An American Gothic

Saturday Satire: WTF? Edition

2012-01-28T05:45:00.001-05:00

Most of the late-night comedians took the week off, I guess to keep themselves from overdosing on the stupidity of the Republican Party presidential candidates.

Conan O'Brien: President Obama told the nation ‘The state of our union is strong,’ while Newt Gingrich told his wife, 'The state of our union is open.'"

"House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says she has dirt on Newt Gingrich, but so far she's keeping her lips sealed — because that's how the last surgeon left them."

"Mitt Romney is going to release 2010 and 2011 tax returns. Not to be outdone, Newt Gingrich is going to release his 1988, 1994, and 2005 wedding vows."

Stephen Colbert: "After Iowa and New Hampshire, Newt's campaign looked terminally ill, which is when he generally moves on to something better."

"Newt Gingrich crushed Mitt Romney on Saturday (in South Carolina). … Gingrich sealed his victory in last week’s debates by going after America’s most dangerous enemy: debate moderators."

Bill Maher: "Rick Perry dropped out. He said while it’s sad he won’t be president, he can always run again next year."

"Newt Gingrich's ex-wife went on nightline and said that he wanted to have an open marriage. This is the second wife, talking about him when he was fooling around with what became the third wife. Newt wanted apparently to have his wife and his marriage and also women on the side giving him oral sex. This way he could be nice and relaxed when he went to work and accused blacks of feeling entitled."

"Newt was mad. He said 'I am not a philanderer; I am a blow job creator.'"

"I thought the race was over; I thought Mitt Romney had closed it. You know for a guy that is supposed to be a great business man, he sure can’t close the deal. And now it looks like Mitt vs. Newt; Alien vs. Predator."

"New Rule: The NAACP must take Newt Gingrich up on his offer to stand in front of the their convention and tell them why black people should want jobs instead food stamps. This way I can finally answer a question that's been bugging me for years: can Newt Gingrich run?"

Technorati Tags: Friday Funnies,Late Night Talk,Bill Maher,Conan O'Brian,Political Humor,Stephen Colbert,Current Events,An American Gothic,Mitt Romney,Newt Gingrich,Jokes

Challenging the Republican's Five Myths on Inequality

2012-01-27T06:13:00.001-05:00

Published on Monday, January 23, 2012 by On the Commons

The Republican position on inequality rests on five statements, all false. By David Morris

Recent comments by Mitt Romney, the probable Republican nominee for President all but guarantee the inequality issue will remain front and center this election year.GOP candidate Mitt Romney, who thinks its okay to talk about wealth inequality and wage disparity "in quiet rooms" does not think it's appropriate for presidential campaigns.

When asked whether people who question the current distribution of wealth and power are motivated by “jealousy or fairness” Romney insisted, “I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare.” And in this election year he advised that if we do discuss inequality we do so “in quiet rooms” not in public debates.

A public debate, of course, is inevitable. And welcome. To help that debate along I’ll address the five major statements that comprise the Republican argument on inequality.

1. Income is Not All That Unequal

Actually it is. Since 1980 the top 1 percent has increased its share of the national income by an astounding $1.1 trillion. Today 300,000 very rich Americans enjoy almost as much income as 150 million.

Since 1980, the income of the bottom 90 percent of Americans has increased a meager $303 or 1 percent. The top 1 percent’s income has more than doubled, increasing by about $500,000. And the really, really rich, the top 10th of 1 percent, made out, dare I say, like bandits, quadrupling their income to $22 million.

Meanwhile a full-time worker’s wage was 11 percent lower in 2004 than in 1973, adjusting for inflation even though their productivity increased by 78 percent. Productivity gains swelled corporate profits, which reached an all time high in 2010. And that in turn fueled an unprecedented inequality within the workplace itself. In 2010, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, the average CEO in large companies earned 325 times more than the average worker.

2. Inequality doesn’t matter because in America ambition and hard work can make a pauper a millionaire.

This is folklore. A worker’s initial position in the income distribution is highly predictive of how much he or she earns later in the career. And as the Brookings Institution reports “there is growing evidence of less intergenerational economic mobility in the United States than in many other rich industrialized countries.”

The bitter fact is that it is harder for a poor person in America to become rich than in virtually any other industrialized country.

3. Income inequality is not a result of tax policy.

Nonsense. A painstaking analysis by economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Stefanie Stantcheva found “a strong correlation between the reductions in top tax rates and the increases in top 1% pre-tax income shares from 1975–79 to 2004–08”. For example, the U.S. slashed the top income tax rate by 35 percent and witnessed a large ten percent increase in its top 1% pre-tax income share. “By contrast, France or Germany saw very little change in their top tax rates and their top 1% income shares during the same period.”

4. Taxing the rich will slow economic growth

An examination of 18 OECD countries found “little empirical support for the claim that reducing the progressivity of the tax code has spurred economic growth, business formation or job growth”.

Indeed, Piketty, Saez and Stantcheva’s rigorous analysis came to the opposite conclusion. Our economy may be growing more slowly because we are taxing the rich too little, not too much. Economists Peter Diamond and Saez estimated the optimal top tax rate, that is the tax rate that would maximize revenue without slowing economic growth, could be as high as 83 percent.

Redistributing income stimulates economies in part because when 1% make more they save whereas when the 99% make more they spend. As a result, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s, a dollar in tax cuts on capital gains adds .38 cents of economic growth while a dollar in unemployment benefits gives the economy a boost of $1.63 and a dollar of food stamps adds $1.73.

5. Taxing the rich would not raise much money

Of course it would. If only the richest 400 families, whose average income in 2008 was an astounding $270 million actually paid the statutory rate of 39 percent (revived as of next January 1st) an additional $500 billion would be raised over 10 years, putting a substantial dent in the projected deficit.

In 2010 hedge fund manager John Paulson made $5 billion. That year, according to Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston, Paulson paid no income taxes. Am I envious Mr. Romney? You bet I am. But I’m also angry at the stark injustice of it all. And terrified of the power such wealth can wield in a country that allows billionaires to spend unlimited sums influencing legislation and elections.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that two-thirds of Americans now believe the conflict between rich and poor is our greatest source of tension. I agree. It is a conflict that deserves to be aired fully and in public.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License

David Morris is Vice President and director of the New Rules Project at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which is based in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. focusing on local economic and social development

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Republican Party,Income Inequality,Pew Research Center,1%ers,2012 Elections,Current Events,An American Gothic,The Economy

Mitt Romney’s Chances: A View From China

2012-01-26T09:14:00.003-05:00

Romney: The Right Choice Is Better
Than an Early Choice

19 January 2012

Translated By Michelle Deeter Edited by Gillian Palmer

China - Sina - Original Article (Chinese)
When former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney dropped out of the U.S. presidential race in 2008, it was both lucky and wise. He dropped out in spring, before he could know that Lehman Brothers would go bankrupt that September. If he had won the Republican primary that year, during the elections, his connections with Wall Street would have made him lose badly.
Four years ago, at approximately the same time, I wrote another article about Romney. At the time Romney had just announced his plans to drop out of the Republican primaries for the 2008 election. As one of the frontrunners for the Republican candidacy, Romney’s decision to drop out surprised many. At that time, I predicted that Romney’s exit was to prepare for the 2012 election; the mood in 2008 was such that any candidate linked with the Republican Party was going to lose by a wide margin. That included a candidate like Romney, who was willing to take moderate or Democratic positions. After a major defeat, it would have been difficult to stage a comeback. Thus, pulling out of the race early and gathering strength was a wise decision.
Not surprisingly, Romney is on stage for the primaries again, four years later. This time he looks like he wants to go all the way.
If he can win the Republican primary and enter the election race against Obama, Romney has a distinct chance of winning. In 2008, so many Americans were disappointed with the Republicans that a few states that usually were Republican strongholds switched and supported the Democratic Party, including New Hampshire and North Dakota. Swing states overwhelmingly voted for the Democrats, including Florida and North Carolina. At the time, Americans had many complaints with the Republican Party: The war in Iraq was never ending; the war on terror was gloomy; and the Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy in September 2008 precipitated a financial crisis. This dealt a fatal blow to the Republicans’ election prospects. When we consider these factors, Romney’s decision to drop out was lucky and wise. He dropped out in spring, before anyone could predict that Lehman Brothers would go bankrupt that September. If he had won the Republican primary that year, during the elections, his connections with Wall Street would have made him lose badly.
But times have changed. Now, in 2012, people have other things on their minds. Americans, who were once dancing in the streets celebrating Obama’s election, have found that the honeymoon is over and they are no longer interested in his “Change” campaign. They have started to grumble. Change has happened. Bin Laden is dead and the U.S. has pulled out of Iraq. However, there is no peace in Iraq and Iran has become a new foreign policy issue. What’s worse, the economy has not picked up much in four years, the government is facing massive debt and the U.S.’ allies in Europe are constantly fighting. Economic recovery is a weak sapling that is unlikely to survive, while economic disaster hangs over the United States like the sword of Damocles. Looking back at the health care reforms the Democrats pushed so hard to pass, many people now feel that the decision was a poor one. Even though there are many long-term benefits, the benefits will only come after waiting patiently, while relevant taxes are going to increase very soon. The news of increased taxes seems like an overwhelming burden to the middle class, which is already heavily burdened. The middle class will be more likely to support the Republicans and their small government policies.
Therefore, I think Americans will find Romney very appealing. He got his degree at a prestigious school and worked at a famous consultancy. When compared to the traditional Republican candidate, some cowboy from a small town in the South, Romney’s background will resonate with moderate voters. Plus, voters who are typically wary of Republican positions on social issues will take comfort in his background. As a Republican, Romney is more conservative than Obama on issues such as increasing taxes. Romney might not continue the health care reforms Obama put in place. This will all give him extra support in the presidential election.
The biggest hurdle for Romney is the Republican primary. The New York Times recently reported that Romney’s latest actions make it seem like he is already thinking beyond the primaries, which means that he thinks his nomination is certain. I think Romney should not act like he has already won. The same thing that makes Romney successful could make him fail. Romney’s background will make it easier for him to earn the favor of moderate voters and some Democrats; at the same time, it will cause some Southern Republicans to mistrust him. Even though in terms of the presidential election, Romney’s victory is much more likely than any of the other candidates in the Republican primary race, that doesn’t mean that Republican voters are going to let Romney take the stage.
Recently, Jon Huntsman pulled out of the Republican primaries and supported Romney’s candidacy, which is good news for the latter candidate. The two candidates have similar backgrounds, which could split votes. However, there is still one major weakness that Romney has to overcome in both the primaries and the presidential election: the fact that he is a rich person. This might sound laughable. All of the Founding Fathers were rich slave owners, and even today, there are many examples of rich politicians: The Bush family owns a huge ranch in Texas, Clinton and Obama were professionals with high incomes, not to mention the wealth of the Kennedys. The problem for Romney is that he accumulated his wealth while working at Bain Capital. This is a major sore point for a public frustrated with Wall Street businessmen. Bain Capital is a private equity fund whose employees pay low income taxes; for this reason, it stands in eye of the storm of a crusade against capitalism. This problem may not become the Achilles’ heel of Romney’s candidacy, but he had better be prepared to take some criticism from the protesters of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,2012 Elections,Politics,Republican Party,Barack Obama,Democrats,Republican Primary,Current Events,An American Gothic,The Economy

The Republican Corporation Doesn’t Care For Gingrich

2012-01-26T09:14:00.001-05:00

Just take a read at what some of the beltway hacks on the GOP side have to say on the topic of Newt Gingrich being the Republican nominee, if he makes it over Mitt Romney.

Henry Barbour:

“I like having a Republican speaker of the House,” Barbour cracked, suggesting Gingrich would be a disaster as the GOP nominee. “He puts all our down-ticket candidates at risk.”

Former John McCain advisor Steve Schmidt:

[N]ot only are we not moving towards a coalescing of support by the Republican establishment for Newt Gingrich, we're probably moving toward the declaration of war on Newt Gingrich by the Republican establishment. And if Newt Gingrich is able to win the Florida primary, you will see a panic and a meltdown of the Republican establishment that is beyond my ability to articulate in the English language.

People will go crazy and you will have this five week period until the Super Tuesday states which is going to be as unpredictable, tumultuous as any period in modern American politics. It will be a remarkable thing to watch should that happen in Florida.

Chris Christie

“Newt Gingrich has embarrassed the party over time. Whether he'll do it again in the future I don't know, but Gov. Romney never has,” Christie said on NBC's “Meet the Press.”

A "veteran" GOP leadership aide:

Veteran Republican leadership aide Ron Bonjean said on the record what most of his colleagues would only tell CNN privately.

"Most people on Capitol Hill and in Washington are very nervous about a Gingrich candidacy," he said. "It sends a shiver down a lot of Republican spines."

"You can actually feel the nervousness from Republicans around town that Gingrich could actually bring the craziness back of his speakership from the 1990s. It's everywhere."

"We are not at Defcon 5 yet, but we'll see what happens in Florida," said another one of the worried GOP strategists.

If Gingrich does win, veteran GOP strategists tell CNN to expect pressure on Senate Minority Leaders Mitch McConnell, House Speaker John Boehner and other Republican leaders to call key GOP donors and ask them not to contribute to Gingrich's campaign.

William Kristol:

I’ve got to think Monday night’s debate further swelled the groundswell of support for Mitch Daniels. The liveliest part of the debate was at the beginning, when Mitt went after Newt—and Republicans all over America watched with fascinated horror at the thought that these are the two GOP frontrunners. The only spectacle in American politics more off-putting than Newt Gingrich in self-righteous defense mode is Mitt Romney in self-righteous attack mode.

Sourced from Daily Kos

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich,Mitt Romney,2012 Elections,Republican Party,Current Events,An American Gothic,Republican,Poltics

Politics’ Dirty Tricks

2012-01-25T11:08:00.001-05:00

By Mariusz Zawadzki              10 January 2012
The schizoid situation where the candidates pose as innocents, while at the same time lead a brutal campaign through front men, is new for U.S. politics.     Translated By Anna Rygiewicz
Edited by Steven Stenzler      Origina in Polish

In his campaign adverts, Mitt Romney, the frontrunner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, does not speak ill of other candidates. He does not even mention them. He is friendly and smiles all the time. He talks about how he will save America and find jobs for millions of unemployed. He talks about the model family he has created with his wife Ann, with whom he has been married for 42 years. He enumerates his achievements in business and politics. The ads also show the cheerful Ann who compliments the qualities of her husband’s character.
In Iowa, where the first Republican primary took place on Jan. 4 Romney spent nearly $1 million on such positive advertisements. But he did not win because of them. He beat his rivals thanks to the aggressive spots made by Restore Our Future, an independent political action committee. These ads attacked Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, who has been leading in the polls since mid-December. The spots reproached him for committing tax fraud at the end of the 1990s, for which he was punished by the Senate Ethics Committee, and for supporting the environmentalists in the fight against the greenhouse effect, which is even more embarrassing for a true American conservative.
The Restore Our Future committee, founded by Romney’s former lawyer, spent about $3 million to destroy Gingrich. The founder does not hide that he supports Romney, but apart from that he does not have anything to do with him. In accordance with the law, he is independent. When Gingrich publicly urged his rival to order the committee to stop the attacks, Romney said that he cannot contact this committee or order it to do anything, because in accordance with the law, it is independent.
The wronged Gingrich is not innocent either. He is backed as well by an “independent” political action committee, even with a similar name: Winning Our Future. Next Wednesday, Gingrich’s committee is starting a TV campaign in North Carolina, where on Jan. 21 the third primaries will take place. Advertisements costing $3.5 million will remind Americans about the history of Bain Capital.
The company, established in 1984 by Romney and his business partners, bought enterprises on the verge of bankruptcy, carried out their restructuring (which usually meant mass dismissals) and sold them at a profit.
Such a business model generated a lot of money for Romney. His assets are estimated around $250 million. They are, however, a burden in the presidential campaign. People call Romney a heartless "vulture capitalist." The candidate defends himself by saying that Bain Capital saved thousands of jobs because thanks to the restructuring of the enterprises, many of them did not go bankrupt. Of course, the Winning Our Future committee’s ads show only the people who were fired by Romney’s company.
The schizoid situation where the candidates pose as innocents, while at the same time lead a brutal campaign through front men, is new for U.S. politics. The Supreme Court of the United States led to this situation when it ruled in January 2010 that private companies may without any restrictions finance the "independent” political action committees. Any such committee (super PAC) can, in turn, without any limitations finance its candidate's advertisements, provided that it does not contact him or her (which means it remains "independent.”)
The justices' decision was a real revolution because in the U.S. private companies cannot finance candidates, and private persons may donate no more than $2,500 to their favorite politician (or $30,800 to a political party.)
The U.S. Supreme Court created a legal loophole thanks to which many corporations can finance candidates without any limitations. And in secret, too! Although the “independent” committees have to disclose the donors, there can be among them a 501(c)4 organization (the name comes from section 501(c)4 of the Internal Revenue Code), and such an organization is not obliged to disclose the donors, provided that supporting a particular candidate is not its principal activity. This regulation is perfect for money laundering. Successfully making use of it is, among others, Karl Rove, the master Republican strategist and the most effective bursar of the Republican Party, who has founded American Crossroads, an independent committee, and a 501(c)4 organization called American GPS. The committee receives money from the organization, which gets it from God knows where.
Many politicians, including President Barack Obama and his Republican rival from 2008 Sen. John McCain, criticized the Supreme Court's ruling. It blurs the already fuzzy connections between business and politics in Washington. Now, when a congressman votes for, let’s say, tax reductions for the oil industry, you never know whether it is because he actually believes them to be good for the U.S., or simply because his campaign was secretly sponsored by the oil industry.
And the elections change sometimes into a cabaret because the "independence" of the PACs is a mockery. In the Saturday candidate's debate transmitted on NBC, Romney and Gingrich swore that they did not even watch their "independent" committees' adverts, but then, unintentionally, they engaged in a surprisingly detailed discussion about what is shown in the spots.

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich,Mitt Romney,Politics,2012 Elections,Republican Primary,Citizens United,Super-PACS,Current Events,An American Gothic

Why This Is The Best The GOP Can Do

2012-01-25T11:03:00.001-05:00

By plf515 Mon Jan 23, 2012

The four remaining candidates for the Republican nomination are a pretty pathetic bunch:
Mitt, Newt, Rick and Ron (alphabetical order)

Mitt is a multimillionaire vampire capitalist who dodged the draft (by living in a mansion in Paris), abused his dog, said his sons serve America by helping him get elected and has parked a lot of his money in the Cayman Islands for some reason. A self-centered man with no center to his self. A perfectly lubricated weather vane.

Newt is a disgraced former Speaker of the House, the only one ever to be removed for ethics violations. He's a philanderer who excused his behavior because of the stress he was under serving in Congress, a racist who barely hides it, and a blowhard.

Rick is, at least, consistent. But he's consistently crazy and mean, with views that ought to have died 50 years ago but are sadly alive.

and Ron is against the federal department of, well, almost everything. He's a darling of Storm Front who thinks racists don't have enough rights and that things like clean water aren't important and who claims to be a libertarian but is really a states-rights person.

Is this the best they can do?

Yes it is.

Not because no one wants to run against Obama.
Not because of some vagaries of this election cycle.
Not because of the harshness of the political spotlight.

No.

The reason this is the best they can do is because this is who they are.

Neocons, lunatics, theocrats and pseudo-libertarians.

The Republican party doesn't deserve to just lose in 2012. They deserve to be destroyed. This should be the last generation in which such a party is viable.

Technorati Tags: Republican Party,2012 Elections,Mitt Romney,Newt Gingrich,Ron Paul,Rick Santorum,Current Events,An American Gothic,GOP

Mitt Romney’s Tax Returns

2012-01-24T09:00:00.001-05:00

By Georgia Logothetis for Daily Kos

Tue Jan 24, 2012

First, the facts from the Washington Post:

Mitt Romney offered a partial snapshot of his vast personal fortune late Monday, disclosing income of $21.7 million in 2010 and $20.9 million last year — virtually all of it profits, dividends or interest from investments.
None came from wages, the primary source of income for most Americans. Instead, Romney and his wife, Ann, collected millions in capital gains from a profusion of investments, as well as stock dividends and interest payments.

Yes, you read that correctly. Mitt Romney had zero wage income. Zero.

Republicans Begin to Doubt Market Economics

2012-01-24T06:39:00.001-05:00

By Markus Ziener 19 January Sourced from Watching America

Germany - Handelsblatt - Original Article (German)

Translated By Ron Argentati Edited by Mark DeLucas

Romney is presenting himself as a successful entrepreneur, but in light of the financial crisis and the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, that doesn't necessarily resonate with many people — not even with those on the right, who are coming to terms with Romney and free markets.

America, the land of almost limitless opportunity, is facing its next existential crisis. After the bailout crisis and the tea party crisis, the nation is now facing a morality crisis. The bizarre thing about it is that it is conservative politicians who have plunged the country into a national debate about whether there should be limits on capitalism or if “anything goes.” In other words, they are asking whether a former private equity manager like Mitt Romney has the proper moral compass to become president.
And it's equally remarkable that the criticism comes not from the left but from the right. It is politicians like Newt Gingrich, who also seeks the Republican nomination to run for president, who are questioning Romney's integrity.
The ex-Speaker of the House calls Romney a plunderer who enriched himself on the backs of working people. Texas Governor Rick Perry, who suspended his campaign on Thursday, went so far as to call Romney's behavior as CEO of Bain Capital Management “vulture capitalism.”
It is correct that as manager of Bain Capital between 1984 and 1999, Romney amassed a fortune estimated today to be around a quarter of a billion dollars. Bain invested in companies, increased their profitability and then sold them off for considerable profit. It is also correct that at times, thousands of workers were fired in the process, many of the companies went bankrupt and Romney's company profited from low tax rates.
But many other companies were strengthened by the restructuring and later hired workers. Mitt Romney calls this process creative destruction and says it is an important element of capitalism, a system that ultimately results in better, more competitive companies.
That may well be, but it is also correct to say that the social costs of doing business this way are very high — so high that it has led to a discrediting of capitalism in the very bosom of its own motherland. Wherever Romney appears publicly, he finds himself confronted by members of the Occupy movement. They call out to him that they are part of the 99 percent. Romney, in contrast, belongs to the 1 percent of Americans who, according to Nobel Laureate for economics Joseph Stiglitz, control 40 percent of the nation's wealth.
Romney's attempts to butter up the common people just makes them more angry.
Romney tries to defend himself with arguments that are often ludicrous. For example, he claims that as the multimillionaire son of a multimillionaire auto executive, he has also had to worry about losing his job on occasion. He has also said that much like the people he's addressing, he's also unemployed.
Such schmoozing just serves to increase the anger directed at him by critics who know they have hit a raw nerve in society. According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, two-thirds of Americans think there is a serious conflict between rich and poor in the United States, an increase of 20 percent since 2009.
Mitt Romney's biggest financial supporters
It is not only leftists and liberals who share that opinion. The strict constitutional constructionists of the tea party movement have an equally large problem with those who profit from the system. Their definition of American success is the entrepreneurial spirit that contains an element of risk and creates additional value. What they don't approve of are those who only know how to get the most out of tinkering with their personal fortunes.
The fact that the Republican Party is preparing to nominate a candidate that is the very antithesis of the capitalist is causing great concern among the ranks of the party conservatives. Gingrich even believes that Romney, if chosen to run against Barack Obama, is unelectable — even if his warnings are nothing more than the crocodile tears of a power politician who milked as much as he could out of the system as an adviser to the quasi-governmental mortgage bank Freddie Mac and as a well-paid consultant for Credit Suisse.
That is what makes this fight so unbearably hypocritical. It isn't being waged truthfully, and it is so exploitative. If these were different times and there was no financial crisis, not one American would get excited about the fact that the made-in-the-U.S. brand of capitalism is often brutal, unfair and demands sacrifices. It was libertarian Ron Paul who leaped to Romney's defense a few days ago. That in itself is remarkable since Paul is closest to Romney in the opinion polls at the moment. Paul says of Romney's critics, “I think they’re wrong. I think they’re totally misunderstanding the way the market works.”
It was a reminder that in the United States, capitalism is market capitalism, not social capitalism, and within those parameters, Romney was absolutely right. If these were different times, Romney would be hailed as a hero.

