ridin' the storm out
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you need to go back more than 10,000 years
hopefully you realize the planet is much much older than that
LMAO!... what a phony douchebag you are
you are whining here about Romney wanting to reduce taxes on the wealthy yet you actually posted that you prefer a 10% flat tax on billionaires
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76542691
what a phony little POS you are... Romney is a liberal compared to you and Hermain Cain 999
benzoid was your little buddy when i challenged your 10% flat tax idea
you are no different than your buddy benzoid or dickless milde
congrats phony phucker
at least you and benzoid have another thing in common... you believe every wacked out conspiracy by alex jones and prison planet
'nlightn' says billioniares should pay 10% fed tax
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/replies.aspx?msg=75171349
but bitches at Romney for proposing "only" 25%... good god what a dumbass
i guess one thing we can say is he/she is quite creative
yes that's true... sea level rise has fluctuated through-out history... but now all of a sudden North Carolina politicians can outlaw sea-level rise by passing a law and therefore sell more real estate on the coastline... that's the absurdity that i was originally pointing out when 'dullness' decided to go off on his gibberish-filled tangents
just pointing out your insanity, and you still admit it
as for straying off topic, you are the king of that move
that's your modus operandi... when you can't defend with facts, go off on a rant-filled tangent, basically making up your own facts
i didn't have to dig anything up, i have a good memory
you were gung ho for Bush's war back in the day
i also remember how you suggested that all the poor people who didn't have their own transportation during hurricane katrina could have just "walked away" from the storm
you are truly insane... congrats
sorry, i'm not interested in your extreme right wing propaganda and lies
if you hate science so much and prefer religion then go join the Taliban
of course when it comes to the govt spending money you sure were gung ho for Bush's holy crusade in Iraq that has now wasted $1 trillion or more and counting
you are certifiably insane... congrats
The Fiscal Legacy of George W. Bush
By BRUCE BARTLETT
June 12, 2012, 6:00 am
Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. He is the author of “The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform – Why We Need It and What It Will Take.”
Republicans assert that Barack Obama assumed sole responsibility for the budget on Jan. 20, 2009. From that date, all increases in the debt or deficit are his responsibility and no one else’s, they say.
This is, of course, nonsense – and the American people know it. As I documented in a previous post, even today 43 percent of them hold George W. Bush responsible for the current budget deficit versus only 14 percent who blame Mr. Obama.
The American people are right; Mr. Bush is more responsible, as a new report from the Congressional Budget Office documents.
In January 2001, the office projected that the federal government would run a total budget surplus of $3.5 trillion through 2008 if policy was unchanged and the economy continued according to forecast. In fact, there was a deficit of $5.5 trillion.
The projected surplus was primarily the result of two factors. First was a big tax increase in 1993 that every Republican in Congress voted against, saying that it would tank the economy. This belief was wrong. The economy boomed in 1994, growing 4.1 percent that year and strongly throughout the Clinton administration.
The second major contributor to budget surpluses that emerged in 1998 was tough budget controls that were part of the 1990 and 1993 budget deals. The main one was a requirement that spending could not be increased or taxes cut unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases. This was known as Paygo, for pay as you go.
During the 2000 campaign, Mr. Bush warned that budget surpluses were dangerous because Congress might spend them, even though Paygo rules prevented this from happening. His Feb. 28, 2001, budget message reiterated this point and asserted that future surpluses were likely to be even larger than projected due principally to anticipated strong revenue growth.
This was the primary justification for a big tax cut. Subsequently, as it became clear that the economy was slowing – a recession began in March 2001 – that became a further justification.
The 2001 tax cut did nothing to stimulate the economy, yet Republicans pushed for additional tax cuts in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2008. The economy continued to languish even as the Treasury hemorrhaged revenue, which fell to 17.5 percent of the gross domestic product in 2008 from 20.6 percent in 2000. Republicans abolished Paygo in 2002, and spending rose to 20.7 percent of G.D.P. in 2008 from 18.2 percent in 2001.
According to the C.B.O., by the end of the Bush administration, legislated tax cuts reduced revenues and increased the national debt by $1.6 trillion. Slower-than-expected growth further reduced revenues by $1.4 trillion.
However, the Bush tax cuts continued through 2010, well into the Obama administration. These reduced revenues by another $369 billion, adding that much to the debt. Legislated tax cuts enacted by President Obama and Democrats in Congress reduced revenues by an additional $407 billion in 2009 and 2010. Slower growth reduced revenues by a further $1.3 trillion. Contrary to Republican assertions, there were no additional revenues from legislated tax increases.
