, tax revenues go up.
Now, if we spend the money on investments-investments in education, technology, infrastructure-you grow the economy in the short run from the stimulus, you grow the economy in the long term because of the returns that you get on these investments."
Bush: Sorry I Didn’t Privatize Social Security
And just like that the worst President ever is back in the news.
Former President George W. Bush signaled on Thursday that he sees not privatizing Social Security as his greatest failure from the eight years he served in the White House, the Chicago Tribune reports.
The unpopular Republican leader made the suggestion while speaking at a trade conference in the Windy City, where he discussed his legacy and also offered a glimpse into what readers can expect from his forthcoming memoir, Decision Points.
‘I would like to be remembered as a guy who had a set of priorities, and was willing to live by those priorities,’ explained Bush. ‘In terms of accomplishments, my biggest accomplishment is that I kept the country safe amidst a real danger.’
Yes, if you pretend away the worst terror attack in U.S. history and the unnecessary invasion of Iraq that allowed Al Qaeda and the Taliban to flourish, Bush kept us safe for the domestic anthrax attack and the drowning of New Orleans.
via oliverwillis.com
Bush can look at the total meltdown of assets in the charade called Wall St and the global banking chaos, with the benefit of hindsight, and wish he had your retirement and America's well-being involved in that house of cards.
What a complete asshole. The guy double downs on known f*ck-ups.
UK Gambles And Cuts Spending: Hello Bigger Depression
George Osborne, the finance minister, has just gambled Britain’s future on an extreme economic theory that has failed whenever and wherever it has been tried. In the Great Depression, we learned some basic principles. When an economy falters, ordinary people — perfectly sensibly — cut back their spending and try to pay down their debts. This causes a further fall in demand and makes the economy worse. If the government cuts back at the same time, then there is no demand at all, and the economy goes into freefall. That’s why virtually every country in the world reacted to the Great Crash of 2008 — caused entirely by deregulated bankers — by increasing spending, funded by temporary debt. Better a deficit we repay in the good times than an endless depression. The countries that stimulated hardest, like South Korea, came out of recession first.
This will be heads-up for Tea Klanners here to see how horrible these policies destroy a country.
Clarence Thomas' Ex Backs Up Hill: He Was All About Ass & T*tties
"He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners," McEwen told the Post, adding that he was particularly "partial to women with large breasts" and even would ask woman about their bra size.
"He was obsessed with porn," McEwen also said of Thomas, a claim that is particularly relevant to Hill's allegations that the then-chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had repeatedly relayed scenes from pornographic movies to her. "He would talk about what he had seen in magazines and films, if there was something worth noting," McEwen continued.
Typical conservative freak out to control everyone one but himself. Typical ex-girlfriend with a book to sell goes public.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Anita's Facts v Clarence's Opinions
Anita Hill took the brunt of the conservative world and told the truth.
Clarence hid behind his privilege. Now has his wife fighting his spin wars.
Tea Baggers Must Be Pissed TARP Only Earned 8.25% Return
The news that TARP earned a 8.25% rate of return is good, and a lot of the emotion over TARP is irrational, but I don’t think it’s entirely wrong to still be upset about TARP. If a private investor were taking on the kind of risk, they’d want a rate of return far in excess of the average corporate bond return (which is now about 6%), because at the time the TARP investment was made, it was far riskier than the average corporate bond.
Sarcasm is the only way to deal with real news these days. TARP earned better than average returns. You would think it lost money according to Tea Baggers. Surprise, Tea Baggers are completely wrong.
You won't hear about this on FOX. Why report that the Government's TARP worked and earned money when all you want are "fake rage" and ratings instead of news.
Hey Ginni Thomas, Anita Took A Polygraph, Your Hubby Did Not
But the Washington Post has already found a former girlfriend of Justice Thomas’ who claims that Hill’s account of Thomas’ behavior in the early 1980s is consistent with the Clarence Thomas she once dated.A new generation of Americans is being reminded of the fact that Hill took a polygraph test at the time of the hearings while
Clarence Thomas did not
.
Thomas has a penchant for extreme pornography and has used his "pubic hair on a Coke can" story more than once. Public knowledge.