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Newt Gingrich,Capitalism,Politics,Wall Street,Bain Capital,2012 Elections,Current Events,An American Gothic

Romney Versus Gingrich

2012-01-23T12:09:00.001-05:00

Gotta love those two asshat as they now square off against each other over the votes of the ignorant in the state of Florida, which is a much more racist state than South Carolina is. Romney truly has his work cut out for him if he wants to win in the state, which I do not see happening because most of the “ Christians “ will not vote for a Mormon, period.

Romney’s tact is to now go after Newt and his lobbying ties.

Mitt Romney attacks Newt Gingrich's private sector lobbying experience

by Jed Lewison Originally posted to The Jed Report on Mon Jan 23, 2012

According to Mitt Romney, if you attack his record in the private sector, you're attacking free enterprise and everything that makes America great ... even though he made millions of dollars by putting companies out of business and throwing workers out of jobs. But when it comes to attacking Newt Gingrich's record in the private sector, Mitt Romney says that's fair game:

Mitt Romney will use the backdrop of Florida’s depressed housing market to launch a fresh offensive against rival Newt Gingrich here Monday, highlighting his consulting work for Freddie Mac and calling on him to publicly release his records relating to the mortgage giant.
As the dramatically reshaped Republican presidential race centers on Florida this week, Romney will air a television advertisement in the state designed to expose Gingrich as a hypocrite. The ad will contrast the former House speaker’s claims not to be a lobbyist with the $1.6 million to $1.8 million in consulting fees he reportedly was paid for his work with Freddie Mac, according to a Romney campaign official.

At a news conference earlier this morning, Romney said, "Saying that Newt Gingrich is a lobbyist is just a fact." Romney called on Gingrich to release documentation of his work in the private sector because "we just have to understand what this activity has been over the last 15 years."

Fair points, both of them. But as Mitt Romney once said, "What's sauce for the goose is now sauce for the gander." His record in the private sector is every bit a relevant as Newt Gingrich's, if not more so. Remember, Romney's entire rationale for the presidency is that he allegedly created jobs as a businessman—but he won't explain whether or how he did that, and every time he's questioned he starts screaming about capitalism being under attack.

Well, Mitt ought to do what he's asking Newt Gingrich to do and start providing answers instead of attacking the questioner. The fact that he's been unable to do that is a tacit acknowledgment that he can't. And it's one of the many reasons he won't win this election.

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Newt Gingrich,Free Enterprise,2012 Elections,Current Events,An American Gothic,Politics

Gingrich and the Revenge of the Little Guys

2012-01-23T04:57:00.001-05:00

22 January 2012

France - Le Monde - Original Article (French) Edited by Jessica Boesl From Watching America

The Tea Party has disappeared, scattered between the chapels and candidates. In South Carolina however, Newt Gingrich has resuscitated the tea party. At the same time, Gingrich smashed Mitt Romney’s main platform, i.e.: "The electability," that is being the most competitive Republican candidate to run against Barack Obama.
"Newt Can Win" was the victory cry at the Gingrich headquarters party in Columbia, South Carolina.
In his speech, Newt Gingrich talked about his performance in the debates. He knows that many activists would love for him to run against Obama. So, Gingrich also challenged the incumbent president to participate in seven debates at three-hours each.
"And I give him permission to exercise his right in to use his teleprompter," he said amidst laughter. Who would not want use a teleprompter to defend Obamacare, better known as Medicare Reform.
The debates have been repeatedly harmful to Mitt Romney, especially considering how the presence of a voracious audience reinforces demagogue trends. (It is important to note that prior to this year, audience reactions were not considered significant.)
The race continues. In fact, it is just beginning, so to speak. But as noted in a key Republican crossover in a hotel in Charleston just before the primary, the establishment is concerned that Mitt is "deteriorating" from week to week. (In fact, Jeb Bush has refrained from supporting Romney in Florida.)
The results of the South Carolina poll have given Newt Gingrich a resounding victory with a 12 percent lead over Romney (40 percent versus 28 percent). The populist outweighed the businessman’s platform of “job creation” among almost every category of voters if one believes the exit polls: evangelicals (two-thirds of voters), Catholics, tea party ... and even women believed that Gingrich was always pursued by the vengeance of his second wife, Marianne.
Newt Gingrich has managed to channel the revolt of the "little guy" against the elite, including staging characteristic hostility against the media, accusing them of "forcing" the American people to be confused.
According to Erik Erickson of RedState.com, one of the spokespersons of the tea party, "the base is revolting because they swept the GOP back into relevance in Washington just under two years ago and they have been thanked with contempt ever since."
The contempt has to do with the particular choice of candidate. For the base, Mitt Romney is considered to be as stimulating as an "old battery," commented Erickson.

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich,Reublican Primaries,Politics,Current Events,An American Gothic,Watching America

Chris Christie: Gingrich Is A Disaster Waiting To Happen

2012-01-22T23:10:00.001-05:00

By Christian Dem in NC on Sun Jan 22, 2012 Original Post

Chris Christie was on "Meet the Press" this morning, and pretty much summed up the feelings of the Repub establishment in the wake of Newt Gingrich's massive win last night in South Carolina. In his usual blunt style, Christie, who is backing Mitt Romney, all but called Gingrich a ticking time bomb.

MR. GREGORY: You've been more pointed when you talk about in favor of Governor Romney. You say he will never embarrass you. Do you think Newt Gingrich will embarrass the party?
GOV. CHRISTIE: I think Newt Gingrich has embarrassed the party over time. Whether he'll do it again in the future, I don't know. But Governor Romney never has.

MR. GREGORY: You say he's embarrassed the party. How and where do you worry he might do it again that makes him unelectable?

GOV. CHRISTIE: Well, listen, David, we all know the record. I mean, he was run out of the speakership by his own party. He was fined $300,000 for ethics violations. This is a guy who's had a very difficult political career at times and has been an embarrassment for the party. You remember these times, you were here. So the fact of the matter is, I don't need to regale the country with that entire list again except to say this. I'm not saying he will do it again in the future, but sometimes past is prologue.

No doubt Christie saw this week's "holy f'ing crap" moment, when Public Policy Polling showed Obama possbly beating Gingrich in Texas. It cannot be repeated enough--if Gingrich makes Texas even potentially competitive, then he has likely been Goldwatered.

Also republished by Kos Georgia.

Technorati Tags: 2012 Elections,Republican Party,Chris Christie,Newt Gingrich,Current Events,An American Gothic

Saturday Satire: Those Darn Republicans

2012-01-20T09:49:00.001-05:00

Rick Perry is out of the running as is Jon Huntsman. All who remain are the Republican professional clowns, Mitten and Newtie.

Jay Leno: "Mitt Romney is coming under fire because even though he is a multimillionaire, he only paid 15 percent in taxes. That's not a tax, that's barely a tip."

"Mitt Romney, whose father was born in Mexico, is now talking up his Mexican heritage. Not to be outdone today, Newt Gingrich said he once cheated on one of his wives with a woman named Juanita."

"Sen. John McCain told Sean Hannity that choosing Sarah Palin was still the best decision he ever made. Well, today the Arizona DMV took away his driver's license."

"According to the exit polls, Mitt Romney won in every category of voter in New Hampshire, from rich to poor, from young to old, from white to really white. He won across the board."

"Researchers found a frog in new guinea that is so tiny, they believe it's the smallest vertebrate on the planet. It has the tiniest backbone of any living creature, except members of Congress."

"A new poll says 84% of Americans disapprove of Congress' job. The other 16% weren't aware Congress was doing one."

David Letterman: "Mitt Romney is quite a guy. At one point he and his wife bought a zoo and fired all the animals."

"Newt Gingrich says that on Thursday he will be releasing his tax returns. You can feel the excitement, right?"

David Letterman's "Top Ten Signs Mitt Romney Is Getting Cocky"
10. Answers all questions with, "So's your mother"
9. Offered Santorum a 10,000-vote head start in South Carolina primary
8. He's forwarding his mail to the White House — Wow, that's cocky
7. Skipping next three primaries to go on tour with Young Jeezy
6. Started selling his own commemorative presidential plates on QVC
5. Donated $50,000 to Rick Perry's campaign
4. Now spelling "Mittt" with three T's
3. Ended debate by taking out wad of bills and "making it rain"
2. Wants to rename states Mittchigan, Mittsouri, Mittsissippi, and New Mittsico
1. Offered to help Newt with his concession speech

David Letterman's "Top Ten Things People Said When They Heard Jon Huntsman Was Dropping Out Of The Presidential Race"

10. "Who's Jon Huntsman?"
9. "Is he the rich boring white guy, or the other rich boring white guy?"
8. "Seriously, who's Jon Huntsman?"
7. "You mean my tax attorney? Oh wait, that's Stan Huntsman"
6. "Does this mean we can bring Herman Cain back? That guy was hilarious"
5. "So that leaves only four viable candidates, plus Rick Perry"
4. "It's like Jon Huntsman said . . . Well, actually, I have no idea what he said"
3. "Hey honey, some guy I’ve never heard of is dropping out of the race"
2. "He should have Tebowed more"
1. "Now who's gonna lose to Obama in the general election?"

Technorati Tags: Politics,Political Humor,Late Night Talk,Jay Leno,David Letterman,Newt Gingrich,Mitt Romney,Jon Huntsman,Rick Perry,Current Events,An American Gothic

More Privatization Legislation In Florida, Republican Style

2012-01-20T06:30:00.001-05:00

So once again the corrupt, Republican controlled Legislature is up to it’s eyeballs in trying to hide a bill from the Florida public.

The Republican corporate servants want to pass a bill ( SPB 7170 ) that would allow for some state agencies to be privatized in secret.

There is also another bill ( SPB 7172 ) which would allow the privatization of correctional facilities throughout a pretty large swath of south Florida ( 18 counties ).

Florida Today notes:

The Senate rules committee will take up the bill (PCB 7170) at today’s afternoon meeting. The bill essentially means that an agency would not have to report its privatization of a program or service until after the contract is signed.

Open government advocates say the bill would keep the public in the dark about the costs of outsourcing government services. But proponents counter that the measure requires any privatization deal to first offer “a substantial savings” to the state.

Also, from the Orlando Sentinel:

The Senate Rules Committee, chaired by Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, gave the go ahead for the Senate to take up legislation that would privatize correctional facilities in an 18-county South Florida region and also a bill that revises requirements for the privatization process. The second piece of legislation would drop a requirement that departments looking at privatization create a business case for privatization prior to the Legislature making the decision.

Oh yes, another attempt by the corporate legislature to put one past the residents of Florida, who really should get off of their asses and takes these crooks like Thrasher to task for fixing something which is not broken.

In case you have not notice in the past, most of the privatization in the state of Florida or elsewhere usually ends up costing the taxpayer more money, not less. This scam will be no different.

What happened to the open records law that Florida government is always boasting about? Telling the public after the fact is not very transparent, and this sort of shit only happens when the parties involved have something to hide.

Technorati Tags: John Thrasher,Florida,Republicans,Florida Legislature,SPB 7172,SPB 7170,Senate Rules Committee,Current Events,An American Gothic

SOPA, The MPAA and Chris Dodd

2012-01-20T06:16:00.001-05:00

By Hunter for Daily Kos on Wed Jan 18, 2012

For as long as I can remember, the MPAA (that's Motion Picture Association of America) has labored hard in their effort to be the most universally reviled industry group in the country. They are in stiff competition with the music business, but still manage to hold their own. What makes both these groups special is their ability to treat absolutely everyone like dirt: directors, actors, artists, distributers, consumers, everyone. To hear the MPAA tell it, the entire world revolves around a handful of companies whose content comes to them via magical pixie delivery service, the only talent that exists in the world is Studio Head, and everyone else from actors to consumers to the person playing bass guitar is a filthy, valueless leech only tolerated because slavery is still technically prohibited (for now). My own expectation is that there's something in the water, but in any event, in order to work there you have to be a raging, insufferable asshole with a titanic ego and no apparent skills other than raw parasitism.

Enter former Sen. Chris Dodd.

As Markos already mentioned, the only substantial response from the MPAA to the SOPA/PIPA internet blackout has come in the form of a profoundly pompous statement penned by Chris Dodd, or at least penned by an army of soulless half-humans in an MPAA lab, then signed by Chris Dodd afterwards.

MPAA Chairman Chris Dodd came out swinging Tuesday in the fight over pending Internet anti-piracy legislation calling online web sites and tech companies supporting the “Blackout Day” protest scheduled for Wednesday “irresponsible” and calling their protest action “a disservice to people who rely on them for information” or use their services.
“It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today,” said Dodd in a statement. “It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.”

Yes, Markos already hit it. But I get to hit it again, under the This is So Stupid It Deserves Constant Mention rule. For starters: the sheer arrogance of the statement. That's not accidental, that is how the entertainment industry trade groups present themselves in nearly every situation. If a Girl Scout goes up to the head of the MPAA, she won't get away again until she hears how her very existence is only allowed because the big corporate studios make it possible, and that the color green is a copyright infringement, and that selling cookies is prohibited because cookies are a form of entertainment and fuck you, little girl, for thinking you could do that without handing over a large cut of the profits.

The sole argument Dodd has here is this, and I'm not kidding: You, internet websites, are engaged in an "abuse of power" by taking down your own websites. Only the MPAA gets to decide when to take down your websites. So shut up.

That's what the whole law is about: giving the largest entertainment companies themselves the right to preemptively shut down any effing website they want, under unproven claims of "infringement", and leaving it to the poor pisser on the other side to try to prove their innocence in court battles after the fact. And why shouldn't they try for that? We are for the most part there already, after all; Congress has steadily been ceding government authority and mandating court deference to private industries over and over again, so getting it over with and just letting a top handful of companies preemptively decide who they think might be breaking the law, then giving them heightened government-assisted abilities to destroy the "offender" in question before actually having to prove their case—well, that seems like a logical next step, doesn't it? The true genius of it, however, is the added bonus of being able to threaten any internet site that even has a link to the supposed offender, or that allows users to post content that is not properly pre-censored to remove "potential" copyright claims according to whatever guessed criteria these companies later come up with. If the MPAA decides you haven't been taking explicit steps to "confirm" that no users or commenters are posting things it deems naughty, that's it: you're shut down as well. That's the real kicker, the call for preemptive, universal monitoring of all posted internet content. Forget the technical incompetence of the bill; the intent and logic alone is a megacorporate fantasy come to life. Preemptive shutdowns! Seizing assets! A required level of user policing that is objectively impossible for most sites to reasonably meet (including, hilariously, the sites of the MPAA-belonging, SOPA-supporting studios themselves, you unrelenting dipshits), thereby ensuring a rich and unending stream of new criminals!

You can practically hear the condescension dripping from Dodd's statement, the outrage that these silly internet companies are still able to express themselves in any way at all, if that expression comes in a form that might slightly inconvenience Sony, or Disney, or whatever other entertainment mega-corporation wants the power to literally police the entire structure of the internet in the name of their supposed corporate rights.

Oh, I think we're all for reducing piracy. As shown by their unwillingness to just change their flawed and asinine bill already, however, the MPAA, like the music industry, is not quite so narrowly targeted on that. Their more pressing concern has of late been how to continue to squeeze top profits out of a distribution model that increasingly does not need them, and doesn't want them, and which revolves around bleeding content producers and consumers both, and that, in turn, requires tight control over every other possible means of alternate distribution (see: Net Neutrality, the fight over whether or not many of these same companies should be able to charge you a steeper fee if you get your content from "discouraged" sources, i.e. competitors, critics, or anyone else who makes it onto their corporate blacklist).

If it were easier to buy content, people would do more of it (iTunes, etc., has begun to help in this regard for music, but the film and television industries will apparently have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the electronic age). If industry groups did not consistently and absurdly overstep in what they called "infringement," and so had a small bit more credibility in this debate, that would help too. While we're at it we can ponder on the Neverending Copyright Story, the constant battle to ensure that we treat corporate copyrights as infinite entities, more sacrosanct than the original artist-centric version ever was, because once again corporate giants of course deserve stronger protection than individual people. That's just natural.

Net Un-Neutrality, SOPA, PIPA and ever-expanding copyright laws; a ridiculous patent system; ALEC, the MPAA, the Keystone fight; the legal fights over fracking; the mere political existence of Mitt Romney: Every aspect of our current government is predicated on expanding corporate power, and if that power conflicts with deeper American principles than those other principles can piss off. Even while we celebrate the internet bringing concrete benefits to other nations, we seek to limit it at home because some group of lobbyists says that corporate profits demand it. Then we have to listen to those same corporate voices condemn us for having the rotten audacity to even object.

Technorati Tags: SOPA,PIPA,MPAA,Chris Dodd,Internet Censorship,Hollywood,Big Business

Sorry GOP: America Still Blames Bush For The Economic Mess

2012-01-20T06:00:00.001-05:00

They also say that our Congress is confused, inept, and basically worthless as far as the Republican side of the room is concerned.

From latest news according to the Washington professionals:

A majority of Americans believe that former President George W. Bush is more responsible than President Obama for the current economic problems in the country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Fifty-four percent of respondents said that Bush was more to blame while 29 percent put the blame on Obama; 9 percent said both men deserved blame while 6 percent said neither did. Among registered voters, the numbers are almost identical; 54 percent blame Bush, while 30 percent blame Obama.

Independents, widely considered the most critical voting bloc this fall, continue to blame Bush far more than Obama for the economic troubles. Fifty-seven percent of unaffiliated voters put the blame on the former Republican president, while 25 percent believe the blame rests more with Obama.

Heck, even one in five Republicans say Bush is more responsible than Obama for the state of the economy!

CBS/New York Times:

The public is not assigning blame equally between President Obama and Republicans in Congress for the partisan gridlock over key legislation.

In the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, 60 percent say Mr. Obama is attempting to work with Congressional Republicans to try to accomplish something; 27 percent say Republicans in Congress are making the same effort to work things out with the president.

There is strong public support for politicians to start cooperating. At least 80 percent – regardless of party identification – say Republicans and Democrats should compromise some of their positions in order to get things done.

Another Republican talking-point bites the dust.

Technorati Tags: ABC-Washington Post,ABC/WaPo Poll,CBS/NY Times Poll,Barack Obama,Congress,Current Events,An American Gothic,Politics

Blackout Got you Down? Coming attractions for the NEW internet!

2012-01-18T11:33:00.001-05:00

Originally posted to detroitmechworks on Tue Jan 17, 2012

Ok, so all your favorite websites are down today. It's no big deal!

Yes folks, the corporations of America have stepped up to the plate, and are ready to provide you with alternate sites that do ALMOST exactly what your old sites did.

Of course, there is a nominal registration fee for accessing each and every one of the following sites, but that is simply the cost of getting what you want!

Follow me across the flip, and your journey into the FUTURE of the internet will begin!

Missing Wikipedia? No problem! We present the new and improved Weekpedia!
No longer will you be forced to sit through erroneous and constantly updated information by random people on the internet! The new Weekpedia is written and controlled by the top experts in the field. Each entry is scrupulously scanned for copyright violations, and then, given that wonderful professional polish!
-Who needs comprehensive information on Gibraltar, when you can see a LIVE performance of the newest pop sensation! Each article will have a learning machine that determines what YOU most likely will want to see! Don't like her? Don't worry! We've got a hundred more lined up for you! And if you DO need that information, we will happily link you to the 1901 copyright free Encyclopedia Britannica article. After all, Nothing's really changed as far as the Rock goes. And SPEAKING of the Rock, you'll want to see his NEW MOVIE!

Want up to date political Commentary like on DailyKos? Well, buckle up because the new and improved MSNBC site has you covered! No longer will you need to surf the internet for progressive stories when you can simply go to our site and see the important news right there! No more hassles of trolls and voting. Our editors have determined what you NEED to see and where you NEED to go to get it. Want to comment? Just send us your comments and we'll determine if they fit the story! You'll see comments from people JUST LIKE YOU! And if you are worried about not seeing the controversy, don't worry! We have linked our site to the former members of Redstate, so you will be sure to see ALL sides of complex isssues. It's only through fair and balanced coverage that you will get the whole story!

Want Videos like you used to see on Youtube? No problem! Welcome to USTube! The net's new site for user created videos. By uploading your video, you ensure that you are helping this vibrant community stay strong. Our editors will review all content, after doing a quick check against the MPAA and RIAA catalogs to ensure compliance. If you are using a licensed song, the royalty fee can be deducted automatically, provided that the use of the music is approved by the copyright holder. No more worrying about fair use or possibly violating a film copyright either! We simply will replace all violations with random public domain films from the early fifties, ensuring entertainment and compliance.

Want to go shopping? Well, the NEW internet has you covered! Almost every corporation will have a website, and the new instant charges to your bank account will ensure that you buy the products you want in a fraction of the time. No more worrying about con artists trying to rip you off. If it isn't verified, it WON'T be sold.