In late 2010, Mr. Obama agreed to extend all the Bush tax cuts for another two years. In 2011, this reduced revenues by $105 billion.
On the spending side, legislated increases during the Bush administration added $2.4 trillion to deficits and the debt through 2008. This includes $121 billion for Medicare Part D, a new entitlement program enacted by Republicans in 2003.
Economic factors added almost nothing to increased spending – just $27 billion in total. This is mainly because interest rates were much lower than C.B.O. had anticipated, leading to lower spending for interest on the debt.
After 2008, it becomes harder to separate spending that was initiated under Mr. Bush from that under Mr. Obama. We do know that spending for Part D has risen rapidly – Republicans phased in the program to disguise its budgetary cost – adding $150 billion to the debt during 2009-11.
According to a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan increased the debt by $795 billion through the end of fiscal 2008. The continuation of these wars by Mr. Obama added another $488 billion through the end of 2011.
Putting all the numbers in the C.B.O. report together, we see that continuation of tax and budget policies and economic conditions in place at the end of the Clinton administration would have led to a cumulative budget surplus of $5.6 trillion through 2011 – enough to pay off the $5.6 trillion national debt at the end of 2000.
Tax cuts and slower-than-expected growth reduced revenues by $6.1 trillion and spending was $5.6 trillion higher, a turnaround of $11.7 trillion. Of this total, the C.B.O. attributes 72 percent to legislated tax cuts and spending increases, 27 percent to economic and technical factors. Of the latter, 56 percent occurred from 2009 to 2011.
Republicans would have us believe that somehow we could have avoided the recession and balanced the budget since 2009 if only they had been in charge. This would be a neat trick considering that the recession began in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
They would also have us believe that all of the increase in debt resulted solely from higher spending, nothing from lower revenues caused by tax cuts. And they continually imply that one of the least popular spending increases of recent years, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, was an Obama administration program, when in fact it was a Bush administration initiative proposed by the Treasury Department that was signed into law by Mr. Bush on Oct. 3, 2008.
Lastly, Republicans continue to insist that tax cuts are highly stimulative, often saying that they add nothing to the debt, when this is obviously ridiculous.
Conversely, they are adamant that tax increases must not be part of any deficit-reduction package because they never reduce deficits and instead are spent. This is also ridiculous, as the experience of the Clinton administration clearly shows. The new C.B.O. data confirm these facts.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/the-fiscal-legacy-of-george-w-bush/
like i said
you're a legend in your own mind
your gibberish is a monumental waste of time
wow, your gibberish-filled rant has nothing to do with the point of the article i posted
but feel free to jump into the pool with the dim-witted anti-science conservatives who think jesus rode bareback on dinosaurs
i bet you would have ranted against Galileo in his day... u are definitely a legend in ur own mind
conservatism thrives on low intelligence and poor information.. congrats
pretty much
a classic 'gap and crap'
Friday Rant: Ray Bradbury Edition
By Tom Toles
Posted at 07:15 AM ET, 06/08/2012
The public employee unions had gotten out of control. It was time to freeze their pensions and bargaining rights under the new state policy guidelines known as Fahrenheit 32. This was necessary because the taxpayers had grown weary of paying for pensions that were so much larger than their own. These taxpayers formerly had pensions similar to the ones they were about to freeze, but they had lost them to a private-industry cost-cutting strategy known, coincidentally as Fahrenheit 32.
These worker rights had to go because the economy was smaller now than in the gravy days of big paychecks and pensions. One worker wondered aloud how this could be true because the reported size of the economy kept getting larger. “Where is all the money going?” he asked. He was quickly shouted down by a group of ordinary self-described patriots who said the conversation needed to be about austerity for workers, not the distribution of wealth. They called themselves the Iced Tea Party and their motto was Fahrenheit 32.
Meanwhile behind the golden gates of the mansions up on the hill, the conversation was about Class Warfare. They were very much against such a thing as it was ordinarily understood. They understood it very differently. Their idea of Class Warfare was the civil-war variety, in which workers were turned one against the other in a battle to see who could impoverish whom to the largest degree. In this version of class war, the mansion dwellers were doing very well indeed. They lit their cigars, poured their drinks to toast their victory, and slipped into their Jacuzzis, Fahrenheit 102.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tom-toles
Friday Rant: Ray Bradbury Edition
By Tom Toles
Posted at 07:15 AM ET, 06/08/2012
The public employee unions had gotten out of control. It was time to freeze their pensions and bargaining rights under the new state policy guidelines known as Fahrenheit 32. This was necessary because the taxpayers had grown weary of paying for pensions that were so much larger than their own. These taxpayers formerly had pensions similar to the ones they were about to freeze, but they had lost them to a private-industry cost-cutting strategy known, coincidentally as Fahrenheit 32.