Conservative Donors Let Christine O'Donnell Sink
Her shocking victory in the Delaware Republican primary was a breakthrough for the conservative Tea Party movement that has up-ended U.S. politics. But while her grassroots fund-raising has been more than respectable, O'Donnell's tense relations with mainstream Republicans and her floundering campaign have led bigtime donors to shun her, albeit quietly.
via reuters.com
I could go into the whole Monty Python Holy Grail sketch about what floats, "a tiny pebble". Ironically, by sinking, she is proving she is not a witch. Witches float.
Scalia Lands A Sponsor
via tumblr.com
Reports that two Supreme Court Justices [Scalia And Thomas] have attended seminars sponsored by the energy giant and conservative bankroller Koch Industries has sparked a mild debate over judicial ethics.
Reports that two Supreme Court Justices [Scalia And Thomas] have attended seminars sponsored by the energy giant and conservative bankroller Koch Industries has sparked a mild debate over judicial ethics.
A Voice Mail Message For Ginni Thomas
"Good morning, Ginni Thomas. It’s a random American woman. I just want to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider admitting you married and enabled a sick man who has profited mightily despite profound limitations. I’d also like you to consider some full explanation of why he did what he did to Prof. Hill and the others, and why you continue to do the damage you do to our country." Mrs. Clarence Thomas wants Anita Hill to apologize?
via azspot.net
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
NY Courts Impose New Foreclosure Rule: You Have To Properly Do Your Job
(Reuters) – New York courts will become the first in the United States to require lawyers handling foreclosures for banks and servicers to take steps to ensure the procedure is done properly, the state’s top judge said on Wednesday.And to think this was not being done?
Effective immediately, lawyers representing the plaintiffs in residential foreclosure actions must file signed affirmations that they took reasonable steps to verify the accuracy of documents.
New York is one of 23 states where court approval is needed to foreclose.
Jonathan Lippman, the chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, said the rule is in response to disclosures by several mortgage lenders of problems in the foreclosure process, including in the notarization and so-called “robosigning” of documents.
Campaign Rhetoric: GOP Caused The Mess, Claim They Can Fix It
And finally, there's the inconvenient fact that Republicans believe the federal budget is a huge mess, but seem to overlook the fact that it's a mess they created.
The parties share blame for the current fiscal situation, but federal budget statistics show that Republican policies over the last decade, and the cost of the two wars, added far more to the deficit than initiatives approved by the Democratic Congress since 2006, giving voters reason to be skeptical of campaign promises.
Calculations by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and other independent fiscal experts show that the $1.1 trillion cost over the next 10 years of the Medicare prescription drug program, which the Republican-controlled Congress adopted in 2003, by itself would add more to the deficit than the combined costs of the bailout, the stimulus and the health care law.
Read that last sentence again.
For all the over-the-top whining about the costs of health care reform, the Recovery Act, and the financial industry rescue, all of those costs combined are less than the Republicans' prescription-drug bill (which was passed under corrupt circumstances, and which the GOP didn't even try to pay for).
For that matter, if Republicans successfully repealed the Affordable Care Act, that would make the budget outlook even worse, since health care reform reduces the deficit.
The Very Definition Of Bigotry
"Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous," - Juan Williams.
This is the discourse on Fox. Two bigots acting like bigots claiming that bigotry is forced upon them.
Juan, what you just described is the working definition of bigotry.
STFU Tea Bag “Originalists”
The Constitution has the inclusion of an amendment process.
All you Tea Baggers and fake Constitutional scholars wanting to repeal whatever you don’t like on the grounds of originalism, take this time to shut the f*ck up.
You may want to seek refuge from the complexity and confusion of modern life in the comforting embrace of an authoritarian scripture, and the imagined past it supposedly represents, but it’s 2010.
As usual, Thomas Jefferson put it best. In a letter to a friend in 1816, he mocked “men [who] look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched”; “who ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.” “Let us follow no such examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another of taking care of itself, and of ordering its own affairs,” he concluded. “Each generation is as independent as the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before.” Amen.
All you Tea Baggers and fake Constitutional scholars wanting to repeal whatever you don’t like on the grounds of originalism, take this time to shut the f*ck up.
You may want to seek refuge from the complexity and confusion of modern life in the comforting embrace of an authoritarian scripture, and the imagined past it supposedly represents, but it’s 2010.