Want to chat with your friends on Facebook and Twitter? Well, we've got a surprise for you! The new Faceplace ensures that everyone is EXACTLY who they say they are. Once you've uploaded all of your information, you can be sure that there will be nothing posted to your wall that could be hurtful in any way, because it will all be checked. No violations of copyright also means we can ensure that everyone plays by the rules. Uploading a picture? We'll check it to make certain you aren't breaking any laws. That way we protect both you AND your community.

And for added security, the new internet will helpfully monitor your hard drive for all media. By doing this, we can ensure that you aren't doing anything that could get you into trouble. Real time monitoring will ensure no pirated films or software have been placed onto your computer, through NO fault of your own of course. We'll make certain that stuff is GONE. Of course, refusal to accede to this monitoring IS a violation of the terms of service of the new internet.

So don't worry. You'll still be able to shop, talk and do all of your productivity! Just with a little bonus. A friend who is going to be watching over you. A Big Brother, if you will.

He's got your best interests at heart, after all.

Technorati Tags: SOPA,Redstate,The Internet,Website Blackouts,Snark,Youtube,Curent Events,An American Gothic

Christians, Rick Santorum, and Voter Fraud

2012-01-18T10:04:00.001-05:00

Sometimes those so-called “ Christian Conservatives “ can be downright amusing.

Accusations of voter fraud fly among Christian conservatives after Rick Santorum endorsement

Originally posted to Laura Clawson on Mon Jan 16, 2012

The gathering of Christian conservative leaders intended to choose a not-Romney to unify behind (a little late in the game to have much effect) has dissolved into recriminations:

But in back-and-forth emails, Protestant fundamentalist leaders who attended – most of them backing former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to be the anti-Romney candidate — are accusing Catholic participants of conniving to rig the vote.

They said they were conned into leaving after the second ballot on Saturday. They said pro-Santorum participants held a third ballot which Mr. Santorum won with more than 70 percent of the vote — far higher than the nine-vote margin he won on the first ballot. [...]

Now, a prominent evangelical political organizer is saying to others confidentially he has evidence that in a least one instance a participant was seen writing Mr. Santorum’s name on four separate ballots and putting them in the ballot box.

This is a nice little twist on the Republican obsession with voter fraud. But is it evidence that they're obsessed with fraud because they're so likely to commit it? Or just that their obsession leads them to be suspicious of anyone who disagrees with them, even an elite group of their peers?

No word on whether the voter ID requirement involved knowing a set number of Bible verses.

Also republished by Daily Kos.

Technorati Tags: Christian Conservatives,Rick Santorum,Republicans,Voter Fraud,2012 Elections,Newt Gingrich,Current Events,An American Gothic

Mitten Romney: Stimulus Lies

2012-01-17T10:41:00.001-05:00

Another Christian candidate who has to resort to lies in an effort to look better than he actually is.

Romney's Big Lie on the Economy Gets Bigger

Originally posted to Avenging Angel on Mon Jan 16, 2012

If nothing else, Mitt Romney seems dedicated to proving that repetition of a lie will make it true. On no point is Romney's tilting against the windmill of truth more comically pathetic than his long-ago debunked claim that President Obama "did not cause this recession, but he made it worse." After a tidal wave of fact-checkers demolished his mythology last summer, Romney on June 30 pretended, "I didn't say that things are worse" before reinstating the falsehood in his stump speech just days later. Now, Mitt has a new twist on his "Obama made it worse" fraud, declaring in light of the improving economic outlook that "It's getting better not because of him, it's in spite of him and what he's done."

Sadly for the myth-maker from Massachusetts, the numbers and the overwhelming consensus of economists - including John McCain's 2008 brain trust - demand Mitt Romney give credit where credit is due.

That, of course, is something the serial deceiver Romney is refusing to do, even as he acknowledges the economy is improving. As Mitt put it in New Hampshire ten days ago:

"I'm sure the president will want to take credit for it, for any improvement. Guess what? He doesn't deserve it."

Two days later during a GOP debate, Romney repackaged his con job this way:

"The president is going to try and take responsibility for things getting better. You know, it's like the rooster taking responsibility for the sunrise. He didn't do it," Romney said. "In fact, what he did was make things harder for America to get going again."

But back on planet Earth where the force of gravity still applies and the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, Romney's slander should receive the ridicule it rightly deserves.

This summer, Time blasted Romney's accusation that "the recession is deeper because of our President," concluding "that Romney's claim has no credible basis" because "there's no credible economic data showing that Obama has inflamed our economic problems." As Greg Sargent noted on June 27, both the AP and the Washington Post's own fact-checker demolished Romney's talking point on the recession which the NBER declared over in June 2009. Confronted three days later by NBC producer Sue Kroll about the growing economy, modest job gains and surging stock market, Romney simply denied he ever made the charge:

"I didn't say that things are worse...What I said was that economy hasn't turned around."

Nevertheless, just four days later Romney marked Independence Day by returning to his lie. As the New York Times reported:

Speaking at the annual July Fourth parade here on Monday, Mr. Romney told a crowd of supporters and passersby, "the recession is deeper because of our president," adding, "it's seen an anemic recovery because of our president."

Mr. Romney made a similar assertion earlier when reporters had pressed him on the point near the parade staging grounds, after initially seeming to limit his commentary to the president's handling of the recovery, which he said, "has been slower and more painful,'' But then he went ahead and said it, that the president "made the recession worse."

As it turns out, it's not just the tidal wave of reporters and fact-checkers that washed away the mud Mitt Romney hurled at President Obama on the economy. A bevy of economists, including ones who worked for Romney endorser John McCain, long ago concluded that Barack Obama saved the U.S. economy from calamity.

Take, for example, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Despite Republican mythmaking that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) "created zero jobs," in November the CBO reported that the stimulus added up to 2.4 million jobs and boosted GDP by as much as 1.9 points in the previous quarter. As The Hill explained, the CBO has found that "President Obama's 2009 stimulus package continues to benefit the struggling economy":

The agency said the measure raised gross domestic product by between 0.3 and 1.9 percent in the third quarter of 2011, which ended Sept. 30. The Commerce Department said Tuesday that GDP in that quarter was only 2 percent total...

By CBO's numbers, the $800 billion stimulus added up to 0.9 million jobs in 2009, 3.3 million jobs in 2010 and 2.6 million jobs in 2011.

Mark Zandi, an adviser to John McCain in 2008, was adamant on positive role of the stimulus. Federal intervention, he and Princeton economist Alan Blinder argued in August 2010, literally saved the United States from a second Great Depression. In "How the Great Recession Was Brought to an End," Blinder and Zandi's models confirmed the impact of the Obama recovery program and concluded that "laissez faire was not an option":

The effects of the fiscal stimulus alone appear very substantial, raising 2010 real GDP by about 3.4%, holding the unemployment rate about 1½ percentage points lower, and adding almost 2.7 million jobs to U.S. payrolls. These estimates of the fiscal impact are broadly consistent with those made by the CBO and the Obama administration.

But their modeling also suggests that the totality of federal efforts to rescue the banking system dating back to the fall of 2008 prevented a catastrophic collapse:

We find that its effects on real GDP, jobs, and inflation are huge, and probably averted what could have been called Great Depression 2.0. For example, we estimate that, without the government's response, GDP in 2010 would be about 11.5% lower, payroll employment would be less by some 8½ million jobs, and the nation would now be experiencing deflation.

Even Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the CBO and chief economic adviser to John McCain during the 2008 election, acknowledged the impact of the stimulus. Certainly no fan of either Barack Obama or the design of the ARRA, Holtz-Eakin told Ezra Klein that:

"The argument that the stimulus had zero impact and we shouldn't have done it is intellectually dishonest or wrong. If you throw a trillion dollars at the economy it has an impact, and we needed to do something."

Of course, Mitt Romney is nothing if not intellectual dishonest. But his lie that President Obama "made the economy worse" has become, as Greg Sargent noted, "has now become absolutely central to his campaign message, yet it's finding its way into story after story and segment after segment with no rebuttal whatsoever." And until that deception is finally buried by the scorn and disdain it deserves, Mitt Romney's "Post-Truth Campaign" will continue until November.

* Crossposted at Perrspectves *

Also republished by Community Spotlight.

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Barack Obama,Stimulus,The Economy,ARRA,CBO,GDP,The Recession,2012 Elections,An American Gothic,Current Events

Where We Are Headed if Republicans Get Their Way with the Tax Code

2012-01-17T09:38:00.001-05:00

Originally posted to Tim DeLaney on Mon Jan 16, 2012

The current Republican candidates have all called for the elimination of both capital gains taxes and estate taxes. Presumably, taxes on dividends would also be eliminated, but even if not, there are ways of diverting profits from dividend payments to capital gains--stock buy-backs, for instance.

Below the fold, we will examine the likely consequences of adopting this Republican vision of taxation. Briefly put, it ain't pretty.

Let's imagine you are a CEO or other high-placed executive for a major corporation. Your annual salary--including bonuses--is about $5 million. You are getting more wealthy each year because you don't spend the whole $4 million in after tax dollars. (You have a very good accountant!)

The Republicans gain control of the White House, and of both houses. (Hurray! Let the good times roll!) True to their word, they cut the capital gains tax to zero and eliminate the estate tax. You and your accountants, with an eye toward the 0% tax on capital gains, decide that your salary ought to be structured such that it is classified as capital gains rather than ordinary income.

Somehow, under the magic of creative accounting, and perhaps with an assist from the lawmakers you helped elect with your Super Pac, most of your income is transformed into capital gains. With an effective tax rate near 0%, your net worth skyrockets.

So, what do you do with the money? Even today, the top 1% in wealth own more than half the financial assets in the country. Under the new tax regime, this inexorably increases until--perhaps a few decades from now--they own nearly all the stocks, bonds, and other financial assets. What now?

A natural outlet for all that capital is property. So you start buying up houses on the open market to use as rental properties. The 99% can no longer afford home ownership because you have squeezed the last available dollar out of them. Eventually, most workers are reduced to living from paycheck to paycheck. What do you do when you con no longer get blood from a stone?

You resort to cannibalism, of course. If you are one of the top 0.01%, you start squeezing out the other 0.99%. eventually, and it might take a few generations, all the country's wealth will be concentrated in a few thousand families. (Remember, we abolished estate taxes.) Under the Republican paradigm, the trend is inevitable: the rich will inevitably get richer, and the rest will get poorer.

It may already be too late to reverse the trend. Excess wealth can readily be converted to votes, especially in view of the Citizens United decision. Votes are converted into control of the government, and this in turn is converted to control of the country's wealth. In this circular paradigm, wealth begets wealth. When wealth and politics combine, the non-wealthy are the losers.

For the United States--and all its citizens--to prosper, we need to attain political equilibrium. The politics of the Democratic Party naturally tend towards equilibrium; the politics of the Republicans naturally tend towards runaway wealth concentration.

I don't by any stretch mean to suggest that everything proposed by Democrats is naturally and necessarily optimum policy. We can, and have, made mistakes. But when Democrats make mistakes, those mistakes tend to be self-correcting. When Republicans make mistakes, the results are generally catastrophic.

What does this have to do with the current campaign? First priority, in my opinion, is to overturn the Citizens United decision by means of a constitutional amendment. Demand from every congressional candidate--Democrat or Republican--a firm commitment to the proposed amendment. The alternative is to allow corporations to buy the government. In reality, this amounts to allowing the Boards of directors and the CEO's to buy the government. It is merely a convenient fiction to believe that the shareholders are in control.

There are other reforms needed. In future diaries, perhaps I will try to advocate for some of them.

Also republished by J Town, Dream Menders, and Community Spotlight.

Technorati Tags: Republicans,Taxes,Tax Code,Citizens United,Class Warfare,Current Events,An American Gothic,Politics,The 1%

Saint Ron Paul’s Biblical Adventure

2012-01-16T06:18:00.001-05:00

While blazing through the vast Internet universe, I came across one of the books of the Bible renamed the “ Book of Saint Ron Paul.

More from the Book of Paul

by ontheleftcoast Sat Jan 14, 2012

I had a bit of fun morphing the words of the Book of Mark into the rather bizarre, self-serving words of the Republican party's mad elf Ron Paul. My sig line was the result. So I took a shot at transcribing more of chapter 8 into the words of Adam Smith as misunderstood and taught by Saint Ron Paul.

[1] In those days the millionaires being very great, and having caviar to eat, Adam Smith called his disciples unto him, and said
[2] "I have compassion for the millionaires, because they have now been with me for many days, and have nothing but caviar to eat."
[3] "And if I send them away to their own mansions, they will faint on the way, for they lack carbohydrates and they came from afar."
[4] And his disciples answered him, "From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?"
[5] And he asked them, "How many loaves have ye?" And they said, "Seven."
[6] And he commanded the rich to sit down at the tables with fine linen: and he took the seven loaves, and the money collected to feed the poor, and paid for more loaves, and said, "The rich did pay more so should get more."
Editor's note, the following several verses are a rather boring account of various courses being served to all the guests. Those that couldn't pay were given vouchers for a meal at a later time at the soup kitchen. Back to the story.

[31] And he began to teach them, that he must suffer many things, that he would be rejected by the scholarly, and be replaced by better understanding of markets, but after 3 generations would rise again.
[32] And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.
[33] But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he took from Peter and gave it to Paul, saying, "Get thee behind me, Peter: for thou savorest not the things that be of gold, but the things that be of paper money."
[34] And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples, he said unto them, "Whosoever will follow me, let him pay for himself, pick up his own check, and he can join me."
[35] "For whosoever will put his life savings in stocks shall lose it; but whosoever shall put his life savings in gold, the same shall save it."
[36] "For what profit a man, if he gain the world, but has to pay taxes on it?"
[37] "For what shall a man demand in exchange for those taxes?"
[38] "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and my words in this deficit spending and wasteful generation; of him shall I be ashamed when I return."

When money is your religion then you surely must follow the profits.

Originally posted to ontheleftcoast on Sat Jan 14, 2012

Also republished by Street Prophets and Community Spotlight.

Technorati Tags: Political Humor,Religion,Ron Paul,Economic Theory,Satire,Current Events,An American Gothic

Sunday Satire: Mitt Romney Edition

2012-01-14T06:12:00.001-05:00

Romney won the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, so, in the spirit of thinking that he’s an ass..

Jimmy Kimmel: "I came up with a great slogan for Romney. "It's time to Mitt or get off the pot."

“Apparently a large branch of Mitt Romney’s family lives in Mexico. … His grandfather in the late 1800s moved his whole family to Mexico to avoid being prosecuted for polygamy. … Mitt can use that to show that he’s tough on immigration. His family kicked themselves out of the country.”

Jay Leno: "Congratulations to Mitt Romney. He won the New Hampshire primary last night. See, this is proof that even the multimillionaire son of a multimillionaire can beat the odds and run for president of the United States."

"You know the difference between Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Tim Tebow? When God tells Tim Tebow to run, he wins."

"A group calling itself the Courage Campaign is trying to win support for a millionaire tax by running an ad showing Kim Kardashian. They want the Kardashians to pay more. This is part of the plan to raise taxes on the dumbest 1 percent."

"Mitt Romney says he understands the middle class, and that he knows it's not easy keeping a roof over your family's heads — as well as vacation roofs in San Diego, New Hampshire, and Park City, Utah."

Jimmy Fallon: "While campaigning yesterday, Jon Huntsman said he was 'ready to rock and roll.' Not to be outdone, Mitt Romney said he was ready to 'easy listen.'"

"After Iowa and New Hampshire, Mitt Romney's campaign is now two for two. After his performance last night, Rick Perry's campaign merchandise is now two for one."

Conan O'Brien: "Fidel Castro declared that a robot would do a better job as president than Barack Obama. After hearing this, Mitt Romney thanked Castro for his endorsement."

"Yesterday Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt stopped by the White House. There was an awkward moment when they tried to adopt President Obama."

David Letterman: "Mitt Romney said that he liked to fire people. Well, there's a pretty good message to send to Middle America."

Technorati Tags: Friday Funnies,Political Humor,Late Night Talk,Jay Leno,David Letterman,Conan O'Brian,2012 Elections,Mitt Romney,Newt Gingrich,Rick Perry,Current Events,An American Gothic

The RNC Wants “Citizens United” Law Expanded

2012-01-14T06:11:00.001-05:00

RNC Decides to Finish Destroying Democracy

by bmaples Posted on Thu Jan 12, 2012

There are headlines that are so jaw-dropping in their implications that they stop you cold in your tracks. Then, when you try to tell others about them, talking about them doesn't work. You just have to share them, and wait for the other person to stop cold in their tracks as well.

So, here you go:

Republican National Committee Files Brief Seeking To Allow Corporate Funding of Campaigns

Yep -- you read that right. The RNC, those wonderful lovers of our form of government, have asked the Supreme Court to EXPAND the Citizens United decision to allow corporations to donate directly to campaigns. And to give as much as they want. With no limits.

If that hasn't caused you to mutter amazed expletives to yourself, try these numbers:

The total cost of the 2008 Presidential campaign for EVERYONE -- both candidates, PACs, 527s, you name it -- was $5.3 billion.
Citigroup's gross profit for 2011 was $60 billion.

In other words, ONE COMPANY could underwrite the entire campaign of any presidential candidate it chose -- and not even breathe hard.

I try -- I really try -- to be charitable to Republicans most of the time. But this is one of the most dangerous ideas any so-called political party has ever come up with, and it deserves to be shouted down by people from every side of the aisle.

Originally posted to bmaples on Thu Jan 12, 2012

Also republished by ClassWarfare Newsletter: WallStreet VS Working Class Global Occupy movement.

Technorati Tags: Citizens United,RNC,Republican National Committee,Citigroup,2012 Elections,Current Events,An American Gothic

First-time Unemployment Claims Spike To 399,000

2012-01-12T09:49:00.001-05:00

By Meteor Blades for Daily Kos Labor Thu Jan 12, 2012

The Department of Labor this morning reported a seasonally adjusted rise of 24,000 to 399,000 in first-time applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending Jan. 7. The four-week moving average preferred by many economic analysts because flattens volatility rose to 381,750 from the previous week's revised average of 374,000. A year ago at this time the weekly number was 437,000 and and the four-week running average was 420,000.

The significant jump could be an indication that temporary hiring of package delivery personnel and retail workers in December was larger than expected. The median forecast of the 46 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was 375,000. The rise could be bad news for a labor market that has been improving at a slightly accelerated rate the past few months. The claims figures, like other job reports, are especially volatile around the holiday season. The first week of the year typically shows a high number of claims.

“Labor demand is still not strong enough to support a complete jobs recovery,” Henry Mo, an economist at Credit Suisse in New York, said before the report. Even so, “the labor market is heading in the right direction.”

Originally posted to Daily Kos Labor on Thu Jan 12, 2012

Also republished by Daily Kos.

Technorati Tags: Department of Labor,The Economy,Unemployment Claims,Jobs,Current Events,An American Gothic

Company Wants To Be Able To Fire People and Prevent Them From Getting New Jobs

2012-01-12T05:53:00.001-05:00

by quaoar Mon Jan 09, 2012

This is a twist that Mitt Romney wishes he had thought of at Bain Capital -- where firing people is tons of fun.

A company called Halifax -- owned by Arkansas billionaire Warren Stephens -- recently bought a bunch of small newspapers that were owned by the NY Times. Halifax then started a process to decide which employees at these newspaper would be kept and which would be let go.

Apparently, according to a report at Poynter.org, some employees are being given a choice -- before they can keep their jobs they have to sign an agreement that lets Halifax fire them at will and prevents them from taking a job in any other city with a Halifax property for two years.

Employees at the 16 papers now owned by Halifax Media Group are being asked to sign an agreement that allows the company to fire them anytime but prevents them from working for media companies in any other city with a Halifax property for two years. A tipster said employees have until tomorrow to decide whether to sign or lose their jobs.

It used to be that if a company wanted to part ways with someone and prevent them from competing with them once they left, they had to negotiate a buyout.

And it often involved someone who had inside knowledge of the workings of the company that would be valuable to a competitor.

But Halifax is apparently taking that to a new level. Why shell out money for buyouts when you can just coerce everyone into signing noncompete agreements and then let them go?

Just think of all the extra cash that Romney could have earned for Bain Capital if he had thought of this years ago.

Technorati Tags: The Economy,Halifax,New York Times,Employment,Jobs,Current Events,An American Gothic

Florida’s Metro-Area Housing Prices Predicted To Rise in 2012…

2012-01-10T09:32:00.001-05:00

… and for home owners in the state of Florida, that will be some welcome news, providing that they can find buyers for their homes as many homeowners are still attempting to dump their over-mortgaged properties.

Home prices for Tampa Bay are forecast to increase by 7.4% for the year according to Clear Capitol, a firm which does housing valuations and analytics.

The report also believes that prices will go up in Orlando by 11.7%, in Miami by 8.8%, and prices in Jacksonville will rise by 4.3%.

Technorati Tags: Florida,Tampa Bay,The Economy,Housing,Foreclosures,Current Events,An American Gothic,Miami,Housing Market

Newt Gingrich’s Super PAC Strikes Back Against Mitt Romney’s

2012-01-09T05:12:00.001-05:00

Oh yes, now the real fun begins as these two snakes go about trying to swallow the other one up in their quest to be the GOP warrior against President Barack Obama in the November, 2012 election. This Gingrich/Romney title fight should be presented on pay-per-view as the “ Super Pac Men “ championship show down. Grab your beer, chips, and salsa for this one as Newt strikes back against Romney with a new video.

Gingrich Super PAC Hits Romney for Corporate Raiding Past — Bring the Popcorn!

By Mets102 Posted on Sat Jan 07, 2012

Newt Gingrich's super PAC has purchased the rights to a film attacking Mitt Romney's history of being a corporate raider. The ads are set to go in South Carolina, with its all-important GOP primary coming up. And, these days, it seems Newt is more interested in settling scores and hitting Romney following attacks on Gingrich by Romney's super PAC. After running a largely positive campaign in Iowa, Gingrich now appears ready to go scorched earth in his attacks on the "Massachusetts Moderate" to deny Romney the nomination.

Peter Boyer, over at The Daily Beast, reported last night that it is a 27-minute video, entitled, When Mitt Romney Came to Town that:

focuses on four case studies of Bain’s acquisitions—a Florida-based company called UniMac, which produced commercial laundry equipment; KayBee Toys; the electronics company DDI; and AmPad, an Indiana-based office-supply producer. The key result of these transactions, the film asserts, was “spectacular returns” for Bain through “stripping American businesses of assets, selling everything to the highest bidder, and often killing jobs for big financial rewards.”