These worker rights had to go because the economy was smaller now than in the gravy days of big paychecks and pensions. One worker wondered aloud how this could be true because the reported size of the economy kept getting larger. “Where is all the money going?” he asked. He was quickly shouted down by a group of ordinary self-described patriots who said the conversation needed to be about austerity for workers, not the distribution of wealth. They called themselves the Iced Tea Party and their motto was Fahrenheit 32.
Meanwhile behind the golden gates of the mansions up on the hill, the conversation was about Class Warfare. They were very much against such a thing as it was ordinarily understood. They understood it very differently. Their idea of Class Warfare was the civil-war variety, in which workers were turned one against the other in a battle to see who could impoverish whom to the largest degree. In this version of class war, the mansion dwellers were doing very well indeed. They lit their cigars, poured their drinks to toast their victory, and slipped into their Jacuzzis, Fahrenheit 102.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tom-toles
so you don't agree with me that capitalism is the best system
thanks for admitting you prefer corruption and liars and cheaters as opposed to regulated capitalism
did your mother drop you on your head as a child?
congrats on admitting you prefer criminals who lie and cheat
that's exactly what the repugnant party stands for
you'd make a great poster child for the typical Fox News viewer
great, i guess Mittens can show how people born into a wealthy family can hoard their wealth in a swiss bank account and basically cheat on their taxes... he should have Trump as his running mate to show another example of how an idiot born with a silver foot in his mouth can bankrupt companies at taxpayers expense... i guess you are for more corruption... congrats
you're about as delusional as they come... congrats
Creepy young Mitt Romney: did young Mitt Romney like to impersonate a police officer? Another witness says yes — When Mitt Romney was a college freshman, he told fellow residents of his Stanford University dormitory that he sometimes disguised himself as a police officer – a crime in many states… And he had the uniform on display as proof. [...] Said Madden in a recent interview, “He told us that he had gotten the uniform from his father,” George Romney, then the Governor of Michigan, whose security detail was staffed by uniformed troopers. “He told us that he was using it to pull over drivers on the road. He also had a red flashing light that he would attach to the top of his white Rambler.” In Madden’s recollection, confirmed by his wife Susan, who also attended Stanford during those years, “we thought it was all pretty weird. We all thought, ‘Wow, that’s pretty creepy.’ And after that, we didn’t have much interaction with him.” – http://www.nationalmemo.com/did-young-mitt-romney-impersonate-a-police-officer-another-witness-says-yes/
Mitt Romney Spent The Vietnam War In A French Palace
Like many hawkish politicians of his generation, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney managed to avoid serving in the Vietnam War through family connections. The young Romney could not use a student deferment from the draft — having dropped out of Stanford University after only two semesters — but avoided service anyway with the assistance of the Mormon elders.
....
Romney lived in a “palace.” Richard Anderson, the son of the mission president during Romney’s stay, described it as “a house built by and for rich people,” complete with stained glass windows (which scandalized the Mormon missionaries due to their depiction of a bare-breasted woman), chandeliers, massive bedrooms, a full-time chef, a houseboy, and yes — a working bathroom.
That’s not to say that Romney was lying when he said that he was “not living high on the hog at that kind of level;” for a man who’s worth over $200 million and who doesn’t hesitate to offer $10,000 bets, the French palace may indeed have seemed like a “lower middle income” existence.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/strange-true-mitt-romney-spent-vietnam-war-french-palace/
Maddow doubts whether Democrats can survive flood of dark money – “In just about every election, if you are outspent eight-to-one, then you are going to lose,” Maddow said. “There is occasionally going to be a Hail Mary, miracle underdog, but over time, structurally speaking, remove the personality and just think about this in political science terms, if you are outspent that kind of way — the way that Republicans can outspend Democrats with unlimited corporate money — the Democrats are going to lose.” Democrats have called for the Citizens United ruling to be overturned with a constitutional amendment, but the proposal is almost unanimously opposed by Republicans. Maddow described the amendment as a “very, very long term goal.” “Do Democrats have a realistic way to survive in elections to even try to get to the medium term, let alone that long term, if Republicans are systematically defunding the Democratic Party in a way that renders Democrats incapable of competing?” – http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/07/maddow-doubts-whether-democrats-can-survive-flood-of-dark-money/
NC Considers Making Sea Level Rise Illegal
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2012/05/30/nc-makes-sea-level-rise-illegal/
By Scott Huler | May 30, 2012 | Comments93
According to North Carolina law, I am a billionaire. I have a full-time nanny for my children, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and I get to spend the entire year taking guitar lessons from Mark Knopfler. Oh, my avatar? I haven’t got around to changing it, but by law, I now look like George Clooney. There’s also a supermodel clause, but discussing the details would be boasting.