As usual, Thomas Jefferson put it best. In a letter to a friend in 1816, he mocked “men [who] look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched”; “who ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.” “Let us follow no such examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another of taking care of itself, and of ordering its own affairs,” he concluded. “Each generation is as independent as the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before.” Amen.
Tea Partiers Turn Secular Constitution Into "Covenant" Only They Can Protect
From a legal perspective, there’s a case to be made that O’Donnell’s argument is inaccurate. The Constitution is a relentlessly secular document that never once mentions God or Jesus. And nothing in recent jurisprudence suggests that the past few decades of governing have been any less constitutional than the decades that preceded them. But the Tea Party’s language isn’t legal, and neither is its logic. It’s moral: right vs. wrong. What O’Donnell & Co. are really talking about is culture war.
via newsweek.com
Founding fathers were free-thinkers living in the Age of Enlightenment. O'Donnell is quasi-celebrity living in the age of Jersey Shore.Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Rarest Thing On Earth: The Honest Republican
"The American people are about to give Republicans a second chance that we know we don’t deserve, that we haven’t earned. … The American people have every right, and every reason, to blame a Republican president and a Republican Congress for the mess that confronted the Obama administration on January 20, 2009 — let us be honest be about this," - Congressman Tom McClintock (R-CA).
CEA Chair Austan Goolsbee Explains the Jobs Trends
via youtube.com
Great video explaining how Obama and the Democrats took over a failed Republican administration and took immediate and successful actions.
No lies and distortions. Policies and bills that helped correct America.
Republicans have no idea that Obama has cut more taxes than any other President. Zero capital gains rates for start-ups, incentives to hire employees, infrastructure and green energy programs.
Truth is the Government runs well by Democrats. Wanting to bring back the failed GOP or the even wackier Tea Baggers makes absolutely no sense.
We Got Suckered By The Suits
Banks suckered the world into their game, got bailed out when they all
failed, and now, can’t figure out who owns what. Unbelievable.
"The millions of unemployed today are blamed on the popped real estate bubble and the sub-prime derivative financial crisis. However, the US economy has been losing jobs for a decade. As manufacturing, information technology, software engineering, research, development, and tradable professional services have been moved offshore, the American middle class has shriveled. The ladders of upward mobility that made American an “opportunity society” have been dismantled.
The wage and salary cost savings obtained by giving Americans’ jobs to Chinese and Indians have enriched corporate CEOs, shareholders, and Wall Street at the expense of the middle class and America’s consumer economy."
— Paul Craig Roberts (via azspot)
Monday, October 18, 2010
Where Would You Rather Live?
Problem with America, most in the 80% who have 16% of the wealth think that one day they will end up rich, or identify with being rich, and let Conservatives “use” them through identity politics.
The guy making 40K now votes about gay marriage and has no clue his middle class lifestyle is being wiped out.
Untitled
Catholicism is clearly superior. Don't believe me? Name one Protestant denomination that can afford a $660 million sexual abuse settlement. -- Stephen Colbert
via realitychex.com
Most Productive Congress in 50 Years
"The public panned it. Republicans obstructed it. Many Democrats fled from it. Even so, the session of Congress now drawing to a close was the most productive in nearly half a century."
- Jim Abrams AP
via realitychex.com
Where is that liberal media bias?
The Big Business Wall Street Won't Discuss
via youtube.com
Tax liens against home owners are sold off by cash poor cities to large Wall St banks. These banks have shell offices in empty office parks send out notices of foreclosure with additional fees added to the original liens. These dodgy practices are forcing many people out of their homes, unable to afford the added on charges.
These are the same banks we bailed out.
Their scheme to use anonymity is despicable and we need to shine a light on these scumbag bankers.
Changing Education Paradigms
World-renowned education expert Sir Ken Robinson takes a hard look at modern education in the latest RSA Animate.
DE-SEN 2010: Tea Bag FAIL
O'Donnell in Delaware: Tea Baggers don't do too well in populated areas where educations and a logical understanding of histories matter.
The GOP's Fiscal Fraudulence: Asked 7 Times, Still No Answer
Chris Wallace continues to hold Republicans' feet to the fire. Here he asks Carly Fiorina for the seventh time what specific spending she would cut. Money quote:
WALLACE: I’m going to try one last time, and if you don’t want to answer it, Miss Fiorina, you don’t have to.
FIORINA: It’s not a question of not wanting to answer it!