As Rick Tyler, described by MSNBC as a senior adviser to Gingrich's super PAC, stated:

“For the first time, this film will show what Bain Capital actually did,” said Rick Tyler, a senior adviser to Winning Our Future, a pro-Gingrich super PAC that acquired the rights to the movie on Friday. The super PAC is posting a two-minute trailer from the 27-minute film on a website Saturday.
“They targeted companies … they raided them … and thousands of workers lost their jobs. This is not capitalism. This is predatory, (emphasis my own)” Tyler said.

I must say, it is quite fun to see the Republicans comparing each other to President Obama because one dares to attack Romney's past as a corporate raider:

Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, responded Saturday: “It’s puzzling to see Speaker Gingrich and his supporters continue their attacks on free enterprise. This is the type of criticism we've come to expect from President Obama and his left-wing allies at MoveOn.org. Unlike President Obama and Speaker Gingrich, Mitt Romney spent his career in business and knows what it will take to turn around our nation’s bad economy.”

With the Republicans debating the crazy tonight, all I can say is let's enjoy watching them attack each other and write President Obama's ads for this fall, especially if Romney is the nominee. Corporate Raider Mitt Romney, who has never met an issue he isn't willing to flip-flop on, provides a stark contrast with President Obama and the fight for the middle class. Oh, and the best part, this video was made by someone who once did ads for Romney and is connected to Mary Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney. All I can say is: Sit back and bring the popcorn!

Originally posted to Jews For President Obama on Sat Jan 07, 2012

Also republished by Democrats, I Vote for Democrats, and Kos Georgia.

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich,Mitt Romney,Republicans,2012 Elections,The Economy,Barack Obama,Current Events,An American Gothic,Politics

Taxpayer Supported “ Liquid Stupid “

2012-01-08T11:12:00.001-05:00

So, what exactly is taxpayer supported “ liquid Stupid “ you ask?

That would be the tax dollars that the United States Government collects from many of you, only to give it back to a group of people who did stupid shit while they were growing up, and continue to do as adults. That group would be those who have become lifelong drunkards who now collect a Social Security Disability check, or an Supplemental Security Income check from Uncle Sam because they were to stupid to know their limits. In many cases, they just did not care. Many of these ass-wipes haven’t been able to hold a steady job for better than 20 or more years because they couldn’t lay off of the booze long enough to go to work.

I use a 57 year old female as an example, for starters. We will call her Terri, since that is her real name. This woman has a problem with alcohol that is so bad that it put her out in the streets for 7 years up until 2010. If it was not for the government giving her a monthly “ Stupid Check “ she would still be living in dirt.

I remember that is was only a few years ago that the term “ stupid check “ was one that I did not care to hear. Well guess what? If Terri is an indication, then the term is an highly accurate one which fits the description of these clowns, and Terri is the queen bee of the group.

Her habit was so bad enough at the time I met her, that in order to get her daily cans of “ Liquid Stupid “ she had resorted to prostitution for 4-packs of crap that no normal beer drinker would dare to call beer.

From her police record, it would seem that she was to drunk to sell her self, as she got arrested 2 times while walking the streets. She swears that both times were the first time that she had tried to be a hooker.

When I met this creature, she had a habit of going into an apartment complex which is full of mostly older, handicapped people, and playing what I call “ touchy, feely “ with the old men in order to get her nickels and dimes for her beers and cigarettes. I was not aware of this at the time that this was happening. She was drunk one day and told me about it. She also had the habit of selling off her monthly SNAP ( food stamps ) allotment to get her cans of crap for herself and for her other “ drunkard “ friends who were to lazy to get up off of their asses and apply for their own stamps, much less look for a job. These are the true bums that you workers should not have to support.

Terri has been an alcoholic for some 30 years and her own children would have nothing to do with her, even though they lived only a couple of miles away from her.

Long story short, she now receives a check every month, a Social Security Disability check of slightly more than a 1k.

What does she do now? Drinks her “ Liquid Stupid “ every day of the week until she runs out of money, and she drinks more of it now that she has a place to live in. In Tampa it is nearly impossible to rent a place if you have 6 felonies, so it took a few of us quite a bit of talking to get her in to a place, and lot’s of promises. Now she sits on her ass all day long, getting fat off of her beer and blaming everyone else but herself for her self-induced problems.

You and I pay for her to do this shit. Why is that? Why do we have to pay for some idiot dimwit’s drinking habit, or for someone else's crack habit? This is an affront to the people of America who actually get up early in the morning to go to work or to look for a job. It is an insult and a slap in the face to those of us who try to make things better for ourselves and others. It is an insult to those people who have very real disabilities, yet have to jump through hoops to get approval for payment.

This waste of taxpayer’s having to finance drinking and drug habits for people who chose to be stupid for most, if not all of their lives, has to come to an end. Our government is creating nothing but even more problems for our society by allowing drunks and drug addicts to live off of those of us who try to make our lives worth something instead of sitting on our asses doing nothing but wasting a life that it not really worth living thanks to “ Uncle Sam.”

That may sound harsh to many of you, but it is the truth.

Let’s get back to the drunk which I am using as an example, shall we?

This past Sunday night, she got pissed off because I gave her the third degree over her consistent mumbling while we were watching a flick on dvd. She is like one of those assholes in a theater who cannot stop flapping their face without being told to shut up a few times. This only happens when she is stuck on drunk “ stupid.” Anyway, she left for an hour or so and came back after I had went to bed. She has a key to let herself in, naturally, even though she shouldn’t be allowed to keep one as she leaves it in the door or loses it somewhere else.

She lost it for the 4th time on Sunday, and after having torn up the place looking for it, I could only surmise that she left it in the door once again. This time though, it appears that someone came along and took it.

Now, I have 3 laptops and a desktop along with various other electronic gadgets which I am very fond of, so time to change the locks. I should not have to do this, and I would not have to if a normal person were here instead of some drunk piece of garbage.

Before you start throwing insults my way, let me state that when sober she is as sweet as can be and I love her to death. When drunk, which is 95% of the time after she gets her check, she is not worth the ground that she crawls on and for at least 2 weeks, I do not like her at all.

You can love someone to death for eternity, but when they keep doing the same stupid shit and not learning from it one has to stop caring as much. You cannot let your life go down the drain because of another persons stupidity and failure to try to do something about their problem. This woman does not even make the effort to do anything unless a can of Natural Ice is involved.

She is lucky that she is not a male, otherwise that ass would be beaten down into the dirt every day of the week. As is, I am very close to not caring about whether she is a female or not, and just plain cleaning her fucking clock!

2 years I have tried to get Terri do do something that would help herself, all to no avail.

It is now time for myself to move on and to let her sink down back into the gutter that she came out of, where she apparently prefers to be.

2012 is a new year and one in which I will be far away from this pathetic creature, because I no longer care what happens to her. She has made sure of that.

S.S.D. should have never been approved for her, or for many others just like her. This is what the government allows many other drinkers and druggies to become.

I have a few solutions to this waste of taxpayer money which I will be getting into later in the month. Right now, I have to go make sure that the drunk has not set the couch on fire.

This rant is over and I am truly sorry that I vented on this blog. Had to get some of this off of my chest, and the only other people around here are never sober enough to speak with.

Technorati Tags: Alcoholism,Alcohol,Social Security Disability,S.S.D.,Stupid Check,Current Events,An American Gothic,Government Waste

Sunday Satire: Michele Bachmann/Wingnut Edition

2012-01-06T10:30:00.003-05:00

You all knew that this was a comin!

"Before we get started, let's all say 'Happy Birthday' to Elvis Presley today." —Michele Bachmann, while campaigning for president in South Carolina on what was actually the anniversary of Elvis's death

Conan O'Brien -"Lenscrafters is upset with Tea Partier Michele Bachmann because she called Planned Parenthood 'the Lenscrafters of abortion.' Lenscrafters released a statement today calling her 'the Costco of crazy.'"

"Michele Bachmann pulled out of the presidential race and I just want to take a moment and say that Michele gave us a lot of material over the last eight months."

"In her concession speech, Bachmann said, 'I mean what I say.' Then she thanked her speech writer, Popeye."

David Letterman: "As I was coming out here, CBS News predicted the winner of the Iowa Republican caucuses: President Obama."

"Michele Bachmann is out, but I don't think her husband is."

"There's already controversy with the Iowa caucuses. About a half hour ago, they found eight more votes for Al Gore."

ay Leno: "(Rick) Santorum did so well, a restaurant in Boone, Iowa, named its chicken salad after him. They also have the Mitt Romney waffle, the Ron Paul cracker, and the Newt Gingrich chubby hubby ice cream."

"Rick Santorum's campaign is celebrating the Iowa caucuses with a pizza party. Here's the embarrassing part: It was delivered by Herman Cain."

David Letterman's "Top Ten Surprises At Michele O'Bachmann's Press Conference"
10. Congratulated Mitt Romney on being elected the president of Iowa
9. Gave repeated shout-outs to the Los Angeles car arsonist
8. After a brief introduction, spent 15 minutes Tebowing
7. Said she successfully prayed her campaign away
6. Shared several inspirational quotes from 'Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked'
5. Announced plans to bet remaining campaign funds on the Packers to win the Super Bowl
4. Said she's leaving Marcus for the lead guitarist of Journey
3. Revealed she's the latest wacky character played by Sacha Baron Cohen
2. Showed her full-body dragon tattoo
1. Ended with a, 'See you losers at the truck stop!'

David Letterman's "Top Ten Signs It Might Be Time To End Your Presidential Campaign"

10. Will only answer questions from reporters who buy you a steak dinner
9. Most influential supporter is some drunk guy from British Columbia
8. Still aren't sure what the heck a "caucus" is
7. Began last speech with, "As I look out at all these empty chairs . . . “
6. People refer to you as Mitt Romney without the charisma
5. Last campaign ad showed you curled up on the shower floor, crying
4. Instead of Iowa you've been campaigning in Idaho
3. At the last debate, all you said was, "whatevs"
2. Your mom keeps reminding you that, if this president thing doesn't work out, your Uncle Phil has a job for you at his carpet store
1. Chief of staff spent the weekend in Los Angeles setting car fires

Technorati Tags: Politics,Humor,Michele Bachmann,Mitt Romney,2012 Elections,Late Night Talk,David Letterman,Jay Leno,Current Events,An American Gothic

Mitt Romney, who secured a $10 million federal bailout for Bain, calls Obama a 'crony capitalist'

2012-01-06T10:30:00.001-05:00

By Jed Lewison Thu Jan 05, 2012

Bain & Co. would likely have collapsed without a $10 million federal bailout negotiated by Mitt Romney in the early 1990s

Another day, another calculated attack from Mitt Romney ... and this time he is trying to sound just like Michele Bachmann:

Mitt Romney on Thursday labeled President Barack Obama as a "crony capitalist," invoking a theme that Rep. Michele Bachmann used before she left the presidential race.
"This president is a crony capitalist. He's a job killer," the former Massachusetts governor said during a morning town hall meeting here. "This president has engaged and is engaging in crony capitalism."

Bachmann used similar language before she dropped out of the race Wednesday after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses.

If I had a dollar for every time Michele Bachmann called President Obama a crony capitalist, I'd be able to pay for the Bush tax cuts she and Mitt Romney are fighting for. But in a quick search of Nexis, I couldn't find an example of Romney using that sort of language. Now she's out of the race, however, and to woo her supporters, Romney is robotically parroting her lines.

But even though Mitt Romney is supposedly smarter than Michele Bachmann, the attack doesn't make any more sense when he says it than when she does. I can understand why conservatives might not like President Obama's policies, but he's not corrupt. Not even Darrell Issa has been able to come up with anything that remotely supports such a claim.

And while Bachmann at least voted against TARP, giving her some standing to use the rhetoric of crony capitalism, Romney not only supported it, but has personally benefited from what Bachmann would certainly call "crony capitalism." In 1991, he convinced the federal government to forgive $10 million in debts owed by Bain & Co., a deal that helped prevent his company from failing and ultimately made him millions of dollars. Via Nexis, here's a story about it published on October 25, 1994 in The Boston Globe:

Republican Senate nominee Mitt Romney's rescue of a business consulting firm was achieved in part by convincing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to forgive roughly $ 10 million of the company's debts, according to sources close to the deal and federal records obtained by The Boston Globe.
Romney, whose business acumen has been the cornerstone of his campaign, has said saving the Bain & Co. consulting firm from the brink of bankruptcy in 1991 was the accomplishment that most convinced him he had the mettle to be a US senator.

Bain & Co. and the FDIC agreed to the deal after months of intense negotiations. Moreover, bankers say debt forgiveness is relatively routine when a company is at risk of collapse.

But the $ 10 million cost to the FDIC raises the question of whether Romney's success, as well as the resurrection of Bain & Co., came partially at the expense of the federal agency that protects US bank deposits.

No doubt Mitt Romney would defend that $10 million in federal aid to Bain & Co. as having prevented the bankruptcy of his firm and as having saved hundreds of jobs. But the corollary of that argument is that Mitt Romney saved Bain & Co. with a $10 million bailout from the federal government—and given that fact, he's the last person on Earth who should be accusing anybody of crony capitalism.

Originally posted to The Jed Report on Thu Jan 05, 2012

Also republished by Daily Kos.

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Barack Obama,FDIC,Bain & Co.,Politics,Bailouts,Current Events,An American Gothic

Iowa Caucus: Bachmann Quits

2012-01-05T11:05:00.001-05:00

Only days ago Michele Bachmann was saying that their would be a miracle in Iowa as far as her winning the caucus, or placing near the top. This was even though she was not placing all to well in the polling conducted by many pollsters.

As you all know by now, Bachmann gave up the ghost after garnering only a measly 5% of the Iowa vote. I believe that the miracle was that this pathetic creature got as much as that 5% in the first place, and it is a sad state of affairs in Iowa when one thinks of the fact that there are at least 5% of the citizens who are as ding-batty as Bachmann is.

Anyway, she is out of the GOP race, and she can now go back to Minnesota to continue helping her husband to “ pray away the gay “ while getting federal funds to do so.

I take it that Michele didn’t get the memo from God telling her that he had changed His mind about wanting her to run for President. You know, the same thing that befell Herman Cain.

Technorati Tags: Iowa Caucus,GOP,Politics,Michele Bachmann,Rick Perry,Newt Gingrich,Current Events,An American Gothic,Conservative Christians

The Upper Elite: Democracy No Longer Required

2012-01-04T09:46:00.001-05:00

The following was posted on December 19,2011 by gjohnsit at Daily Kos. A video which was with the post is not included due to technical problems, I guess.

This is an informative look at just how much power the banking system holds over governments throughout the world when it comes to getting their wishes completed.

"the marriage between capitalism and democracy is over."
- Slavoj Zizek

Politics is never in a static state. It is always in transition.
Thousands of years ago Aristotle wrote how monarchies become aristocracies, become tyrannies, become democracies, become monarchies, and so forth.

The United States, being both a young country AND one of the oldest continuous democracies, doesn't have the cultural maturity to see the change when it approaches.
For instance, Americans are still in denial how the country went from being a democracy to an Empire in 1945.

We are also in denial about the changes the political economy has underwent since the early 1990's.
I use the term "political economy" because that was what the study of economics was called until about a century ago. It's what Adam Smith and David Ricardo studied.
The fact that the study of economics fails to take politics into account today is probably its biggest reason why it has become a total failure.

In the middle ages nations used to default on their debts all the time. The reason is because the major banks of the days lent money to the monarchies, not to the nations themselves.

As James Steuart explained in 1767, royal borrowings remained private affairs rather than truly public debts. For a sovereign’s debts to become binding upon the entire nation, elected representatives had to enact the taxes to pay their interest charges.

By giving the people a voice in their nation's affairs, they also took on the responsibilities. No longer did creditors have to worry about their loans being canceled when a king died or was overthrown.
Capitalists backing democracy became strictly a wise business decision.

However, it was never a real alliance. The primary interest of capitalists was to get their money back, with interest, and to gather power unto themselves. For instance, they have never supported real democracy, because democracies tend to support ideas that are for the greater good of the most people.
For instance, for the last century popular (and short-lived) governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America that tried to introduce much-needed land reforms were quickly labeled "communist" and overthrown by CIA agents, the local aristocracy, and the Marines (if all else fails).
Nevertheless, the financiers of the world allowed modest social programs and reforms (within limits) in the name of battling a much greater threat to their wealth and power - communism. Through their fully-owned media outlets and think tanks, they constantly pushed the idea that capitalism and democracy were one and the same.

Sometimes, like in America, the propaganda works.
Remember in the days after 9/11? The first-responders, the firemen and policemen of America, were heroes of the right-wing. Brave and selfless.
Once push came to shove with the economic meltdown in 2008, those very same first responders were now "parasites living off the public dole". At least to the right-wing. Their bravery and selflessness was completely forgotten.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, that threat ended. The primary reason to endorse democracy ended. Now they only desire compliance. Now they only endorse the appearance of democracy.
You are allowed to vote, but only if your vote doesn't matter.

The ongoing global debt crisis has exposed this for all to see.

The overthrow of democracy in Europe

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou made a HUGE mistake.
When confronted with the latest round of austerity the financial leaders wanted to impose on his tiny country, he decided to hold a referendum with the Greek people.
There was an immediate revolt within his country, in the rest of the Europe, and in the financial markets. The people of Greece couldn't be trusted to do the "right thing".

The referendum idea was scrapped three days later. Less than a week after that he was pushed out of office for making the foolish choice of actually using democracy to make a decision.
An unelected technocrat from Goldman Sachs was put in his place. Someone the bankers could trust.

The bankers had spoken.
They weren't going to let democracy get in the way of their profits again.
The last time they made that mistake, Iceland voters rejected a generation-long future of debt peonage to foreign banks.

   The bankers then put another Goldman Sachs man in power in Italy. However, with the debt crisis spreading, installing unelected technocrats in every country to push through "reforms" that weren't in the public's interest was inefficient and a little too obvious.
   For starters, the bankers need to keep up the appearances of democracy, and that is hard to do while you are overthrowing democratic governments.
   Secondly, other governments weren't falling into line. They actually had the nerve to stand to the banks. This time it was Hungary.

The currency’s 40 percent slump against the franc has raised repayment costs, pushing mortgage arrears to a two-decade high and prompting Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government to brand the loans “debt slavery.”
To help homeowners, Orban imposed currency losses on banks including Erste Group Bank AG and Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) that may total 900 million euros ($1.2 billion), according to Cristina Marzea, an analyst at Barclays Capital. Faced with the risk Orban would impose further measures, lenders have offered to accept $2.2 billion of additional losses if the government promised to take no further action. If it doesn’t, banks are threatening they may withdraw from the country...
Almost 18 months after Orban was elected in April 2010, he passed a law allowing Hungarians to repay mortgages denominated in foreign currencies at discount of about 25 percent to today’s exchange rate. As long as a client applies before Dec. 31 and repays the entire loan before Feb. 28, the banks have to make up the difference.
“I paid it back last week,” Bod said. “I’m free of debt slavery,” said the former industry minister. The plan “is easy to explain from a political viewpoint. It’s cheap for the government, expensive for the banks, good for voters.”

Make no mistake - this is a large step beyond what Iceland has done. This is a government that is helping the working class at the expense of the bankers.
This is a threat to the status quo and to bank profits. The EU and IMF have broken off talks with Hungary in response to this defiance.
Hungary's deficit is below the treaty imposed limit of 3% of GDP and their current account is in surplus. It'll be hard to justify the IMF and EU cracking down on them.

Hungary, by standing up for their citizens against the international bankers and forcing them to take losses, could be setting a precedent. You can be sure that the rest of eastern Europe is watching closely.
So bankers have decided to take a different strategy - using a less democratic institution.

A new treaty to impose tighter discipline among the 17 nations in the European Union that use the euro will come into force once nine countries approve it, according to a draft released Friday. That potentially reduces the threat that disapproval by one nation could scuttle the pact.
The treaty is intended to help improve confidence in the euro by tightening the coordination of the 17 euro zone economies, requiring nations to balance their budgets and cut debt.

The EU has never been able to make changes in its constitution unless ALL the nations agreed to the change.
Now they want to dump that democratic tradition because without severe austerity and sacrifice by the working class, the bankers can't be assured of being fully compensated on their leveraged bets.
Fortunately, this treaty change is being fought by the governments of Hungary and the Czech Republic.

End Game

Make no mistake - the efforts by the bankers to usurp democracy in order to defend their huge gambling debts will ultimately fail.
With every public bailout they simply double-down their bets. This can't be sustained. Unpayable debts won't be paid. The only question now is how much damage will they do before the global economy crumbles around them, or before the public stands up to the oligarchy, whichever comes first?

I don't know how this will all play out. We are talking the politics of dozens of countries. Chances are the end results will be uneven.
But I can say that the gloves are coming off. The pretense of democracy is vanishing, and the oligarchy is pulling out all the stops.

What the public needs to do is to do nothing more than to stop listening to the propaganda and read a little history.

This appropriation of the economic surplus to pay bankers is turning the traditional values of most Europeans upside down. Imposition of economic austerity, dismantling social spending, sell-offs of public assets, de-unionization of labor, falling wage levels, scaled-back pension plans and health care in countries subject to democratic rules requires convincing voters that there is no alternative. It is claimed that without a profitable banking sector (no matter how predatory) the economy will break down as bank losses on bad loans and gambles pull down the payments system. No regulatory agencies can help, no better tax policy, nothing except to turn over control to lobbyists to save banks from losing the financial claims they have built up.
What banks want is for the economic surplus to be paid out as interest, not used for rising living standards, public social spending or even for new capital investment. Research and development takes too long. Finance lives in the short run. This short-termism is self-defeating, yet it is presented as science. The alternative, voters are told, is the road to serfdom: interfering with the “free market” by financial regulation and even progressive taxation.

There is an alternative, of course. It is what European civilization from the 13th-century Schoolmen through the Enlightenment and the flowering of classical political economy sought to create: an economy free of unearned income, free of vested interests using special privileges for “rent extraction.”

Originally posted to gjohnsit on Mon Dec 19, 2011

Also republished by Anti-Capitalist Chat, Money and Public Purpose, and The Amateur Left.

Technorati Tags: An American Gothic,Democracy,The Economy,Europe,Politics,Occupy Wall Street,The Occupy Movement,Capitalism,The 1%,Current Events,The Elite

Conservativism, Compassion, and Cruelty: A Response to David Brooks

2012-01-03T10:55:00.001-05:00

by Peter Dreier

Published on Monday, January 2, 2012 by Huffington Post

Through a story of personal tragedy and the virtues of small-town life, voluntarism, and compassion, the New York Times' David Brooks has written a column that unwittingly exposes our nation's outrageous cruelty and callousness.