You think I’m kidding, but listen to me: I’m from North Carolina, and that’s how we roll. We take what we want to be reality, and we just make it law. So I’m having my state senator introduce legislation writing into law all the stuff I mentioned above. This is North Carolina, state motto: “Because that’s how I WANT it to be.”
You know, of course, about our passing May 8 of Amendment One, which has now written into our constitution anti-marriage discrimination against anyone who doesn’t fit one group’s image of marriage. It’s just as ugly as it sounds – just as ugly as the last time we wrote such marriage discrimination into our constitution, in 1875, when instead of protecting us against the idea of same-sex couples marrying, it was protecting us against racial miscegenation – down to the third generation, mind you. Good times!
Okay, though. These are hard days, people are crazyish, and you just have to soldier on, right? But then it turns out that North Carolina legislators are now tossing around bills that not only protect themselves from concepts that make them uncomfortable, they’re DETERMINING HOW WE MEASURE REALITY.
In a story first discussed by the NC Coastal Federation and given more play May 29 by the News & Observer of Raleigh and its sister paper the Charlotte Observer, a group of legislators from 20 coastal NC counties whose economies will be most affected by rising seas have legislated the words “Nuh-unh!” into the NC Constitution.
Okay, cheap shot alert. Actually all they did was say science is crazy. There is virtually universal agreement among scientists that the sea will probably rise a good meter or more before the end of the century, wreaking havoc in low-lying coastal counties. So the members of the developers’ lobbying group NC-20 say the sea will rise only 8 inches, because … because … well, SHUT UP, that’s because why.
That is, the meter or so of sea level rise predicted for the NC Coastal Resources Commission by a state-appointed board of scientists is extremely inconvenient for counties along the coast. So the NC-20 types have decided that we can escape sea level rise – in North Carolina, anyhow – by making it against the law. Or making MEASURING it against the law, anyhow.
Here’s a link to the circulated Replacement House Bill 819. The key language is in section 2, paragraph e, talking about rates of sea level rise: “These rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of seas-level rise may be extrapolated linearly. …” It goes on, but there’s the core: North Carolina legislators have decided that the way to make exponential increases in sea level rise – caused by those inconvenient feedback loops we keep hearing about from scientists – go away is to make it against the law to extrapolate exponential; we can only extrapolate along a line predicted by previous sea level rises.
Which, yes, is exactly like saying, do not predict tomorrow’s weather based on radar images of a hurricane swirling offshore, moving west towards us with 60-mph winds and ten inches of rain. Predict the weather based on the last two weeks of fair weather with gentle breezes towards the east. Don’t use radar and barometers; use the Farmer’s Almanac and what grandpa remembers.
Things like marriage rules involve changing social mores and those who feel that certain types of marriage are wrong can be understood and even forgiven. They’re certainly on the wrong side of history, but it’s a social issue where emotion understandably holds sway over things like evidence.
But while the rising sea may engender emotion, it exists in a world of fact, of measurable evidence and predictable results, where scientists using their best methods have agreed on a reasonable – and conservative – estimate of a meter or more of rising seas in the coming century. In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gave a hesitant estimate of up to 59 centimeters of rise —but even two years later that estimate already appeared low and scientists began to expect a rise of a meter or more.
No matter in North Carolina. We’ve got resorts to build and we don’t care what the rest of the ocean does – our sea isn’t going to rise by more than 15.6 inches. Because otherwise it’s against the law.
No information on whether the scientists on the panel, like Galileo, have stamped their feet and muttered “And yet it rises!” But there’s no doubt that NC’s legislative inquisitors will be classified along with Galileo’s papal persecutors and their own forebears who outlawed interracial marriage, as on the wrong side of history.
But these folks will also be wet.
I’d love to write more, but I have chores to do and kids to manage. Man — all this housework after a full day of work at my desk just doesn’t seem right. There oughtta be a law. Hey, wait a minute ….