WALLACE: Let me ask the question, if I may, please. You’re not willing to put forward a single benefit – I’m not talking about the people 60 or let alone 65, or 70. I’m talking about people under 55. You’re not willing to say there is a single benefit eligibility for Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security that you are willing to say “Yeah, I would cut that?”
FIORINA: What I think we need to do to engage the American people in a conversation about entitlement reform is to have a bipartisan group of people who come together and put every solution on the table, every alternative on the table. Then we ought to engage in a long conversation with the American people so they understand the choices.
As Wallace notes earlier in the interview, "Back when there was talk about a non-partisan, or a bipartisan deficit, debt commission you blasted that idea in January and said we know all the solutions."
If you are a fiscal conservative, vote for these Republicans at your peril. They're frauds and liars.
Conservatives and Their Poisonous Understanding of Islam
"It is obviously difficult for many people to differentiate between Islam and political Islamism, the ideological strand within Islam that breeds terrorism and extremism. But it is exceedingly important to understand that difference; if we don't, we will give al Qaeda what it wants -- a civilizational struggle between the West and all of Islam." - Jeffrey Goldberg
Conservatives always need a boogie man so they can justify all the bullshit they do. Was the domestic Patriot Act needed to stop Bin Laden in a Afghan cave or poverty-level Iraqis who had nothing to do with 9/11?
The Anti-Defamation League's Abraham Foxman:
"Islam is one of the world's great religions. But, like Judaism and Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism and others, if you it isn't your religion you most likely have little knowledge, if any, of it, its beliefs and practices. Ignorance has always been one of the common denominators of those who are bigoted against "the others." And ignorance can breed fear which too easily can become hatred. We must differentiate between extreme theology and ideology in Islam and condemn it and challenge it, while at the same time define and separate it from the non-extremist ideology and theology. We must condemn the brand of Islam that venerates violence and intolerance. And welcome into the modern world the rest of Islam that rejects violence and intolerance. And at the same time keep it in perspective.
The Muslim community in America is being confronted by ugly in-your-face religious bigotry and we must speak out against it, educate against it and label it anti-American."
Anyone Surprised At This?
via tumblr.com
Banks couldn't give away money fast enough, now the paperwork to document the mortgages are in question. Better bail them out, again.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
President Obama, Democrats Cut the Deficit By Historic Levels
So, fine, the 2010 deficit was around $1.294 trillion.
But it's actually $122 billion less than Bush's 2009 budget deficit.
...the $122 billion improvement on the deficit "is the biggest one-year nominal drop in the deficit that has ever occurred." We probably won't see headlines blaring, "U.S. achieves biggest one-year deficit reduction in American history," but that just happens to be the case.Of course based on the silence from the Democrats, they're not interested in ballyhooing the fact that they're more fiscally responsible than the Bush administration's last budget.
Total silence. Ugh. Come on, people. Wise up.
via bobcesca.com
There's simply no "reckless, irresponsible, out-of-control spending" going on. Any "spending" that is going on is really quite careful, responsible, and under control.
Do Tea Baggers honestly believe that the stimulus, health reform, and the bailouts "tripled the deficit" and "tripled" the amount of federal outlays? Seriously? The answer is yes, they do, even as Obama has historically lowered the deficit.
Where is this headline in the mainstream press?
Once Illegal Donations That Sunk Nixon Are Now Legal
In this year’s midterm elections, there is no talk of satchels of cash from donors. Nor is there any hint of illegal actions reaching Watergate-like proportions. But the fund-raising practices that earned people convictions in Watergate — giving direct corporate money to a campaign and doing so secretly — are back in a different form in 2010.
This time around, the corporations are still giving secretly, but legally. In 1907, direct corporate donations to candidates were legally barred in a campaign finance reform push by President Theodore Roosevelt. But that law and others — the foundation for many Watergate convictions — are all but obsolete. This is why many supporters of strict campaign finance laws are wringing their hands.
via nytimes.com
Not too many things bum me out, this does.
Corporations, for the first time, are allowed to finance ads that directly support or oppose political candidates. Thank you Supreme Court.
Governing from the bench? Activist judges? Exactly what Conservatives complain about but this time they have absolutely no problem. The Chamber of Commerce, the American Action Network and Crossroads GPS will own a part of the 2010 elections.
At least you can vote politicians out, corporations now own the process.
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