In his December 30 column, "Going Home Again," Brooks tells the story of Ruthie Leming, a school teacher and mother of three daughters in St. Francisville, Louisiana (population 1,765), who last year, at age 40, was diagnosed with a virulent form of cancer. Brooks understandably laments the tragedy and applauds Ruthie's community, which rallied around her and her family as her health deteriorated.

"There were cookouts to raise money for her medical care," Brooks reports. On April 10 last year -- officially "Ruthie Leming Day" -- "more than half the town went to a fund-raising concert" to help pay her medical expenses.

Brooks describes other ways that Leming's friends and neighbors came to her aid. At the fundraising concert, for example, someone brought a camper trailer "so Ruthie would have a place to rest and take oxygen." And when Leming died on September 15 of this year, "more than 1,000 people signed the guest book at the funeral." Brooks quotes Ruthie's husband Mike, an Iraq war veteran and a fireman, whose friends helped him get through the tragedy. "We're leaning, but we're leaning on each other," he said. Each year on Christmas eve, Ruthie and her mother would put candles on the graves in the local cemetery. But her mother couldn't bring herself to do it this year. When she drove by the cemetery, however, the candle flames were aglow; one of Ruthie and Mike's neighbors had taken it upon herself to maintain the tradition. "They will never know what this meant to me," the mother said.

Brooks learned about Ruthie Leming's story from his friend Rod Dreher, her brother, who writes and blogs for The American Conservative magazine "The outpouring -- an eruption, really -- of goodness and charity from the people of our town has been quite simply stunning," Dreher wrote. "The acts of aid and comfort have been ceaseless, often reducing our parents to tears of shock and awe."

After experiencing the warmth of the tight-knit community, Dreher decided to move from the Philadelphia area back to St. Francisville, where he grew up but hadn't lived since he left for college. "I thought, 'Even with all the sadness, there's no place else in the world I'd rather be."

Brooks uses this story as a parable about the virtues of what he calls "communitarian conservativism," which he contrasts with "free market" conservativism. Brooks favors both, but laments that the former version -- which he identifies as rooted in "small towns, traditions, and community" -- has gotten less attention.

The support that Ruthie Leming got from her friends and neighbors is indeed heartwarming. Of course, neighborliness and compassion are not unique to small towns. Nor are acts of cruelty and mean-spiritedness confined to big cities. There is plenty of crime, domestic violence, bigotry, and racial and economic tension in rural America.

But as Brooks extols his vision of compassionate conservatism, he casually and conveniently passes over the major outrage of Ruthie Leming's last year on earth -- the fact that her community had to hold fundraisers so her family could pay her medical bills. Brooks wasn't writing a column about health care policy, but implicit in his story is the notion that charity is an adequate substitute for government regulation or funding to meet basic needs.

In no other civilized nation would the Leming family face this double tragedy of debilitating illness and deep debt. Indeed, people in other well-off countries view America's lack of universal health care as cruel and barbaric, as indeed it is.

Charity is a good thing. People will always face tragic circumstances where compassion -- by individuals and by entire communities -- can relieve suffering. As Oliver Zunz points out in his new book, Philanthropy in America, voluntary giving -- by the very rich and by ordinary people -- can benefit society, especially when it is used to support the extra things that government cannot fully support, such as museums, symphonies, theater, and Little League. But conservatives romanticize charity (which former President George H. W. Bush called "a thousand points of light") when they view it as a substitute for government support, and argue that voluntary donations and good will gestures can adequately raise funds for K-12 education, feed the hungry, house the homeless, or pay for medicine, hospitals, and doctors' bills.

The real "community"-wide solution to our health care crisis is universal insurance, which can only be achieved with government setting the rules and providing subsidies.

Exorbitant medical bills are the biggest cause of personal bankruptcies and home foreclosure. In recent years, health care profits -- for drug and insurance companies, in particular -- have soared, while more and more Americans found themselves without any health insurance at all or (like Ruthie and Mike Leming) with inadequate insurance that didn't cover their medical bills. As part of their standard business model, insurance companies calculated which Americans were expensive to cover and refused to provide coverage to those people who had what they euphemistically called "pre-existing conditions."

Last year the nation took a step forward in addressing these problems with a health reform law that requires every American to have insurance, provides subsidies for those who can't afford it, and restricts insurance companies from discriminating against sick people. While America was debating health care reform, the insurance companies, big business, and the Republican Party spent tens of millions of dollars -- in TV ads, campaign contributions, and lobbying -- to oppose and weaken the bill. Now every Republican candidate for president has pledged to dismantle what they call "Obamacare" before it even has been fully implemented.

It is a great reflection on the generosity of the people of St. Francisville, and an awful reflection on American society, that at their time of greatest need, Ruthie and Mike Leming had to rely on donations to stave off financial ruin. In what kind of society do we allow teachers and firefighters to rely on charity to help pay their medical bills?

Peter Dreier is E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, and director of the Urban & Environmental Policy program, at Occidental College. He is coauthor of Place Matters: Metropolitics for the 21st Century and The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City. He writes regularly for the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and American Prospect.

Technorati Tags: Peter Creier,Obamacare,Health Care,Compassionate Conservatism,David Brooks,Universal Healthcare,Current Events,An American Gothic

Google, Facebook, Amazon Planning Internet Blackout to Protest "Big Brother" SOPA Bill

2012-01-03T05:55:00.001-05:00

Posted at December 31, 2011 By Lauren Kelley | Sourced from AlterNet

The debate over SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) has pitted Hollywood executives and the Republican-supported Chamber of Commerce against, well, basically everyone who enjoys the free and open internet, with critics saying that the legislation could lead to widespread internet censorship.

Among those critics are major websites like Facebook, Amazon, and Google, which are considering imposing an internet "blackout" in protest of the bill. The Daily Mail reports:

The battle over the SOPA bill has seen leading web firms square off against Hollywood media companies in a trade-off between internet freedom and intellectual property rights.

Now it could burst into the open as technology giants are planning to 'censoring' their own homepages, according to a leading internet lobby group.

Sites such as Google, Amazon and Facebook could temporarily replace their usual homepage with a black screen and a message asking users to contact politicians and urge them to oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The move could come as early as January 24, when the bill is due to be debated in the House of Representatives.

One of the only major web companies to have supported SOPA is GoDaddy, which was shamed into reversing its support after throngs of customers (including heavy hitters like Wikipedia) moved their domain names elsewhere.

Read more about the background of the bill at the Daily Mail.

Technorati Tags: Stop Online Piracy Act,SOPA,The Internet,Google,Amazon,Facebook,Censorship,Current Events,An American Gothic

Iris Scan Identification Systems: The New Gold Rush?

2012-01-02T06:06:00.001-05:00

By Cartoon Peril Tue Dec 27, 2011

There's a thing called global biometrics industry. As with any "global" industry, there's good reason to be suspicious of it. Largely parasitic on governments, the industry has devised ocular (eyeball-based) ID systems, of which there are two very different methods, the iris scan and the retinal scan, with the iris scan far more prevalent, and projected to be the most common identification technology in 2020.

The iris is a muscle that forms the colored portion of the eye and it controls the amount of light that enters the eye by regulating the size of the pupil. Iris imaging requires use of a high quality digital camera that illuminates the iris using near-infrared light. The Ministry of Homeland Security (.PDF 8/12/2010) claims that these cameras can take these photographs without causing harm or discomfort to the individual.

For some time now the ministry has been conducting its "Iris and Face Technology Demonstration and Evaluation (IFTDE)" project. Current testing is being done on two basic scenarios, first, fixed subjects (standing in front of a fixed or hand-held camera) and second, and perhaps more ominously, walking near a camera while walking through a portal.

While one might expect a kind of Minority Report scenario, in fact the technology for implementing iris scanning is highly vulnerable to attack through numerous means. Of course, this has not prevented the various parasitical contractors pushing the technology from selling it like Professor Harold Hill's band instruments to the good citizens of River City, Iowa.

Of course, all of this is concealed in a smoke screen of jargon, which I will hope to unravel below the Squiggle of Doom.

Basic features of all ID systems
All identification systems depend on two phases: enrollment and authentication.

Enrollment is the process of gathering identifying information, and linking it in a reliable way to a particular individual. Enrollment can be done by any means, and it is as old as the Roman Empire, as it will be recalled that Joseph and Mary were required to travel to Bethlehem to be enrolled for the purposes of the Roman census.

In modern times a birth certificate is proof that one's birth was enrolled on the official state registry, necessary to establish eligibility for citizenship, social security, etc. Most people as they grow older enroll themselves in other identification databases, for school, driver's licenses, passports, etc., with the birth certificate being required for enrollment into these registries, and as a practical matter, the credentials issued as a result of these enrollments (driver's license, passport, etc.) take the place of the birth certificate for practical purposes.

Authentication determines whether there's match between the credentials presented with a record within the enrolled registry. Biometrics is simply a means of bypassing the credentials step of the authentication process. Person A may forge credentials in the name of person B. However, as a general matter, A will have difficulty imitating the fingerprints of B.

If B's fingerprints are in an enrolled database, and A's prints can be captured and compared to the enrolled prints, the verifying authority is no longer dependent on credentials during the authentication phase. A's imposture of B can be detected by direct biometric comparison.

Iris scans are biometrics as well. Assuming accurate image capture the captured image must be compared to an "enrolled database" of iris scan images. See here for a demonstration. Without the database, the iris scans, even if accurate, are useless for government operations.
Deployment scenarios
Iris scanning technology has been deployed in numerous environments, such as:
* At an elementary school in New Jersey, with the excuse that it is necessary to prevent the children from being abducted. This was funded, of course, by a federal grant of $369,000.

* In Iraq by the U.S. military to assemble a database of 3 million people.

* in about 20 U.S. airports from 2005 to 2008 to identify passengers in the Registered Traveler program, who could skip to the front of security lines.

* In Leon, Mexico, a city of 1 million people, Global Rainmakers (now Hoyos Corp.) claims it will provide iris technology for the "secure city initiative". The system is to be used on ATM transactions, ordinary purchases in stories, or boarding a bus. Persons charged or convicted of offenses will apparently constitute the enrolled database against which persons engaging in ordinary activities are to be compared.

Iris scanning at a distance
According to an article (9/13/2010) in USA Today, the Ministry of Homeland Security intended then to "test cameras that take photos from 3 or 4 feet away, including one that works on people as they walk by." The great advantage of this system to the authority collecting the information would be that the fact the persons scanned would not readily perceive that they were being scanned. Widespread scanning of this nature, called "scanning of local populations" has never been perfected. So far, the best that has been done is that tests have been done on people going through designated portals.

Weaknesses in the system
There are numerous problems with the system, this article (09/10/2010) provides a good summary. Notable among the defects is the fact that iris matching, unlike fingerprinting, cannot be done by human beings; that is, outside of the obvious question of eye color, no human has been shown to be able to determine whether a particular image of an iris matches another iris image. Even the computers are not able to do this, and they express only a probability, not a certainty.

Unattended authentication systems can be overcome by presentation of a high quality photograph of a person previously enrolled in the database. This is called the "live-tissue" problem. (Source: Meghanathan, 14-15). This mechanism of attack is called a "spoof attack." While there are supposedly means (at least theory) by which an unattended system can detect a spoof attack, if these are effective, this has not been reported.

More dangerous than a spoof attack is the possible compromise of the collection media or database. It must be recalled that the iris scan is stored in electronic digital media, and if this electronic media can be compromised, the system could be overcome via false authentication on a one-time basis, and perhaps the entire system could be reverse-engineered.

For a true nation-wide system to be constructed would require an enrollment database of over 300 million persons and would take many years to construct. Widespread enrollment and authentication points would open the system up to attack at multiple points, and no iris-scanning system has ever involved protection on such a scale. This would require an electronic Maginot line.

Social acceptance
Social acceptance of the enrollment process is critical to success. Meghanathan (reference below) assigns the following levels of social acceptability to the collection of five biometric identifiers: face: best; fingerprint: average; hand geometry: average; Iris scan: poor; signature: best; voice: best. Curiously, the Environmental Protection Agency however claims that the enrollment photography phase for the iris scan "generally has a high level of user acceptance". (source).

Deployments of iris scanning have generally been limited to circumstances where there was a high degree of shared interest (employees, for example) among the persons enrolled in the database, as well as a strong discrete benefit to be derived from the provision of an accurate enrollment image. Under these circumstances, acceptance of the iris scan would be readily given.

Outside of wartime conditions, iris scanning has not yet been deployed on a nation-wide basis (other than the U.A.E.), and social acceptance here has never been tested.

Limits of the technological "solutions"

In the deployment at the elementary school, social acceptance was overcome by the threat of strangers obtaining access to the school and abducting children. But social acceptance could also be overcome by deploying the enrollment on young children -- you'll notice on the linked video that the scanner is at a child's height. The danger of course here is that the technological panacea does not and cannot address the fact that children are much more likely to be hurt or abducted by someone known to the child than a stranger. For $369,000, the cost of the system, one could quite likely design a child safety program run by actual human beings which would have a much greater impact upon the most likely threats against children.

As we see with much of the technological devices ballyhoe'd as a solution to "security" issues, this is in fact a solution in search of a problem. For example, is it a problem in Leon, Mexico (or any other country) in the world, that the government does not positively know the identity of every person boarding a bus? Admittedly there have been bombings on buses, but would such bombings have been prevented? Even on 9/11 itself, all the hijackers boarded the airplanes under their own names.

Because of the various weaknesses of the iris scan, outside of some very irresponsible manufacturer demonstration videos, it is never thought of as sufficient by itself to be used as an electronic identification, and it is always seen in combination with fingerprints and facial recognition technology. Hence, construction of any national system would depend to a great degree on developments in these other areas as well.

Given all of this, the only reason I can see for the current faddish emphasis on the iris scan is the get rich quick gold rush atmosphere of the contractor-dominated security state.

Additional sources:
* Meghanathan, Natarajan, Biometric Systems for User Authentication, International Journal of Information Processing and Management(IJIPM) Volume2,Number4,October 2011. (.pdf)
* U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Security Products Guide, including in particular Biometrics Recognition. (The EPA has been one of the principal floggers of electronic security measures, for example, as security measures for water systems -- one senses the hand of the contractor-captured government here.)

Originally posted to Cartoon Peril on Tue Dec 27, 2011

Also republished by Community Spotlight.

Technorati Tags: Homeland Security,Iris Scanner,National Security,Current Events,An American Gothic,Police State

Sunday Satire: New Years Day Edition

2011-12-31T09:51:00.001-05:00

The first day of the year! Only 364 more days until 2013

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

Jay Leno: "President Obama went Christmas shopping at Best Buy in Virginia this week. He had to go to Best Buy because he's not allowed to go to Walmart, because China said, "You can't buy any more stuff from us until you pay off what you already owe us."
"While shopping at Best Buy, out of force of habit, President Obama put everything on layaway. He told the store, "Don't worry about it; the grandkids will pay for it."

''Obama called on Americans to have more grandchildren. Probably so there's more of them to pay off our debt.''

Bill Maher: ''Sarah Palin said Obama should stop 'pussyfooting around' and release the photos. Yes, because the guy who ordered the SEALs into a sovereign country without permission and killed public enemy number one is a pussy, and the woman who quit her job as the governor of a state with no people after half a term and won't do an interview with anyone but Greta Van Susteren is a bad-ass. Right.''

''Hank Williams Jr. got his ass kicked off of Monday Night Football. His crime was comparing Obama to Hitler on Fox News. Or as it used to be called, 'The Glenn Beck Show.' ... If we are going to fire every Southern hillbilly who thinks Obama is like Hitler, who will be our Republican congressmen?''

Conan O'Brien: ''This morning on the 'Today' show, Jenna Bush interviewed Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy was so confused and inarticulate that Jenna accidentally called him 'dad.'''

David Letterman: ''Herman Cain was unaware that China is a nuclear power. And I said to myself, 'Hey, Herman, how about making an unwanted advance on a history book?'''

Technorati Tags: 2011,New Years Day,Political,Late Night Talk,Rick Perry,Newt Gingrich,Sarah Palin,Jay Leno,2012,Current Events,An American Gothic

Why The Oligarchs Want to Ghettoize The Country

2011-12-29T06:01:00.001-05:00

Originally posted to Ray Pensador on Mon Dec 26, 2011

It works like this... The most important assets for a free people are time and leisure. Once you have that, then you can develop the ability to think critically, to analyze facts, events, trends, and to become aware of the dynamics that operate within a social system.

In a society, once a large-enough segment of the population has developed an understanding of how the system works, you then have an informed citizenry who is able to act in favor of their interests.

So in a healthy democracy where the population is informed and educated, you will not have a very marked disparity in income distribution between the population and the rich.

So having access to time and leisure, leads to an improved ability to think, to analyse, and to become aware about how the system works. This in turn leads to the ability to organize with other informed citizens to take collective actions to safeguard your interests.

For the citizenry, this results in having a larger share of the nation's income, wealth, and power.

That's why the oligarchs are always (eternally) trying to find ways to chip away at the ability for the common man to be able to have access to idle time and/or leisure.

That explains the hundreds of millions of dollars certain business organizations and lobbying groups spend on bribing politicians nationwide to setup a legislative framework to make it harder for workers to unionize, to make education less accessible, to destroy the proper functions of government.

When it comes to power, the most significant component is income and wealth, especially in a capitalist system.

Once people fall into poverty, they become powerless (by and large); that's why you hardly see politicians talking about the poor. They are always talking about the "middle class."

And it does not matter how large the segment of the population falling into poverty may be. For example, a population that has a 10% incidence of poverty, is as powerless as a population who has 80% living in poverty (in my opinion).

Right now (as you read this), there is a segment of the population who has vast wealth and it's using it to manipulate the bought off politicians nationwide (federal, state, counties, cities) to push "austerity measures" onto the citizenry.

These austerity measures have the effect of curtailing access to education, health care, and a plethora of workers' rights.

As these very well-planned policies take effect, the average worker then has less time, and less leisure. This immediately translates into a rapidly-expanding wealth gap between the rich, an the rest. As the rich become richer (aided by the bribing of Democrats and Republican politicians across the entire country), and the poor become poorer, the percentage of the population who is poor also increases rapidly (as it is the case now).

As poverty spreads through the population, ignorance also spreads, since poor people don't have access to the proper infrastructure to get educated.

And here's the "brilliance" of the oligarchs. As the "hamster wheels" (as it were) are spun faster and faster, the workers try to keep up. Those who fall off the wheel, unable to keep up with the oppression and exploitation, then fall into poverty, and are quickly marginalized, stripped from any source of power, and ghettoized.

The dwindling middle class, seeing the wretched consequences of poverty are then intimidated and fearful, and do everything they can to stay on the wheel, picking up the pace mandated by the increasingly oppressive system.

But the system is rigged, which results in the inexorable rate increase of poverty and/or economic insecurity in the population.

And here's the biggest quandary: Once a citizen understands that the system is no longer legitimate, and that it is rigged in this way, does it becomes the duty of such a citizen to rise up in protest with the objective of stopping the system on its tracks, so it can be fixed?

Herein lies the inherent conflict between those who have come to realize that the system is broken, and that it's not longer legitimate, and therefore has to be stopped from operating normally, and those who because of fear and/or their inability to understand the situation still hang on to the notion that the system is "normal."

In every society where oligarchs rise, along with oppression and exploitation, it is the latter type of citizen who is the most responsible for it.

For once the system has turned totally corrupt, predatory, and criminal (as it's the case today in the United States), then patriotic and informed citizens have the duty to stop it from operating normally, in order to defend against a domestic enemy (the likes of ALEC, The US Chamber of Commerce, and other neo-fascistic organizations).

Such a system, if not stopped on its tracks, always leads to the following: A very tiny elite comprised of people with extreme wealth and a totally bought-off class of politicians (as it's the case now with the Democratic and Republican party establishments), in control of most of the wealth and power of the country, and a population living in a neo-feudal society.

We are way on our way to become such a society. All the hallmarks of a banana republic or third world country have been met, including rampant bribery of the political establishment, thievery and criminality at grand scale, with impunity and aided and covered up by bought off and corrupt politicians, the rise of an increasingly brutal police state.

The only question that remains is if the dwindling middle class is going to decide to cower in fear, remain on their knees, bowing down to large-scale criminals, or stand up for justice, freedom, and democracy.

We'll find out soon enough. If we decide to remain on our knees, we'll keep feeding the corrupt and exploitative system, which is rigged to eventually totally destroy the middle class and plunge the entire population into serfdom, and ignorance.

Also republished by ClassWarfare Newsletter: WallStreet VS Working Class Global Occupy movement.

Technorati Tags: The 1%,The Economy,The Congress,The Senate,U.S. Government Corruption,Occupy Wall Street,3rd World America,Current Events,An American Gothic,1984

Mitt Romney: Another “ Christian “ Liar In Politics

2011-12-29T06:00:00.001-05:00

I sometimes find it amazing just how casually our “ Christian “ presidential hopefuls forget the “ Thou shalt not bear false witness “ part of God’s Word when they seek election to the office of president.

Mitt Romney, being the “ family values “ man from the Mormon branch of Christianity, is no different than either Michele Bachman, Rick Perry, or any other Republican who seeks the GOP nomination.

The Big Promises and Bigger Lies of Mitt Romney

Avenging Angel Posted on Mon Dec 26, 2011

In the election of 1928, the Republican Party of Herbert Hoover promised voters "a chicken in every pot and a car in every backyard." (We all know how that turned out.) Now, Mitt Romney is pledging that "If I'm President" every college graduate will be guaranteed a job, Iran will have no nuclear weapons and the United States will dominate the 21st century. And when Romney isn't making fantastic promises about what he'll do when he gets to the White House, he's slandering the current occupant, Barack Obama.

"I Won't Let Iran Get Nukes"

Governor Romney's guarantees start with Iran and its nuclear program. In a November 10, 2011 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Romney pledged, "I won't let Iran get nukes." Or as he put it 10 days earlier during a GOP national security debate:

"If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. If you elect me as president, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon."

As to how he'll ensure that outcome, Romney explained that "If you want peace, prepare for war." And despite occasionally acknowledging the complexity of a strike against Iran and even the questionable possibility of success, Romney told the Wall Street Journal this weekend how he would get it done:

So what would he do about it? "I do not have a top secret security clearance at this stage to be able to define precisely what kinds of actions we could take." But he adds that "the range includes something of a blockade nature, to something of a surgical strike nature, to something of a decapitate the regime nature, to eliminate the military threat of Iran altogether."