NC Considers Making Sea Level Rise Illegal
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2012/05/30/nc-makes-sea-level-rise-illegal/
By Scott Huler | May 30, 2012 | Comments93
According to North Carolina law, I am a billionaire. I have a full-time nanny for my children, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and I get to spend the entire year taking guitar lessons from Mark Knopfler. Oh, my avatar? I haven’t got around to changing it, but by law, I now look like George Clooney. There’s also a supermodel clause, but discussing the details would be boasting.
You think I’m kidding, but listen to me: I’m from North Carolina, and that’s how we roll. We take what we want to be reality, and we just make it law. So I’m having my state senator introduce legislation writing into law all the stuff I mentioned above. This is North Carolina, state motto: “Because that’s how I WANT it to be.”
You know, of course, about our passing May 8 of Amendment One, which has now written into our constitution anti-marriage discrimination against anyone who doesn’t fit one group’s image of marriage. It’s just as ugly as it sounds – just as ugly as the last time we wrote such marriage discrimination into our constitution, in 1875, when instead of protecting us against the idea of same-sex couples marrying, it was protecting us against racial miscegenation – down to the third generation, mind you. Good times!
Okay, though. These are hard days, people are crazyish, and you just have to soldier on, right? But then it turns out that North Carolina legislators are now tossing around bills that not only protect themselves from concepts that make them uncomfortable, they’re DETERMINING HOW WE MEASURE REALITY.
In a story first discussed by the NC Coastal Federation and given more play May 29 by the News & Observer of Raleigh and its sister paper the Charlotte Observer, a group of legislators from 20 coastal NC counties whose economies will be most affected by rising seas have legislated the words “Nuh-unh!” into the NC Constitution.
Okay, cheap shot alert. Actually all they did was say science is crazy. There is virtually universal agreement among scientists that the sea will probably rise a good meter or more before the end of the century, wreaking havoc in low-lying coastal counties. So the members of the developers’ lobbying group NC-20 say the sea will rise only 8 inches, because … because … well, SHUT UP, that’s because why.
That is, the meter or so of sea level rise predicted for the NC Coastal Resources Commission by a state-appointed board of scientists is extremely inconvenient for counties along the coast. So the NC-20 types have decided that we can escape sea level rise – in North Carolina, anyhow – by making it against the law. Or making MEASURING it against the law, anyhow.
Here’s a link to the circulated Replacement House Bill 819. The key language is in section 2, paragraph e, talking about rates of sea level rise: “These rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of seas-level rise may be extrapolated linearly. …” It goes on, but there’s the core: North Carolina legislators have decided that the way to make exponential increases in sea level rise – caused by those inconvenient feedback loops we keep hearing about from scientists – go away is to make it against the law to extrapolate exponential; we can only extrapolate along a line predicted by previous sea level rises.
Which, yes, is exactly like saying, do not predict tomorrow’s weather based on radar images of a hurricane swirling offshore, moving west towards us with 60-mph winds and ten inches of rain. Predict the weather based on the last two weeks of fair weather with gentle breezes towards the east. Don’t use radar and barometers; use the Farmer’s Almanac and what grandpa remembers.
Things like marriage rules involve changing social mores and those who feel that certain types of marriage are wrong can be understood and even forgiven. They’re certainly on the wrong side of history, but it’s a social issue where emotion understandably holds sway over things like evidence.
But while the rising sea may engender emotion, it exists in a world of fact, of measurable evidence and predictable results, where scientists using their best methods have agreed on a reasonable – and conservative – estimate of a meter or more of rising seas in the coming century. In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gave a hesitant estimate of up to 59 centimeters of rise —but even two years later that estimate already appeared low and scientists began to expect a rise of a meter or more.
No matter in North Carolina. We’ve got resorts to build and we don’t care what the rest of the ocean does – our sea isn’t going to rise by more than 15.6 inches. Because otherwise it’s against the law.
No information on whether the scientists on the panel, like Galileo, have stamped their feet and muttered “And yet it rises!” But there’s no doubt that NC’s legislative inquisitors will be classified along with Galileo’s papal persecutors and their own forebears who outlawed interracial marriage, as on the wrong side of history.
But these folks will also be wet.
I’d love to write more, but I have chores to do and kids to manage. Man — all this housework after a full day of work at my desk just doesn’t seem right. There oughtta be a law. Hey, wait a minute ….
so you are as much a useless idiot as your buddy diaper boy, thanks for sharing
#msg-76307704
According to recent Gallup Polls only 15% of Americans believe the theory of evolution, but 21% of Americans believe in "witches with magical powers" - not surprisingly the same percentage of Americans who believe Obama is a Muslim.
This illustrates the difficulty America faces in trying to operate a modern technological society with large numbers of superstitious citizens whose beliefs are informed by factors other than the real world.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/19558/paranormal-beliefs-come-supernaturally-some.aspx
http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intelligent-design.aspx
capitalism indeed is the best system but it must have checks and balances, govt oversight... in other words, not vulture capitalism where the serpent feeds on it's on tail
nowhere in the constitution does it say you have the "Individule" right to rape and pillage and be a dishonest scumbag
btw, why don't you learn the english language? are you some kind of furriner?? do you have a valid birth certificate?
notice that nary a single right winger ever brings up this point of the CU SCOTUS ruling (5-4 by the social cons of course)... Bernie Sanders (the socialist) and a number of Dems are on board to repeal it... but every single Repugnant, including paultards, are silent on the issue like the jack-booted fascists and morons they are
the issue goes back much further than 30-40 years... the obvious parallel is the 1930s... the fascists of the world wanted to destroy unions, free speech, equal rights, fair pay, child labor laws, etc, in favor of plutocracy... they basically wanted to rule the world and have slave labor to do their bidding
we defeated the fascists in the 40s and created a thriving middle class for a good while... the fascists made a resurgence in the late 50s with the Koch Industries sponsored John Birch Society extreme right wing religious nuts (aka america's taliban), but in the 60s the rational conservatives such as William Buckley helped stamp out the extreme nutbags, for awhile
well now they are back... the fascists, social conservatives, religious extremists, and assorted right wing gouls and hatemongers are back... they are tired of being a minority
George Orwell sure was one prophetic mofo
too afraid to answer the question
show many any right wingers who have spoken out against Citizens United ruling
what say you fascists?
so evidently GEO you approve of corporations or even foreign entities being able to influence elections anonymously
i've not heard one right wing repuke are tea-puker complain about the Citizen United ruling which allows corporations to spread lies and buy votes
you truly are all fascists and complete dumbfucks
I again recommend a law prohibiting all corporations contributing to the campaign expenses of any party… Let individuals contribute as they desire; but let us prohibit in effective fashion all corporations making contributions for any political purpose, directly or indirectly. —Theodore Roosevelt
Christian School Hires, Then Fires Teacher Within Hours — For Being Gay
http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/christian-school-hires-then-fires-teacher-within-hours-for-being-gay/politics/2012/06/06/40777
A Cincinnati Christian academy hired a music teacher, then called him back in, asked him if he is gay, then fired him, all with hours. This entire episode is truly shocking, but what’s sickening are two important points: one, that the school is tax exempt and actually receives tax dollars. The other: the reason the school, Cincinnati Hills, gave the teacher, Jonathan Zeng.
Andy Towle at Towleroad reports that Zeng “describes what happened after he accepted the job in a letter to the school board’s trustees”:
Shortly after the conclusion of this meeting, Mr. Thompson called and asked me to return to complete some necessary business they had forgotten. He explained that there was an issue weighing on his mind because of my application answers regarding my belief in Christ’s unconditional love and that we as Christ’s followers are to show that love to all without judgment. These responses prompted him to ask if I was a homosexual. I was completely taken aback by this and asked why that was important. He explained that it was school policy not to employ teachers who are homosexual. When I asked why, he said that it was because I would work with children and because of the sanctity of marriage. I can’t begin to say how offensive and painful his comments were. I had no idea the school held such a viewpoint. Mr. Thompson was kind enough to offer me a ride, which I refused.
[…]
The proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), introduced in nearly every US Congress since 1994, would protect workers in companies larger than 15 employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, but it has not been passed.
Although Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy is a private school, it does receive public money.
Its 2009 Form 990, a kind of tax return for tax-exempt nonprofits, lists about $1.15 million of its $18.9 million in annual revenues comes from government grants and contributions.
More recent state data reveal that Ohio has paid CHCA at least $707,212 in the school year that just ended. That includes funds for administrative costs, “auxiliary services,” and Ohio’s Educational Choice scholarship, which pays tuition for students who live near persistently failing public schools.
The Big-Lie Coup d’Etat
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Robert Reich http://robertreich.org/post/24472398883
JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, BP, Chevron, WalMart, and billionaires Charles and David Koch are launching a multi-million dollar TV ad buy Tuesday blasting President Obama over the national debt.