No U.S. Decline in Romney's "American Century"

Romney's promise to "eliminate the military threat of Iran altogether" is just part of his larger assurance that the 21st century will be another "American Century." Pretending that the rise of India, China and Brazil doesn't inevitably entail the relative loss of U.S. power and influence, Romney announced in his October address at The Citadel:

"This century must be an American Century. In an American Century, America has the strongest economy and the strongest military in the world. In an American Century, America leads the free world and the free world leads the entire world...As President of the United States, I will devote myself to an American Century. And I will never, ever apologize for America."

Not content to rest there, Romney accused President Obama of "waving the white flag of surrender":

"An eloquently justified surrender of world leadership is still surrender.

I will not surrender America's role in the world. This is very simple: If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, I am not your President.

You have that President today."

Two months later, Mitt Romney repackaged his promise and his slander at the December 15 Republican debate in Sioux City, Iowa:

"Our president thinks America is in decline. It is if he's president. It's not if I'm president. This is going to be an American century."

As for Romney's charge that President Obama "went around the world and apologized for America," the Washington Post Fact Checker deemed it a Four-Pinocchio lie.

A Job for Every College Graduate

At an event in New Hampshire last week, Governor Romney's pandering went from the sublime to the ridiculous. There, Mitt pledged President Romney would deliver full-employment for all American college graduates:

"What I can promise you is this -- when you get out of college, if I'm president you'll have a job. If President Obama is reelected, you will not be able to get a job. That's the reason I will hopefully get young people who are in college is to say, You know what, I understand what it takes to get jobs in America."

As the record shows, not so much. After all, as the Los Angeles Times recently documented, Romney's "Bain Capital often maximized profits in part by firing workers." That's why FactCheck.org, the Washington Post Fact Checker and Fortune all refused to vouch for Romney's claim that "In those hundreds of businesses we invested in, tens of thousands of jobs net-net were created."

Obama "Has Not Created Any New Jobs"

If Mitt Romney can't prove his boasts about his own job creation record, neither can he justify his blatant lie about President Obama's:

"25 million people are out of work because of Barack Obama. And so I'll compare my experience in the private sector where, net-net, we created over 100,000 jobs."

"I'll compare that record with his record, where he has not created any new jobs."

Sadly for Mitt Romney, the Bush recession began in December 2007. As ThinkProgress rightly noted, "The private sector has added 2.3 million new jobs since March 2010, and it took the Obama economy one year to create more jobs than the economy under President Bush did in eight." As The Economist explained earlier, the recession was not at its deepest just as Barack Obama was entering office, but far worse than official statistics revealed at the time. Romney might also want to check with former McCain economic adviser Mark Zandi as well as the non-partisan CBO, who concluded that the Obama stimulus program "added up to 0.9 million jobs in 2009, 3.3 million jobs in 2010 and 2.6 million jobs in 2011."

Obama's Debt Exceeds All Previous Presidents Combined

Mitt Romney didn't just lie about Barack Obama's jobs record. At the Sioux City debate, he got President Obama's contribution to the federal debt all wrong as well:

"We all understand that the spending crisis is extraordinary, with $15 trillion now in debt, with a president that's racked up as much debt as almost all of the other presidents combined."

Of course, we don't all understand that, because it's not true. After Ronald Reagan tripled the gross national debt and George W. Bush doubled it again, Uncle Sam's red ink totaled almost $11 trillion when Barack Obama took the oath of office.

Obama is "Taking over 100 Percent" of Health Care

In his desperate quest to win over conservative Republican primary voters, Mitt Romney has turned his back on his signature achievement which he once boasted was a health care model for the nation. And to do it, Romney has been lying for months by telling voters "Obamacare is about taking over 100 percent of the people's insurance in this country."

In a September 15, 2011 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Romney made the same charge:

"The Massachusetts plan was crafted for Massachusetts, for the needs of 8 percent of our population that didn't have insurance, not for the 92 percent that did. Obamacare is a plan that takes over 100 percent of the people in the country and their health care, and that's one of the reasons why people don't want it."

Sadly for Mitt Romney, repetition of a lie doesn't make it any more true.

The Affordable Care Act passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in the spring of 2010 targets the 17 percent of people (over 50 million people) who are uninsured. As Politifact explained in deeming Romney's fraud another "Pants on Fire" lie:

According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans without health insurance nationally was slightly under 17 percent in 2009, the year Obama began pushing for the bill. According to a Congressional Budget Office estimate, the number was about the same in 2010, when the measure was signed into law. Other estimates have pegged the national number at about 15 percent.

As Henry Aaron, a senior fellow with the centrist-to-liberal Brookings Institution right noted, comparing 8 percent to 17 percent "would have been apples to apples" when it comes to the impact of the individual mandate at the center of both the Massachusetts and national plans. Sadly, Politifact concluded, Romney was guilty of "a felony case of comparing apples and oranges."

Romney "Will Reverse President Obama's Massive Defense Cuts"

During that same "American Century" speech in October, Governor Romney pledged:

"I will reverse President Obama's massive defense cuts. Time and again, we have seen that attempts to balance the budget by weakening our military only lead to a far higher price, not only in treasure, but in blood."

Sadly for Romney, as Steve Benen pointed out, defense spending has not only gone up every year of the Obama presidency. It is higher than it ever was when George W. Bush sat in the Oval Office.

Of course, Romney's confusion over matters of war and peace are hardly new. In an April op-ed for the Manchester Union Leader, Mitt forgot about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as he denounced President Obama for "one of the biggest peacetime spending binges in American history."

Obama's "Equal Outcomes" and "Entitlement Society"

Last week, the Romney campaign rolled out what may well become the meta-theme and meta-lie for the 2012 general election race.

After President Obama declared in his Osawatomie, Kansas address that Republican trickle down economics "never worked," Romney struck back. Just not with the truth:

"Just a couple of weeks ago in Kansas, President Obama lectured us about Teddy Roosevelt's philosophy of government. But he failed to mention the important difference between Teddy Roosevelt and Barack Obama. Roosevelt believed that government should level the playing field to create equal opportunities. President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes.

"In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing -- the government.

"The truth is that everyone may get the same rewards, but virtually everyone will be worse off."

By raising the mythical red menace of communism and falsely attributing it to Barack Obama, Romney in the words of Paul Krugman had introduced "The Big Lie" into his "Post-Truth Campaign." While Andrew Sullivan announced "Mitt Romney is a big, fat liar," Steve Benen lamented that "Romney, allegedly the responsible one in the Republican field, has been reduced to lying uncontrollably." And while Greg Sargent in the past had expressed amazement at "Mitt Romney's casual, effortless falsehoods," New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait explained that Romney's red scare rose to a whole new level of duplicity:

"This isn't just a casual line. In eight sentences, Romney asserts over and over again that Obama wants to create "equal outcomes" and give everybody the "same rewards." This is nuts, Glenn Beck-level insane. Restoring Clinton-era taxes is not a plan to equalize outcomes, or even close. It's not even a plan to stop rising inequality. Obama's America will continue to be the most unequal society in the advanced world -- only slightly less so. The alternative proposals accelerate inequality even further."

Of course, as the proliferating profiles from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post and others show, Mitt Romney is no stranger to inequality. Legendarily cheap and analytical, as a Harvard Business School student Romney gave a presentation to his classmates that "proved the value of family time based not on emotion but on yield." Two Romney quotes - "I love business" and "I love data" - seem to sum up the man.

As for loving the truth, that for Mitt Romney is apparently another matter altogether.

* Crossposted at Perrspectives *

Originally posted to Avenging Angel on Mon Dec 26, 2011

Also republished by Community Spotlight.

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Affordable Care Act,Barack Obama,Bush Tax Cuts,The Deficit,The Economy,Health Care,Unemployment,Politics,Current Events,An American Gothic

Newt Gingrich’s Christmas Present

2011-12-25T10:23:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas everyone. You to Newt

Twas the Day Before Christmas—in Virginia

by Neapolitan Sat Dec 24, 2011

Reposted from Neapolitan by Kaili Joy Gray

'Twas the day before Christmas, and all through the land
All the candidates went to events that they'd planned.
There were breakfasts, and lunches, and dinners galore;
There were so many speeches their throats became sore.

Late last night, on their bus, they'd been snug in their beds,
While a vision of victory danced in their heads.
But today, there would never be time for a nap;
Just a flight or a drive to some dot on the map.

Then from deep in Virginia, there came such a clatter!
The media sprang to see what was the matter,
And found that, despite spending mountains of cash,
Two front-runners' efforts were gone in a flash.

In Virginia, no votes go to Gingrich or Perry,
So Christmas, for them, will be much less than merry.
"Too few signatures gathered", the state's rationale; it
Appears that their names won't appear on the ballot.

"Just get 10,000 signatures, as the state asked.
Go and get'em!" the candidates' staffers were tasked.
"There are five million voters!" and out they were sent,
Their goal to go gather just point-two percent.

But even so few was, it seems, just too many;
They may well have not bothered gathering any.
A few scattered thousands, their meager collection,
And these two are out of this March's election.

You'd think, with their millions, and well-paid promoters,
They'd maybe connect with a handful of voters.
But Perry's aw-shuckness, and Gingrich's "greatness"
Meant nothing: their campaigns were vanquished by lateness.

Oh, the horror! The anger! The utter dismay
On this Christmas-y Eve of a Christmas-y Day!
Yes, for Perry and Gingrich, the end of the race--
In Virginia, at least, where they're gone with no trace.

In Virginia, their campaigns fell in on themselves,
Like the work of some angry, malevolent elves.
And the candidates face these Virginia defeats,
Where the Klown Kar continues with two empty seats.

But while many rejoice at this most recent reason
To laugh at this silliest GOP season,
Remember, before you go off with a grin:
While those two may be out, all the others are in.

Now I'm through here; I've had a few minutes of fun,
But tomorrow is Christmas; there's work to be done.
So I'll leave you with this: as I head out the door,
To the GOP wannabes, let me implore:

"Now Bachmann, now Romney, now Hunstman, now Perry,
And Gingrich--yes, you of the multiple-marry--
Santorum, and Johnson, and even Ron Paul:
Please go away! Go away! Go away all!"

Technorati Tags: Christmas,Newt Gingrich,GOP,Primaries,Ron Paul,Rick Perry,Michele Bachmann,Politics,Current Events,An American Gothic,Snark

American Healthcare Hassles: Part II

2011-12-24T05:54:00.001-05:00

Any of you diabetics reading this know what I feel like with my sugar levels going up throughout the day, as you have also suffered the same dilemma on more than one occasion. The nausea, weakness, and the dry mouth alone would make most normal people wish that they were dead. Forget about the risk of coma after a certain point, and possible death.

So how did the day end?

Well, after being unable to find any cash by either a loan from friends, or a little bit of work, I decided to make my way to the closest emergency room some 3 miles away. I did not have enough cash in pocket to be able to take the local city bus, so I started walking at 1 in the afternoon. I walk pretty quick even when feeling like shit, so I was looking at maybe a 45 minute walk. As luck would have it, I ran across some homeless friends of mine at an intersection not far from home, who told me to go into a clinic sitting at the same intersection because one of them had been treated for no charge. That is where I went to.

Seven sheets of paper-work to fill out, no problem. Clinic did not even ask for an I.D., which was really cool. Sat in their waiting area from 1:45 until 4 waiting to see the doctor.

Got through the exam, and got me 2 scripts for the Insulin I needed.

Now, this clinic charges patients on a sliding-scale, there is nothing coming out of the building for free. They will bill me for the initial visit ( $ 15 ) but the meds are gonna cost up front. If I had the money, I most certainly would not have complained about the price of the Insulin ( $6 Per vial ) because it was much cheaper than having to buy at regular price. But. I did not have any money even at that price, so I was basically in the place for a little more than 3 hours and got nothing.

At this point, I was tossing in the towel and beginning to head to the hospital, as I had originally planned. Then fortune turned to the better.

I ran into a friend of mine who offered to buy me at least one of the vials I needed, which was just fine and dandy with me. I figured that I would pay him back whenever I was able to, but he told me “ Merry Christmas “ and not to worry about it. So that worked out great. I got at least one vial I needed, and I did not go apeshit and kill anyone. I say that because high sugar levels tend to make me very ill and hostile to the point of actually knocking the crap out of someone.

So I ended up with one vial ( NPH ) and I avoided a $1,000 emergency room visit.

I am not finished with this topic, so the next time I will taking a look at just how pathetic the United States of America’s healthcare system really is.

Nobody needing medicine that keeps them alive should have to worry about how they are going to get the stuff when an emergency situation arises and they are broke at the time.

Technorati Tags: United States,America,Healthcare,Health Care,Insulin,Diabetes,Obamacare,Current Events,An American Gothic,Tampa Bay,Florida

American Healthcare Hassles: Diabetes Issue

2011-12-22T13:17:00.001-05:00

    This post is a flat-out rant against the bullshit that some people must go through in order to receive any medical attention, or help in getting medicine (s ) which they need in order to stay alive. I seriously doubt that the following example happens in any other industrialized country, and I note that this is happening as I type this. This is my very own experience in trying to get medication ( Insulin ) in an emergency situation here in Tampa, Florida without having to use an emergency room.
   First, a little background.
   I have lived in Tampa since the summer of 2009, and I arrived here with a pretty messed up I.D. card. It had broke into 3 pieces after being wet while working on water fixing and cleaning pleasure craft. Obviously, it was not a Florida I.D., so I naturally made that much dreaded trip to the nearby D.M.V. office to get an I.D. card, only to discover that I needed my birth certificate. I lost my certificate while moving down to Florida, I guess, because I was not able to locate it.
    Going through the I.N.S. and all of the other agencies has been nothing but one big cluster-fuck due to the fact that some information is required on their forms that I have no way of getting, yet. I was adopted by a German mother and an American father, so getting any info on the adoption has been a real pain in the ass, to say the least. My father was U.S. Army, so one would think that the military might be able to help, right? Nope.
    Back to the health care issue.
With no I.D. card, I have not been able to enroll in the Hillsborough County healthcare plan that many are enrolled in. I have not had a complete physical in over a decade! Hell, I couldn't get a doctor to do one even when I had a handful of cash. The Salvation Army and other groups such as them will do nothing for you if you do not have a current I.D., so they were of no use to me. I should note that I do have an 13 year old N.C. expired driver license that I somehow ended up keeping. It is expired and of no use, even though I am not expired as of this post.
    I have lived in Tampa 3 times and there are medical records of me in at least 3 area hospitals, but it seems that even that is not good enough for identification. Past employment and even current employment records are of no use either, it would seem. not that current employment would be of any help, since I have not worked for at least half of 2011. There is not enough work to go around here in Tampa. If there was, I would not be searching for ways to get my Insulin for free. I've been doing Insulin for 40 years and have always been able to buy my meds without government assistance up until now. Now I can't get the help because of an out of state invalid I.D.?
    I was able to register to vote here in Florida, but I will not be able to vote in the 2012 elections unless I somehow can get my I.D. I was also able to get SNAP benefits ( food stamps ) without an I.D., but no medical care or meds? WTF?
   I have had a Florida driver license in the past, and they can't just look that up with a few keystrokes?
   Here is what is going to happen unless something changes real quick.
   I am going to run out of Insulin on Friday,when all of the state offices will be closed thanks to the kindness of Governor Rick Scott, and then I will slowly begin to get a little ill. At that point, I will then be making a trip to an emergency room, where I will be hooked up to an I.V. with an Insulin drip and an Saline drip for dehydration. After about 4 or 5 hours, I will then be sent home, maybe with a prescription for Insulin which will be worthless to me since I will not have the money to pay for it. In the end, I will have a brand new hospital bill of at least $1,000 and no way to pay for it. This means that I will then begin getting collection notices and all of that shit, and it also means that the taxpayer will be footing the bill while my credit rating takes another hit from medical bills. All of this because I have no current Florida I.D. card.
   The really sad part of this whole situation is that I do not use Insulin that one needs a prescription to get. What I use costs only $25 per vial at Wal-mart, and what the prescription that I get from the hospital will cost anywhere from $35 up to $107, depending on what they try to give me, if anything.
    The taxpayers are going to get screwed and I am getting screwed also. American health care. gotta love it!

Technorati Tags: U.S.,Healthcare,Tampa Bay,Florida,Diabetes,Insulin,Emergency Care,Hillsborough County,Obamacare,Current Events,An American Gothic

Those Republican Candidates: A French View

2011-12-21T09:27:00.001-05:00

Le Point, France
Difficulties of the Republican Party Candidacies

By Antoine Grenapin 13 December 2011
Translated By Cynthia Perez
Edited by Gillian Palmer

France - Le Point - Original Article (French)

There are still eight of them in the race. With less than a month before the first primary elections, taking place in Iowa and New Hampshire, it is impossible to distinguish a favorite among the Republican candidates.
“It is the first time since the post-war period in which no candidate really stands out,” analyzes Vincent Michelot. Professor at the Political Science Institute of Lyon (France) specializing in the United States, he is the author of several works on American political life, including Le président des Etats-Unis: Un pouvoir imperial? [The president of the United States, an imperial power?] (Gallimard, 2008). Here, he passionately delivers a list of six reasons for all the suspense, a plunge into the heart of American politics.
1. There has been total redefinition of the conservative movement.
“Nixon, Reagan and Bush Jr. each gave a definition to conservatism in their time. Today, this movement, paralyzed by contradictions, staggers mostly along three major lines of division.
“First, when it comes to questions of morality, there is a distinction between ‘social’ values, which aim to defend the integrity of the family, and those of libertarians.
Concerning foreign politics, there are two clashing camps: One favors a projection of American power while the other is more of an advocate for withdrawal, that is, isolationism with the use of force only under direct threat.
“Lastly, in economic matters, there is a divide among those who'll accept a rise in taxes and those who'd prefer to lower taxes, dig the country deeper into debt and effectively ‘starve the beast.’”
2. Voters are much more right-wing than in general elections.
It is a recurring observation during each Republican primary. The candidate must unite the hard right in order to win its vote before broadening its campaign to more moderate voters. But with the emergence of the tea party movement this year, the phenomenon is even more visible.
The paradox is that this essentially populist movement flatly refuses to be represented. They want nothing to do with politicians, though certain candidates, like Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin, have, without much success, claimed to be their voice.
3. There is a desire for renewal.
It's Mitt Romney who, in spite of the lagging polls, seems to be in the best position for getting the nomination (at 20.8 percent in the polls, following Newt Gingrich with 33.3 percent). But besides being a Mormon (which doesn't delight fundamentalists), he is a part of the Establishment.
The Republican electorate, and Americans as a whole, aspire to a renewal of the political community. They want to see new faces come onto the scene. This is most evident when we look at the approval rating of a mostly Republican Congress: Only 9 percent of Americans have a favorable image of it, an historic low.
4. The Republican Party has not made a decision.
Paradoxically, if the Establishment suffers from its image, it maintains a significant influence in the campaign. Its most important elected officials carry a lot of weight right from the beginning of the campaign. By openly supporting a candidate, it sets the course. Generally speaking, its support goes to the candidate who stands out among the others.
So far, however, no candidate has been exceptional. This explains why none of them have or can receive the party's support at present; each of their weaknesses and quirks can be blamed for this.
5. The eight candidates have many flaws.
A poll leader for a while, Herman Cain has suffered from what is called “bimbo eruption” in the United States. A series of women did in fact accuse the only black candidate of sexual harassment which in the end forced him to give up the race.
As for the current favorite, Newt Gingrich, the eldest candidate (68) in the primary, there is a wide rift between what he says and his private life. He preaches a return to family values and moral conservatism; all the while he is on his third marriage. And each time he began a new relationship, his previous one hadn't been ended.
6. The importance of foreign policy.
The blunders of Michele Bachmann (wanting to close the embassy in Tehran...which has been closed since 1979) and of Newt Gingrich (qualifying the Palestinians as an "invented people"), as well as the once favorite Rick Perry's hesitations on questions over foreign policy, have all helped to weaken certain candidates.
It should not be forgotten that in this field, voters always have qualms about voting for candidates who unsure on this issue because they know they are not only electing the next president but also the commander in chief.
For the moment, only two of the candidates, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, are qualified in the matter. But it's just the beginning the primary election process; the more it advances, the more the candidates will be surrounded by advisers and refine their speech. An election only depends on foreign policy during times of war. But blunders will still ban you from becoming the ideal candidate.

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL VERSION

Technorati Tags: Republicans,Candidates,Newt Gingrich,Rick Perry,Michele Bachmann,Herman Cain,2012 Elections,Current Events,An American Gothic,Politics

Christmas is No Time to Talk About War and Peace

2011-12-21T09:26:00.001-05:00

Monday, December 19, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

by Jim Rigby

When I heard the President speak to returning troops last week, my mind flashed back to an article I once wrote for our local newspaper. Each week a different member of the local clergy would write a column, and I had been asked to write the piece for Christmas. That year all I could hear was the drumbeat leading toward a war with Iraq. I racked my brain trying to think of a way to put faces on the people we were about to bomb. Looking at a nativity scene I thought, “the people we are about to kill look like that.” Maybe a reframed Christmas story could help Americans stop hating Saddam long enough to care about the people who will pay the real cost of this invasion. I submitted the following article, covering the Christmas story the way the U.S. press was covering the build-up to the Iraq war. Looking back, I should have known what was about to happen.

Christmas Cancelled as a Security Measure

ELLIS ISLAND -- The three wise men were arrested today attempting to enter the country. The Iraqi nationals were carrying massive amounts of flammable substances known as “frankincense” and “myrrh.” While not explosives themselves, experts revealed that these two substances could be used as a fuse to detonate a larger bomb. The three alleged terrorists were also carrying gold, presumably to finance the rest of their mission.

Also implicated in the plot were two Palestinians named Joseph and Mary. An anonymous source close to the family overheard Mary bragging that her son would “bring down the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly.” In what appears to be a call to anarchy, the couple claims their son will someday “help prisoners escape captivity.” “These people match our terrorist profile perfectly,” an official source reported.

All of the suspects claimed they heard angels singing of a new era of hope for the afflicted and poor. As one Wall Street official put it, “These one world wackos are talking about overturning the entire economic and political hierarchy that holds the civilized world together. I don’t care what some angel sang; God wants the status quo -by definition.”

A somber White House press secretary announced that it might be prudent to cancel Christmas until others in the plot are rounded up. “I assure you that this measure is temporary. The President loves Christmas as much as anyone. People can still shop and give expensive gifts, but we’re asking them not to think about world peace until after we have rid the world of evil people. For Americans to sing, ‘peace on earth, good will to all’, is just the wrong message to send to our enemies at this time.”

The strongest opponents of the Christmas ban were the representatives of retail stores, movie chains and makers of porcelain Christmas figurines. “This is a tempest in a teapot,” fumed one unnamed business owner. “No one thinks of the political meaning of Christmas any more. Christmas isn’t about a savior who will bring hope to the outcasts of the world; it’s about nativity scenes and beautiful lights. History has shown that mature people are perfectly capable of singing hymns about world peace while still supporting whatever war our leaders deem necessary. People long ago stopped tying religion to the real events in the world.”

There has been no word on where the suspects are being kept, or when their trial might be held. Authorities are asking citizens who see other foreigners resembling nativity scene figures to contact the Office of Homeland Security.

A few days after submitting that piece, I received a nervous call from an editor. “We love your story. It’s very funny.”

“Thank you,” I said waiting for the other shoe to fall.

“The thing is, we want to take out the part about Iraq and Palestine.”

After a horrified pause, I explained that had been the whole point of writing the story -- to humanize the people who were about to be killed. When I refused to gut the story, he told me they would have to drop it all together.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Clergy who want to talk about real events in the world are seen as too political for the religious section, and too religious for the political section. Of course, if a minister gets in the pulpit and waves the flag and prays for the troops, that’s not called “political”, but if a minister questions any war, then it is considered mixing religion and politics. The resulting pablum in most clergy columns validates their strategic placement somewhere between the obituaries and the comics.

President Obama welcomes home troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on Wednesday. December 14, 2011.What have we learned as a result of the war? That was answered by Obama’s words to the returning troops:

“Because of you -- because you sacrificed so much for a people that you had never met -- Iraqis have a chance to forge their own destiny. That’s part of what makes us special as Americans. Unlike the old empires, we don’t make these sacrifices for territory or for resources. We do it because it’s right. There can be no fuller expression of America’s support for self-determination than our leaving Iraq to its people. That says something about who we are.”

Looking back at my earlier Christmas article, I feel pain not pride at what the President said. His speech to returning troops could have been taken from any leader, of any nation, from any period of history, simply by changing the names and places. It is the kind of speech every leader has given since the emperors: brave and noble words, written in someone else’s blood. This President who ran, in part, against this war, has come to repeat the party line. This President, who once spoke of respect for all people of the world, has now deported more immigrants than Bush.

Hearing another speech expressing our nation’s narcissistic delusion made me physically ill. I could not help but think of the bloody wake such rhetoric leaves behind when put into action. The fact that we are leaving Iraq at this point says nothing about the purity of our initial motives. Even bank robbers don’t stay around after the crime has been committed. I appreciate trying to make our young soldiers not feel like they were pawns in someone else’s parlor game, but for the sake of future generations we must painfully remember and affirm, that is exactly what happened.

We, from the United States, are not like the people in our nativity scenes. We are like the Romans looming ominously in the background of the story. Christmas is about the little people of the world who find joy and meaning while living under someone else’s boot. We from the United States can only celebrate Christmas by ending our cultural narcissism, renouncing empire, and making room for the poor and the weak of the world like Joseph and Mary.

Christmas is not a fact of history, but Christianity’s particular symbol of every human being’s hope for world peace and universal happiness. When the angels sang, “peace on earth good will to all,” they were expressing the song written in every heart. But, that song calls us out of empire and into our entire human family. Maybe stopping the frenzy of Christmas long enough to really hear the song the angels sang to the wretched of the earth, would give us the humanity to stop hanging our Christmas lights until we no longer kill our brothers and sisters for the fuel to illumine them.

“O ye beneath life's crushing load, whose forms are bending low,

Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow;

Look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing;

Oh rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.”

Jim Rigby is pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, TX. He can be reached at jrigby0000@aol.com, and videos of his sermons are available online at http://www.staopen.com/sermons/.

www.commondreams.org

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Jim Rigby,Iraw,Terrorism,Christmas,Christianity,United States,Current Events,Politics,An American Gothic

Dept. Of Homeland Security?

2011-12-19T05:22:00.001-05:00

For those of you who did not know it, Homeland Security not only takes care of keeping the United States safe from terrorist organizations and such other security measures, but the department also has the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services department under its wing.

So, why am I bringing this up to you? To let you all know how much paper-work that one has to endure, plus the cost if you have ever lost your birth certificate, and/or identification card, and are a U.S. citizen who was born overseas and adopted by parents with one being a U.S. citizen and the other a foreigner.

It also does not help if this part of the government bureaucracy is so big, making it hard to navigate.

I was born in Germany in the early 60’s, and somehow ended up in an orphanage when I was months old, from what I understand. I was adopted by my real mothers sister and an American G.I. after the two were married, from what I understand. After my fathers tour was over, we came to the United States.

From what I understand, I have been in the states since I was 2 years of age, and my mother was naturalized in the early 70’s in the state of Kentucky. I remember that event since I was at the proceedings.

Fast forward now to 2009.

I moved down to Florida and discover that I no longer have my birth certificate with me. It moved somewhere else, I guess. In many, if not all states, you need that piece of paper to get a driver license or a state i.d. card. Did I mention that the birth certificate that I did have at one time was in German?

Anyway, I go through all of the government agencies in order to try to get a new b’certificate and shelled out quite a bit of money to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for the proper forms. Then there was also money paid to the appropriate consulate for even more forms to fill out.

What have I received in return? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. It would appear that some of the information that I gave was incorrect.

After doing much Goggling on the Internet, looking for a different way to get the stuff that I need, I was lead to Form N-600 Application for Certificate of Citizenship at the lowly cost of only $600. $600! Has our government lost their fucking minds? Who in the hell has that kind of money to spend for a sheet of paper, especially if they are not making the kind of money needed, to just throw it out for something like this? A barely make enough money to live on and that is with much help from others.

Give me a break, will you? I happen to be working out of a “ day-labor “ pool, when they have work, because I can’t get an i.d. to apply for any type of regular employment. My i.d. and S.S.N. were already on file at this place, or I would have been shit out of luck with work.

These places only pay their workers the minimum wage ( $7.31 per hour ) and I am supposed to pay our government $600 to get proof that I belong here? WTF?

The government needs some kind of organization at the federal level, or even the state level, which could help people get their papers at an either free or a very reduced cost.

It does not help either that much of the information that is needed is material that I have no way of knowing without some help from either the military and maybe the I.N.S. itself.

Want to hear something really shameful? I managed to get my voter registration card from the state of Florida, without any problems at all, but I can’t vote because I have no i.d. What kind of shit is that? I applied for and receive SNAP benefits ( food stamps ) and have never stepped into the state agency that oversees the program. I did it online at a friends house.

At the same time, I am a type-1 diabetic who has to buy my insulin from friends, when I have the cash, because I cannot get on any of the county health programs because I have no current state identification. The programs which the state of Florida have available thanks to President Obama’s healthcare overhaul, would be very beneficial to me if I could only get into one of them. Once again. No birth certificate, no i.d., no healthcare coverage.

It is no fun being a diabetic and having to be concerned with whether or not you will have the cash in hand to buy your Insulin when the current vial either runs our or reaches its throw-away date. That date is 28 days after you begin using the vial. The Insulin breaks down and loses its potency, and it can make one very ill. Laboratory manufactured junk at a high price.

At $107 per vial ( Lantus ) here in Tampa, that is out of reach for someone who may manage to get only 20 to 40 hours of work per month, if lucky. Most of that would comes under the table. With the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years Holidays, work has come to a standstill for me. Not one day of work since November 13, 2011.

I have been using my dwindling vial of Insulin, which will be gone by December 20, for what is already a week past the 28 day discard date.

If you do not see any posting at this site after the 20th, it is because the government killed me with their outrageous paper-work and with their high fees. ( To be Continued ? )

Technorati Tags: DHS,Homeland Security,Immigration,INS,Government Fees,Birth Certificate,U.S. Citezens,Department of homeland Security,Healthcare,Barack Obama,Current Events,An American Gothic

Friday Funnies: The Republican Party Clowns Edition

2011-12-16T09:36:00.001-05:00

David Letterman; "A campaign staffer on the Newt Gingrich campaign was fired because he was making negative comments about Mormons. I thought, 'Wait a minute, isn't Newt in favor of multiple wives?'"

"Michele Bachmann is picking running mates. That's like the Colts picking out Super Bowl rings."

"More good news for Newt Gingrich. Earlier today, he was endorsed by the voices in Glenn Beck's head."

"Newt has a holiday book out. 'The Newt Before Christmas.'"

Jay Leno: "Rick Perry said there were eight supreme court justices instead of nine. But, in his defense, he did know there were only three judges on 'Dancing With the Stars.'"

"Perry also said the Obama administration sent $500 million to the 'country of Solyndra.' If an energy company was a country, don't you think we would've invaded it by now?"

"Rick Perry was interviewed in a library, and they placed special books that were kind of mean: "Runnin' Texas for Dummies," "Supreme Court for Dummies," "Dumb & Dumber for Dummies."

Conan O'Brien: "Newt Gingrich released a statement promising he would not cheat on his wife. Even better, he said he wouldn't cheat on his next wife either, or the one after that."

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich,Rick Perry,Jay Leno,David Letterman,Political.Humor,Late Night Talk,Current Events,An American Gothic

Rick Scott's Guide to Unpopularity

2011-12-16T06:15:00.001-05:00

by Doug Foote Posted on Wed Dec 07, 2011

Source

Florida Governor Rick Scott has achieved a historically low approval rating of 26 percent. How did he do it? Here's our guide to being an incredibly unpopular state executive:

1.) While campaigning, make sure to promise to take action on the most pressing issue on the minds of Americans: jobs. Declare unequivocally and repeatedly that you will create 700,000 jobs in 7 years, and make "Let's get to work" your campaign slogan. That way, voters can feel a sense of betrayal and disappointment when you do nothing to follow through.

2.) Start breaking promises right off the bat -voters love initiative! Despite a historic high level of unemployment in construction, reject federal money for a high speed rail project that would employ thousands of construction workers and engineers. Don't give a good reason for your actions. That way, voters can assume you are killing jobs for political reasons.

3.) Has your state experienced a huge economic hit because of a man-made, preventable disaster recently, perhaps an oil spill? By all means, do not make any effort to hold the corporations behind that disaster accountable. Even if other governors of your own party are making such an effort, continue to have more sympathy for those corporations then your constituents.

4.) One of the keys to being an unpopular governor is to demonize huge segments of your state’s population, and then watch it backfire. Here's a good list to start from:

Firefighters and police officers

Students

College professors

Welfare recipients

People who want to vote

Teachers

People who enjoy parks

People with preexisting medical conditions

"Government"

5. Related: Fire lots of teachers. Voters love crowded classrooms.

6.) Display your callous disregard for working families by raising the salaries of your personal staff while slashing wages for state employees.

7.)Continue to tout your business background while doing everything you can to seed doubt about your understanding of economics. Bonus:Fail at basic math and attack public workers simultaneously.

8.) While you're ignoring the jobs crisis, try addressing some imaginary problems. Let your imagination run wild! Don' stop at fighting imaginary voter fraud, that’s just Bad Governor 101. Search for oil in the Everglades! Fight imaginary drug use among welfare recipients! Spend as much taxpayer money as possible.

9.) Establish a "jobs agency" that can't keep track of its own spending. Voters love irony!

10.) Make lots of statements that are demonstrably false. These statements should concern topics a governor should be familiar with: regulations, budgets, spending, transportation, health care, and the geography of your state. (Bonus: Racial insensitivity.)

11.) Don't forget your role: serving the needs of corporations and the super-wealthy. For instance, pass $2 billion in tax breaks targeting the wealthiest and lift regulations on property insurers. Announce plans to privatize as many things as you can. Make sure your campaign donors coincidentally benefit from your policies. (Bonus: Wink at the taxpayers for footing the bill -€“ they're in on the joke!)

12.) At all times, lack compassion and understanding about the basic needs and priorities of your state. The majority of your constituents just want to find a decent job, put food on the table, afford health care when they get sick, pay bills on time, vote on Election Day, and make sure their children get an adequate education. Your job is to wake up every morning in your mansion, drive to work, and make sure all those things are as difficult as possible.

Got more to add to Rick Scott's Guide to Popularity? Leave your suggestions in the comments, or tweet at us with the hashtag #RickScottFail.

Originally posted on Working America's Main Street Blog.

Technorati Tags: Rick Scott,Florida,Governor,Tax Breaks,The Economy,Unemployment Benefits,SNAP,Welfare,Current Events,An American Gothic,Politics

Robert Fisk: Bankers Are The Dictators Of The West

2011-12-12T09:30:00.001-05:00

Robert Fisk Sunday 11 December 2011

Original Article

Writing from the very region that produces more clichés per square foot than any other "story" – the Middle East – I should perhaps pause before I say I have never read so much garbage, so much utter drivel, as I have about the world financial crisis.

But I will not hold my fire. It seems to me that the reporting of the collapse of capitalism has reached a new low which even the Middle East cannot surpass for sheer unadulterated obedience to the very institutions and Harvard "experts" who have helped to bring about the whole criminal disaster.

Let's kick off with the "Arab Spring" – in itself a grotesque verbal distortion of the great Arab/Muslim awakening which is shaking the Middle East – and the trashy parallels with the social protests in Western capitals. We've been deluged with reports of how the poor or the disadvantaged in the West have "taken a leaf" out of the "Arab spring" book, how demonstrators in America, Canada, Britain, Spain and Greece have been "inspired" by the huge demonstrations that brought down the regimes in Egypt, Tunisia and – up to a point – Libya. But this is nonsense.

The real comparison, needless to say, has been dodged by Western reporters, so keen to extol the anti-dictator rebellions of the Arabs, so anxious to ignore protests against "democratic" Western governments, so desperate to disparage these demonstrations, to suggest that they are merely picking up on the latest fad in the Arab world. The truth is somewhat different. What drove the Arabs in their tens of thousands and then their millions on to the streets of Middle East capitals was a demand for dignity and a refusal to accept that the local family-ruled dictators actually owned their countries. The Mubaraks and the Ben Alis and the Gaddafis and the kings and emirs of the Gulf (and Jordan) and the Assads all believed that they had property rights to their entire nations. Egypt belonged to Mubarak Inc, Tunisia to Ben Ali Inc (and the Traboulsi family), Libya to Gaddafi Inc. And so on. The Arab martyrs against dictatorship died to prove that their countries belonged to their own people.

And that is the true parallel in the West. The protest movements are indeed against Big Business – a perfectly justified cause – and against "governments". What they have really divined, however, albeit a bit late in the day, is that they have for decades bought into a fraudulent democracy: they dutifully vote for political parties – which then hand their democratic mandate and people's power to the banks and the derivative traders and the rating agencies, all three backed up by the slovenly and dishonest coterie of "experts" from America's top universities and "think tanks", who maintain the fiction that this is a crisis of globalisation rather than a massive financial con trick foisted on the voters.

The banks and the rating agencies have become the dictators of the West. Like the Mubaraks and Ben Alis, the banks believed – and still believe – they are owners of their countries. The elections which give them power have – through the gutlessness and collusion of governments – become as false as the polls to which the Arabs were forced to troop decade after decade to anoint their own national property owners. Goldman Sachs and the Royal Bank of Scotland became the Mubaraks and Ben Alis of the US and the UK, each gobbling up the people's wealth in bogus rewards and bonuses for their vicious bosses on a scale infinitely more rapacious than their greedy Arab dictator-brothers could imagine.

I didn't need Charles Ferguson's Inside Job on BBC2 this week – though it helped – to teach me that the ratings agencies and the US banks are interchangeable, that their personnel move seamlessly between agency, bank and US government. The ratings lads (almost always lads, of course) who AAA-rated sub-prime loans and derivatives in America are now – via their poisonous influence on the markets – clawing down the people of Europe by threatening to lower or withdraw the very same ratings from European nations which they lavished upon criminals before the financial crash in the US. I believe that understatement tends to win arguments. But, forgive me, who are these creatures whose ratings agencies now put more fear into the French than Rommel did in 1940?

Why don't my journalist mates in Wall Street tell me? How come the BBC and CNN and – oh, dear, even al-Jazeera – treat these criminal communities as unquestionable institutions of power? Why no investigations – Inside Job started along the path – into these scandalous double-dealers? It reminds me so much of the equally craven way that so many American reporters cover the Middle East, eerily avoiding any direct criticism of Israel, abetted by an army of pro-Likud lobbyists to explain to viewers why American "peacemaking" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be trusted, why the good guys are "moderates", the bad guys "terrorists".

The Arabs have at least begun to shrug off this nonsense. But when the Wall Street protesters do the same, they become "anarchists", the social "terrorists" of American streets who dare to demand that the Bernankes and Geithners should face the same kind of trial as Hosni Mubarak. We in the West – our governments – have created our dictators. But, unlike the Arabs, we can't touch them.

The Irish Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, solemnly informed his people this week that they were not responsible for the crisis in which they found themselves. They already knew that, of course. What he did not tell them was who was to blame. Isn't it time he and his fellow EU prime ministers did tell us? And our reporters, too?

Technorati Tags: Banking,The Economy,America,Europe,Occupy Wall Street,Arab Spring,Wall Street,U.S. Government,Current Events,An American Gothic,Robert Fisk

Barack Obama: The Lesser Of Two Evils?

2011-12-12T05:52:00.001-05:00

The U.S. Senate passed a bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 which allows the military to act against American citizens in the United States, and to indefinitely detain US citizens, and to deny US citizens their Article III rights to a jury trial. All of these act run contrary to the Constitution of the United States, but who cares about what that piece of paper says anymore, right? Our government certainly does not, whether run by the Republicans or the Democrats.

The bill also would provide for indefinite detention of suspected terrorists, even US citizens detained within US borders, without legal counsel, judicial review, or trial by jury. (sources here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... and here: http://www.aclu.org/... and here: http://www.aclu.org/...)

And according to one report, the NDAA2012 also legalizes sex with animals (here: http://www.texasgopvote.com/...). Perhaps the authors of this article chose the whole legalizing-sex-with-animals thing in an effort to distract readers from the real humping canard of this bill: the US military taking action against US citizens. Source

Obama has said that he will veto this bill if it makes it to his desk unless the provision that requires military detention of suspected terrorists is removed, but he says not a word about the use of the military against against its own citizens or the fact that our constitutionally protected rights are being tossed into the garbage bin.

The Patriot Act removed many of the constitution protections against search and seizure of citizens; it gave the government permission to tap your phones and read your mail without a warrant or judicial review. The NDAA2012 hacks broadly at civil protections enumerated in Article III of the US Constitution and amendments V, VI, VIII, and IX (limitations on trials and punishment, the right to confront witnesses, and prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishments) Source

In case you have not noticed, President Obama has been running our national security in much the same way that the lesser-Bush did when he was in office. In fact, Obama has added to the onslaught of our freedoms and rights.

In fact, the Obama administration has been pretty busy intruding on all of our rights. you can check out some of those intrusions here.

Criminalization of Dissent and Militarization of the Police
Anyone who has gone to a peace or justice protest in recent years has seen it – local police have been turned into SWAT teams, and SWAT teams into heavily armored military. Officer Friendly or even Officer Unfriendly has given way to police uniformed like soldiers with SWAT shields, shin guards, heavy vests, military helmets, visors, and vastly increased firepower. Protest police sport ninja turtle-like outfits and are accompanied by helicopters, special tanks, and even sound blasting vehicles first used in Iraq. Wireless fingerprint scanners first used by troops in Iraq are now being utilized by local police departments to check motorists. Facial recognition software introduced in war zones is now being used in Arizona and other jurisdictions. Drones just like the ones used in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan are being used along the Mexican and Canadian borders. These activities continue to expand under the Obama administration.

and:

Technological Spying
The Bay Area Transit System, in August 2011, hearing of rumors to protest against fatal shootings by their police, shut down cell service in four stations. Western companies sell email surveillance software to repressive regimes in China, Libya and Syria to use against protestors and human rights activists. Surveillance cameras monitor residents in high crime areas, street corners and other governmental buildings. Police department computers ask for and receive daily lists from utility companies with addresses and names of every home address in their area. Computers in police cars scan every license plate of every car they drive by. The Obama administration has made no serious effort to cut back these new technologies of spying on citizens. Source

Sadly for America, the 2012 elections will once again be a choice between the lesser one of two evils. This time though, I’m not so sure that there is a lesser evil. The only difference between Obama and Gingrich is that Obama has not turned into a serial adulterer, yet.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Civil Liberties,Constitution,Article III,F.B.I.,C.I.A.,Bill Quigley,United States,Current Events,An American Gothic,National Defense Authorization Act,NDAA

The Republicans: Perpetually Lacking an Alternative

2011-12-11T10:55:00.001-05:00

By Gunnar Jonsson 28 November 2011 Original Article in Swedish Translated By Grace Olaison for Watching America

The USA’s Republicans are still on the hunt for Anyone-But-Romney — any presidential candidate but the boring Mormon turncoat, Mitt Romney. According to opinion polls, it seems the grassroots have found a Messiah in Newt Gingrich.
In some ways Gingrich is not a bad alternative. Stupid he certainly is not, rather too intelligent for his own good (with a tendency to consider everybody else as idiots). However, he can debate history, foreign policy crises and American health care without stumbling, qualities that the other non-Romneys seem to be sorely lacking.
Gingrich is a minor legend within his own party. His “Contract with America” gave a colossal victory in the congressional vote of 1994 and forced Bill Clinton to start over with his presidency. However, it was also here that the problems began: that which was perceived to be hyperconservative in the ‘90s is wishy-washy liberalism among today’s Republicans.
The deportation of 11 million illegal immigrants is the doctrine of the party, but Gingrich considers this to be inhumane. He called the Republicans’ budget proposals right-wing social engineering. Until recently he even believed that climate change was real. When the tea party movement discovers what Gingrich thinks, he’ll be in deep trouble.
He doesn’t have an entirely spot-free past either. Congress imposed on him sky-high fines for financial improprieties in the ‘90s. Furthermore, two out of three marriages have crashed and burned due to infidelities, which were even happening when he attempted to get Clinton removed for dishonorable conduct.
Last summer, Gingrich was almost knocked out of the game. His election organization was described as a Cadillac campaign on a Bud Light budget, and the entire staff resigned. Gingrich still has just as little money as the discipline a candidate must have.
As rapidly as he opens his mouth to impart new ideas, he manages to stick his foot in it. Calling Obama’s Democrats a “secular socialist machine” as dangerous as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was not believed by conservative analysts to be especially clever.
Gingrich as a presidential candidate could probably be an entertaining but definitely reckless project. President Gingrich sounds utterly terrifying.