Actually, I don’t know who’s behind this ad because there’s no way to know. And that’s a big problem.
The front group for the ad is Crossroads GPS, the sister organization to the super PAC American Crossroads run by Republican political operative Karl Rove.
Because Crossroads GPS is a tax-exempt nonprofit group, it can spend unlimited money on politics — and it doesn’t have to reveal where it gets the dough.
By law, all it has to do is spent most of the money on policy “issues,” which is a fig leaf for partisan politics.
Here’s what counts as an issue ad, as opposed to a partisan one. The narrator in the ad Crossroads GPS is launching solemnly intones: “In 2008, Barack Obama said, ‘We can’t mortgage our children’s future on a mountain of debt.’ Now he’s adding $4 billion in debt every day, borrowing from China for his spending. Every second, growing our debt faster than our economy,” he continues. “Tell Obama, stop the spending.”
This is a baldface lie, by the way.
Obama isn’t adding to the debt every day. The debt is growing because of obligations entered into long ago, many under George W. Bush – including two giant tax cuts that went mostly to the very wealthy that were supposed to be temporary and which are still going, courtesy of Republican blackmail over raising the debt limit.
In realty, government spending as a portion of GDP keeps dropping.
As I said, I don’t know who’s financing this big lie but there’s good reason to think it’s some combination of Wall Street, big corporations, and the billionaire Koch brothers.
According to the reliable inside-Washington source “Politico,” the Koch brothers’ network alone will be spending $400 million over the next six months trying to defeat Obama, which is more than Senator John McCain spent on his entire 2008 campaign.
Big corporations and Wall Street are also secretly funneling big bucks into front groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that will use the money to air anti-Obama ads, while keeping secret the identities of these firms.
Looking at the all the anti-Obama super PACs and political fronts like Crossroads GPS, Politico estimates the anti-Obama forces (including the Romney campaign) will outspend Obama and pro-Obama groups by 2 to 1.
How can it be that big corporations and billionaires will be spending unlimited amounts on big lies like this one, without any accountability because no one will know where the money is coming from?
Blame a majority of the Supreme Court in its grotesque 2010 Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission decision — as well as the IRS for lax enforcement that lets political front groups like Crossroads GPS or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce pretend they’re not political.
But you might also blame something deeper, more sinister.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist (you can’t have served in Washington and seriously believe more than two people can hold on to a big story without it leaking), but I fear that at least since 2010 we’ve been witnessing a quiet, slow-motion coup d’etat whose purpose is to repeal every bit of progressive legislation since the New Deal and entrench the privileged positions of the wealthy and powerful — who haven’t been as wealthy or as powerful since the Gilded Age of the late 19th century.
Its techique is to inundate America with a few big lies, told over and over (the debt is Obama’s fault and it’s out of control; corporations and the very rich are the “job creators” that need tax cuts; government is the enemy, and its regulations are strangling the private sector; unions are bad; and so on), and tell them so often they’re taken as fact.
Then having convinced enough Americans that these lies are true, take over the White House, Congress, and remaining states that haven’t yet succumbed to the regressive right (witness Tuesday’s recall election in Wisconsin).
I desperately hope I’m wrong, but all there’s growing evidence I may be right.
The Big-Lie Coup d’Etat
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Robert Reich http://robertreich.org/post/24472398883
JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, BP, Chevron, WalMart, and billionaires Charles and David Koch are launching a multi-million dollar TV ad buy Tuesday blasting President Obama over the national debt.
Actually, I don’t know who’s behind this ad because there’s no way to know. And that’s a big problem.
The front group for the ad is Crossroads GPS, the sister organization to the super PAC American Crossroads run by Republican political operative Karl Rove.
Because Crossroads GPS is a tax-exempt nonprofit group, it can spend unlimited money on politics — and it doesn’t have to reveal where it gets the dough.
By law, all it has to do is spent most of the money on policy “issues,” which is a fig leaf for partisan politics.
Here’s what counts as an issue ad, as opposed to a partisan one. The narrator in the ad Crossroads GPS is launching solemnly intones: “In 2008, Barack Obama said, ‘We can’t mortgage our children’s future on a mountain of debt.’ Now he’s adding $4 billion in debt every day, borrowing from China for his spending. Every second, growing our debt faster than our economy,” he continues. “Tell Obama, stop the spending.”
This is a baldface lie, by the way.
Obama isn’t adding to the debt every day. The debt is growing because of obligations entered into long ago, many under George W. Bush – including two giant tax cuts that went mostly to the very wealthy that were supposed to be temporary and which are still going, courtesy of Republican blackmail over raising the debt limit.