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich,Herman Cain,Rick Perry,Republican Party,Barack Obama,2012 Elections,Current Events,An American Gothic

The Republicans: Perpetually Lacking an Alternative

2011-12-11T06:57:00.001-05:00

By Gunnar Jonsson 28 November 2011 Original Article in Swedish Translated By Grace Olaison for Watching America

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich,Herman Cain,Rick Perry,Republican Party,Barack Obama,2012 Elections,Current Events,An American Gothic

Friday Funnies: Politician’s Edition

2011-12-09T11:31:00.001-05:00

Jay Leno: "There was an embarrassing moment for Rick Perry. He announced that it was the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Jam."

"Joe Biden visited Greece last week on the debt crisis. I don't want to say the vice president doesn't know much, but he kept asking for John Travolta."

"Herman Cain dropped out. Our writers and I were despondent. But sometimes when God closes a door He opens a window. And standing outside that window is a circus peanut wearing a badger. Donald Trump will moderate a Republican debate Dec. 27. Thank you, Jesus."

"Cain says that he and his wife...everything is fine between them. Though it's not certain this wife still trusts him 100%. Like today Mrs. Cain called Michele Bachmann and asked if she could pray him gay. Does it work that way? Can you pray a guy gay?"

"Newt Gingrich met with Donald Trump yesterday. There's a good combination – two guys, 6 wives, 0 chance of either one of them ever becoming president of the United States."

"The head of the Federal Aviation Administration … has been arrested on charges of drunk driving. I don't want to say how much the guy drank, but when they pulled him over, he was driving the beverage cart.'"

"The good news: unemployment is down and people are out looking for work. That's good news. In fact today Herman Cain applied at Domino's, Pizza Hut, Round Table, and Little Caesars..."

David Letterman: "Rod Blagojevich is going away for 14 Years in prison. His barber got the death penalty."

"Newt Gingrich did not make it on the Most Fascinating People list. He made it on another list of 2011 though: Most Fascinating Newts."

"Herman Cain, the Herminator, said 'I will not be silent, and I will not go away.' Then he shut up and left."

Technorati Tags: Political Humor,Humor,Late Night Talk,Jay Leno,David Letterman,Newt Gingrich,Mitt Romney,Herman Cain,Current EventsEvents,An American Gothic,Politicians

Friday Funnies 1: Republican Debate Hosted By Donald Trump?

2011-12-09T10:02:00.001-05:00

This will be the one debate that I will not miss and you can bet that his comedy will not need a laugh-track. Speaking of laughs.

It's On!! Donald and the 7 Dwarfs Get Ready to Rumble! Thu Dec 08, 2011 by cassandracarolina

Question: What’s the difference between Donald Trump and the Pope?
Answer: You only have to kiss the Pope’s ring.

The Donald is once again jonesing for relevance and ratings. Undecided on his next course of action, he’s torn between the roles of Kingmaker and King. If only there was some way to do both. Now, as the “moderator” of the upcoming debate on December 27th, The Donald has found the answer! He can do both!

As if the GOP campaign had not already degenerated into a gladiatorial spectacle, it’s about to take a turn for the more absurd as The Donald sets the stage for a verbal brawl with the 7 Intellectual Dwarfs. In this race for the lowest of common denominators, we’re headed for the Marianas Trench. Follow along below the curious life-form of the deep for more on each of our contenders.

Michele “Squeeky” Bachmann, doubling down on her hateful pronouncements, has declared that yes, gay people can marry! Hallelujah!! Oh… wait. They have to marry someone of the opposite sex! Well, that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? I mean, who in the world would enter into a marriage like that, where one (or both) of the participants was clearly not committed to that sort of a heterosexual “lifestyle”? You’d have to be batshit cra… Oh. Sorry. Well, at least she can rely on her sham spouse for fashion advice. Judging from her recent debate outfits, it looks like he’s been playing a cruel joke on little Squeeky. No worries, though. She puts on a good face (a colorful one, anyway) and soldiers on.

Newt “Meanie” Gingrich has dashed the Christmas hopes of many a child with his Dickensian vision of child labor as a pathway to continued poverty. No gifts for you kids! In fact, Christmas morning, since school’s out, it’s the perfect time to get down on your bloody and bruised hands and knees and give those school floors the thorough scrubbing they deserve. Then back home to your miserable hovel for some macaroni and cheese for the big day. Meanwhile in a mansion far, far away, Stepfordian wife-du-jour “Blingy” will try in vain to force her Botoxed face into some semblance of a smile as she unwraps Newt’s holiday appeasement gift from Tiffany’s.

Jon “Smarty” Huntsman has wisely declared that he would not kiss the ring – or any other portion – of the Donald. Smarty knows that there’s nothing to be gained by bringing a supercomputer to a knife fight, so he’s diligently working the Granite State retail politics circuit in hopes of a strong showing with the denizens of Dixville Notch.

Ron “Grampy” Paul, the voice of reason in this field of policy lightweights, continues ambling along with a respectable showing, particularly among young people (with the promise of legalized marijuana) and aging adherants of Ayn “Icy” Rand, who see in this quirky septuagenarian the chance to get all those young people off their lawns, once and for all.

Rick “Goofy” Perry continues reminding late-night comedy audiences of his aw-shucks inability to remember more than two things at a time. His latest stream-of-unconsciousness advertisement equates gays in the military with the demise of school prayer. In his spare time, he’s studying his own team’s polling, which shows him with a “nice path” in Iowa. Turn the paper around, Rick. His latest gaffe: referring to the New Hampshire primaries as “caucuses”. Um, Rick… it’s the “Granite State”, not the “take it for Granite State”.

Mitt “Floppy” Romney, no longer clinging to his low-profile “prevent defense” strategy of remaining aloof as other contenders fall by the wayside, has kicked his campaign into second gear. He has even deigned to meet with (gasp) Fox News and other lower life forms to endure insipid interviews, where he has allowed the “real Mitt” to emerge: an irascible, petulant man, seething at the growing probability that he is not actually the “inevitable” nominee despite nearly a decade of campaigning.

Rick “Creepy” Santorum`remains concerned, very concerned, that America’s moral values are falling like glitter off a cheap Christmas card. He, and he alone, stands between American families and the horrific prospect of people sharing the holidays in some unnatural way with their – gasp! – loved ones. He’ll continue his campaign until conditions improve or he runs out of cash. Can you guess which will happen first?? Good for you!

In Memoriam: Herman “Gropey” Cain has dropped off the radar and through the trap door of oblivion, recovering somewhere from his pivotal meeting with Gloria, and probably in hiding away at a rehab clinic for people addicted to inappropriate workplace behavior. With the onset of winter, he’ll at least be able to keep warm burning the now-useless copies of his epic autobiography.

Originally posted to cassandracarolina on Thu Dec 08,

Also republished by Community Spotlight.

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich,Donal Trump,Michele Bachmann,GOP,Debates,Ron Paul,Herman Cain,Mitt Romney,Current Events,An American Gothic,Politics

A New York Spider Gave Me an Insight into US Private Healthcare

2011-12-08T09:39:00.001-05:00

Published on Sunday, December 4, 2011 by the Sunday Observer/UK

Written by Laurie Penny

Occupy Wall Street is right – a rash of bites showed me how private healthcare keeps Americans cowed and compliant

It started with a spider. Someone with a taste for narrative justice might call it retribution, but there's really no moral correlation between the wisdom of absconding with a relative stranger after a party and waking up the next morning in Brooklyn with a rash of poisonous bites on your arm. When the angels of sexual continence want to punish you, they send crabs not spiders.

I assumed, at first, that the maddeningly itchy marks were the work of common-or-flophouse New York bedbugs, but 12 hours later, with my right arm swollen to the width and purplish color of a prize turnip, my friend identified the hallmarks of the brown recluse spider, and uttered words I had hoped never to hear on this side of the Atlantic: "You should really get that checked out by a doctor."

I first came to New York to write about the emerging social justice movements associated with Occupy Wall Street. Through my conversations with the protesters in Zuccotti Park, I began to understand how profoundly the stranglehold of American private healthcare keeps ordinary people cowed and compliant in the land of the notionally free.

It's not just the 59 million Americans living without health insurance and unable to access treatment for everyday maladies without crippling expense. It's the millions more who dare not risk a dispute with their boss for fear of losing their medical cover, who expect to remortgage their homes in old age to meet the costs of failing health, or who live in fear of bankruptcy should they develop a chronic condition or have an accident.

The notion of a society that sanctions companies to profit from sickness feels barbaric enough, without then forcing ordinary people to choose between medical treatment and the financial future of their families. President Obama's attempt to reform the system in 2009 roundly failed to remove healthcare as a source of perennial anxiety for most American citizens, or to lighten the dead hand of the market on medical provision in the US.

Socialized healthcare is in my blood but, unfortunately last Wednesday, so was a hefty dose of spider venom and several billion extra bacteria – the unfriendly sort that make an infected limb sweat and swell like a rotten root vegetable. I had travel insurance, but no idea if it stretched to the snacking habits of urban arachnids. So I uttered the words familiar to any uninsured or precariously insured American: "I'll just wait for a little bit and see if it gets better."

Had I waited another 24 hours, I might have lost my arm. By the time I was persuaded to go to the emergency response unit at Beth Israel hospital I could no longer move the limb, which was developing worrying purple track-marks. The triage nurse sent me straight through to ER, where I was given a bunk next to a groaning man in his mid-30s who, like me, had been so worried about the cost of treatment that he had allowed an infection to spread, in this case from a rotten tooth. He was already missing several teeth. He told me he was a postal worker with no health insurance, and that he wouldn't have come for treatment had his girlfriend not driven him to hospital when he collapsed with a fever.

Compared to the accident and emergency unit at my local London hospital, the waiting period was civilized; it was a mere hour before a stern-looking registrar arrived to take my money. He explained the covering clauses of my travel insurance and showed me where to sign on several complicated forms. When I explained I was unable to do so because my arm wasn't working, he gave me a look that suggested I'd have had to find a way to sign even if I'd come in with all four limbs off. I signed with my left hand.

After that, the service was exceptional. I was whisked off to intensive care for intravenous antibiotics. I was put in a quiet bed near a window, with no cracks or mildew in the walls, and brought cool water and a clean towel. And when, in the middle of the night, I went into near-fatal anaphylactic shock, the staff's reaction was swift and efficient. I felt, in other words like a valued customer. But it also meant that, at 2am and thousands of miles from home, I was already wondering how I would afford the prescription for all the antibiotics I needed.

This is the difference that social medicine makes to the fabric and quality of life in a civilized country. When I finally wobbled out of the shiny lobby of the Beth Israel, clutching a bag of drugs, follow-up advice and complimentary hospital toiletries, I understood what it really means to be without means in America. Those who are wealthy enough to afford decent healthcare have their needs met in relative luxury, while those who are poor live in fear of getting ill, worrying that one misadventure might leave you with yet more debts to pay off.

No amount of fresh towels and edible breakfasts can make up for the feeling that your health is less important than the capacity of your checkbook. Which is why children and pensioners are still standing in Manhattan's financial district with placards telling the world they cannot afford healthcare, as police patrol the perimeter. And why, when I got out of hospital, I went straight back down to Liberty Plaza to stand with them.

Laurie Penny is a journalist, author, feminist, reprobate. Lives in a little hovel room somewhere in London, mainly eating toast and trying to set the world to rights. Drinks too much tea. Has still not managed to quit smoking.

Technorati Tags: Occupy Wall Street,Health Care,Current Events,An American Gothic,United States

Newt Gingrich: The View From Overseas

2011-12-06T06:22:00.003-05:00

The truest piece of shit that the Republicans have in the run for the nomination to face off against President Obama in November 2012, has finally risen to the top. That piece of crap would be none other than life-long politician, serial adulterer, and lobbyist Newt Gingrich from the state of Georgia.

From Neue Zurcher Zeitung, a Switzerland paper:

Again, a New Front-Runner
for America’s Republicans

By Peter Winkler
Translated By Lisa Probst
27 November 2011

Edited by Jennifer Pietropaoli

Switzerland - Neue Zürcher Zeitung - Original Article (German)
Former Speaker Gingrich’s surprising high flight
Newt Gingrich, a dinosaur of American policy, has surprisingly swung himself to the top of the list of Republican presidential hopefuls for next presidential election. The question is: How long will he be flying high?
Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives and a conservative opponent of President Clinton for many years, has swung to a surprising high in Republican polls in his candidacy for the presidential elections of the United States.
However, the edgy dinosaur of the Washington political establishment has been his own worst enemy, often damaging his own reputation, as in the first TV debate in his new role. In addition, Gingrich is dragging along some pretty bulky baggage from his past, with many commentators asking just how long the high flight of this controversial, sharp-tongued, bullying politician, who is often perceived as arrogant, will last.
The latest “anti-Romney”
The media is already describing Gingrich as the newest ”anti-Romney.” The Republican base seems to be testing him as an alternative to the former governor of Massachusetts, who appeared to be too slippery smooth for many conservatives.
Before Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain were already in the same boat. Their numbers in the polls fell as quickly as they rose. They had to go through the bitter experience of being the front-runner, whose words and histories are being watched much more closely than those of other candidates. Gingrich, after his Nov. 25 performance, experienced much the same thing.
In the debate about homeland security, which was organized by CNN and the conservative think tanks, the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute, Gingrich pleaded for amnesty for those illegal immigrants who came a long time ago, started families and have integrated themselves into society. The Republican Party, as the party for family values, would certainly not be swayed to destroy families, he assumed. Gingrich called his suggestion humane; his rivals immediately spoke against it, calling it a “magnet for illegal immigrants” and “back door amnesty.” For many conservatives, these are the two brightest red flags in regards to immigration policy.
It’s still too early to determine the effect on voters’ favor. It was noticeable how badly Gingrich’s comments were received by the Republican base in Iowa, where the first primary elections will take place on January 3. Aside from that, Gingrich is not exactly without guile. Religious conservatives could be opposed to the fact that he is on his third marriage. His present spouse was his mistress at the time that he was up in arms against Clinton’s extra-marital escapades. Gingrich had to resign from his post as speaker after getting penalized with a record-high fine for unethical behavior in a business transaction of expense claims.
More damaging, although a more recent development, is that his consulting firm was receiving a monthly honorary sum of roughly $30,000 from mortgage giant Freddie Mac until September 2008, which obviously came for political lobbying. Freddie Mac, along with affiliated company Fannie Mae, had to be put under state control during the mortgage crisis and now belongs among the favorite targets of Republican critics of the Obama administration’s crisis management.
Miraculous recovery
“The Newt,” as Gingrich is often called, put a damper on his newly announced candidacy in May when he criticized Republican Paul Ryan’s budget proposal “right-wing social engineering,” which he said was no better than a “left-wing social engineering.” Although he apologized to Ryan, the damage was done. In June he appeared to get suffocated by his campaign bills and almost his entire election campaign staff left. Until recently, nobody thought it possible that he could ever recover from that.

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL VERSION

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich,2012 Elections,Republican Party,Politics,Current Events,An American Gothic

$7.7 Trillion Rip-off Of The Taxpayer

2011-12-06T06:22:00.001-05:00

This is a huge issue which you are not seeing on the front pages of to many newspapers, if any, as has been noted by the author in the following article.

A $7.77 Trillion Call to Arms

by akadjian Mon Dec 05, 2011

Bloomberg broke the biggest story of the year this past week by revealing that the Federal Reserve secretly committed 7.77 trillion dollars to bailing out banks.

7.77 trillion is more than 11 times the cost of the TARP program. Yeah, this is big. And this number was only through March 2009.

So I think it's worth taking a few minutes to break down the importance of this story and what it means.

What does the $7.77 trillion secret program mean?

1. Any talk about being broke is bullshit.

Allen West:

I'm just not sold on this payroll tax extension, this unemployment extension. Because we're broke.

Bullshit.

Rush Limbaugh:

So what are your ideas, Candidate A? Which agencies are you gonna just wipe out? We can't go on as we are; we don't have the money.

Bullshit.

John Huntsman:

The fact of the matter is we're broke as a country, and we're going to have to look very, very carefully at foreign aid.

Bullshit.

John Boehner:

We're broke. And the American people know we're broke.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

We have plenty of money when it comes to bailing out banks. Anyone saying we're broke is saying this to try to justify their own agenda.

2. We have the resources.

We can:

Fund job creation programs

Rebuild our infrastructure

Put money into education

Continue social safety net programs (as is)

Invest in energy independence

All we need is the political will. Anyone who says we can't do these things means they don't want to do these things.

If the government can come up with a $7.77 trillion secret program for banks, quit telling me we can't help out actual people.

3. You are being asked to shoulder the cost.

That's right. Why the call to pull money from Medicare, defense, Social Security, education, pensions, pay, etc?

You didn't think the banks should have to pay for their failures, did you?

This is the strategy known as privatize the profits, socialize the risks. It is the strategy behind the "too big to fail" banks.

In a nutshell, the strategy goes like this: Banks make risky trades using your deposits and, if they fail, they know they will be covered by the government because these assets are insured by the FDIC (at least up to a certain point).

Covering bank bets costs lots of money. How do we cover these bets?

Guess what? You're going to have to make do with less.

4. Our government is willing to lie to us.

This story didn't just happen.

Bloomberg had to fight in court for 2 years to get the Federal Reserve to release these details.

Why wouldn't they release the details?

Could it be because they knew no one would have gone along with this if it had been known?

The other shock is the magnitude of the lie. This is a $7.7 trillion lie.

5. The mainstream media does little to expose these lies

Much of the media continues to "back page" this story.

Ask yourself, with the exception of Bloomberg, if you've seen this story on any front pages. I haven't.

Doesn't this sound like a front page story? Federal Reserve spent $7.7 trillion to bailout banks? Without telling anyone?

Sure sounds like front-page news to me. Yet it's vastly under reported in the media.

Would anyone in America go along with this continuous bailout if they knew about it?

6. Occupy Wall Street is right.

Say what you want about Occupy Wall Street, but this doesn't change the fact that the biggest challenge still facing our nation is our broken financial system and our government which is in bed with this system.

It's clear that very little has changed since the financial crisis. Very few new rules have been put in place.

Opponents of the Dodd-Frank reforms are trying to "block appointments of new leadership to key oversight positions, cut funding, alter policies, use cost- benefit analysis as a roadblock to reform, and make other efforts to slow the pace or water down regulations."

7. You can't get a loan at 0.01% interest

Yes, that was the rate at which we lent money to some of these banks.

In other words, free.

Of course, at the same time, we had politicians screaming that we couldn't help out people who were foreclosed upon.

If you're a person, it's your "responsibility," if you're a bank, then you're "too big to fail".

Only banks could get loans at 0.01%.

We have a double standard in our country. One set of rules for average people, another set for those with the right lobbyists.

8. The problem is not fixed. It will happen again.

The banks are still engaging in risky derivatives trading. And they're even bigger than before when they were "too big to fail".

Almost nothing has been done in the way of regulation and lobbyists are already fighting the little that has been done.

There is no incentive for banks to do anything differently and, with the government backing their bets, no risk to them.

Under these conditions, it is only inevitable that this will happen again.

9. Why is this the biggest story of the year?

It exposes everything that is wrong with our current system:

Secret government programs for banks.

The "we're broke" lie - anyone who says "we're broke" is saying it to justify some other goal.

One set of standards for banks, an entire different set for the rest of us.

The failure of the media to "front page" these issues. I bet you know what's happening with the Kardashians though.

Most importantly, we have the resources to do what's right for our country.

We just need those in office to work for our country instead of for the largest corporate donors and lobbyists.

So what can you do?

Tell anyone who will listen. It doesn't matter what political affiliation you are, this should make you angry.

Write, call, or e-mail your Congressman and ask him or her what they are doing to investigate. They should be angry too.

Write your local paper or TV news affiliate and ask them how they're covering the story. Why isn't this news?

Support groups who are bringing these types of stories to light. Bloomberg deserves a huge amount of credit for pressing the government to release these documents.

Move your money. Banks have shown they are poor gamblers. Take away the deposits they're using to gamble.

Do whatever you can. Convince your friends. Support limiting corporate influence on Washington. Join those protesting in the streets if you can.

If this sounds like the beating of a drum you've already heard, apologies. But it's a drum that badly needs beating or nothing is ever going to change.

Technorati Tags: TARP,The Bailouts,Wall,Bloomberg,Occupy Wall Street,The Economy,Federal Reserve,Current Events,An American Gothic,Tax Payers

Cain Is Gone? Newt’s At The Top?

2011-12-04T11:57:00.001-05:00

I am happy to see that Herman has left the game, at least for now. of course, the GOP still has nothing but human ( ? ) jokes as candidates for the White House with Newt Gingrich being the man at the top of the list for the time being. That, my friends, is a sad state of affairs not only for the Republican Party, but for America also.

Robyn E. Blumner of the St. Petersburg Times notes the statements that the Newtser made at a gathering of GOP assholes at the debate in Iowa, concerning the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Gingrich's statement on the Occupy movement, offered with self-satisfied gusto during the "Thanksgiving Family Forum" Republican presidential candidate debate in Des Moines, Iowa, says all you need to know about the man who wants the reins of the economy. Gingrich's prescription for reversing the nation's record-breaking long-term joblessness and the shrinking of the middle class is a little shoe-leather and deodorant soap.

"All of the Occupy movements start with the premise that we all owe them everything," Gingrich said. "They take over a public park they didn't pay for, to go nearby to use bathrooms they didn't pay for, to beg for food from places they don't want to pay for, to obstruct those who are going to work to pay the taxes to sustain the bathrooms and to sustain the park, so they can self-righteously explain that they are the paragons of virtue for which we owe everything.

"Now that is a pretty good symptom of how much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country and why you need to reassert something as simple as saying to them: 'Go get a job right after you take a bath.' "

Newt has no clue about the ills that many Americans face in this current economic disaster, or either he does not give a shit. As a candle-holder for the 1% who have screwed this country, I’d bet that he does not care.

Fox News and the rest of the media will now push the Newt as the savior of both the Republican Party and America. When you start hearing how great Newt is, just remember his Contract On With America.

This is the Republican presidential hopeful who is rising in the polls. A man whose bloated ego is only matched by his antipathy for the plight of others. Every Republican who is unemployed, underemployed or knows and respects someone who is, should commit the phrase "Go get a job right after you take a bath" to memory. Then vote.

America most certainly does not need a Newt sitting in the White House if only because the Newt is the prince of immorality.

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich,Republicans,GOP,Contrat With America,Politics,Current Events,An American Gothic,2012 Elections