In realty, government spending as a portion of GDP keeps dropping.
As I said, I don’t know who’s financing this big lie but there’s good reason to think it’s some combination of Wall Street, big corporations, and the billionaire Koch brothers.
According to the reliable inside-Washington source “Politico,” the Koch brothers’ network alone will be spending $400 million over the next six months trying to defeat Obama, which is more than Senator John McCain spent on his entire 2008 campaign.
Big corporations and Wall Street are also secretly funneling big bucks into front groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that will use the money to air anti-Obama ads, while keeping secret the identities of these firms.
Looking at the all the anti-Obama super PACs and political fronts like Crossroads GPS, Politico estimates the anti-Obama forces (including the Romney campaign) will outspend Obama and pro-Obama groups by 2 to 1.
How can it be that big corporations and billionaires will be spending unlimited amounts on big lies like this one, without any accountability because no one will know where the money is coming from?
Blame a majority of the Supreme Court in its grotesque 2010 Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission decision — as well as the IRS for lax enforcement that lets political front groups like Crossroads GPS or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce pretend they’re not political.
But you might also blame something deeper, more sinister.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist (you can’t have served in Washington and seriously believe more than two people can hold on to a big story without it leaking), but I fear that at least since 2010 we’ve been witnessing a quiet, slow-motion coup d’etat whose purpose is to repeal every bit of progressive legislation since the New Deal and entrench the privileged positions of the wealthy and powerful — who haven’t been as wealthy or as powerful since the Gilded Age of the late 19th century.
Its techique is to inundate America with a few big lies, told over and over (the debt is Obama’s fault and it’s out of control; corporations and the very rich are the “job creators” that need tax cuts; government is the enemy, and its regulations are strangling the private sector; unions are bad; and so on), and tell them so often they’re taken as fact.
Then having convinced enough Americans that these lies are true, take over the White House, Congress, and remaining states that haven’t yet succumbed to the regressive right (witness Tuesday’s recall election in Wisconsin).
I desperately hope I’m wrong, but all there’s growing evidence I may be right.
”First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me —
— and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Martin Niemoller, German anti-Nazi pastor during World War II
yep, a victory for Citizens United and the Koch Bro's where now any corporation or even foreign entities can buy elections and do so anonymously
people are not people... only corporations are people
congratulations IDIOTS... Hitler would be proud... a hearty sieg heil to the repugnant brownshirts
"Hitler, Stalin and Mubarek all opposed independent unions
In saluting unions, as in naming the Nazis the National Socialist German Workers' Party, Hitler "was using words he knew had appeal. It was as if they had been focus-grouped. Those were hot-button words that had resonance in the revolutionary period after 1918.
"The reality is, the (Nazi) party could not make inroads into the organized, unionized, working-class electorate in Germany," Ledford said.
May Day was first celebrated as an international day of labor in New York in the 1880s. Hitler made it an official paid holiday, not just a negotiated day off, on May 1, 1933 -- and used it to rally for his regime and industrialization. William Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich), who was there, called it "an elaborate piece of trickery."
The next day, on May 2, 1933, unions were dissolved, their assets were confiscated, their offices were occupied and their leaders were arrested. Hitler then outlawed strikes, abolished collective bargaining and established the German Labor Front, a corrupt party organization.
"It wasn't even a sham labor union," Ledford said.
In Russia, he noted, "Stalin didn't have to eliminate unions -- Lenin already had." And Stalin's first Five-Year Plan converted labor groups into oppressive mechanisms for increasing worker productivity.
Mubarak does not belong in the same category as Hitler and Stalin. But his government did routinely suppress worker protests by force. The government-run Egyptian Trade Union Federation was given a monopoly on labor organization in 1957 by the Trade Union Act, which prohibits union freedoms.
John Boehner, Saboteur
http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/stan-collender/2557/john-boehner-saboteur
Posted by Stan Collender
There are two money quotes in a column by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers on Bloomberg about the extreme debt ceiling threat House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) unilaterally decided to issue a few weeks ago (ht Mark Thoma):
High-frequency data on consumer confidence from the research company Gallup, based on surveys of 500 Americans daily, provide a good picture of the (previous) debt-ceiling debate’s impact (see chart). Confidence began falling right around May 11, when Boehner first announced he would not support increasing the debt limit. It went into freefall as the political stalemate worsened through July. Over the entire episode, confidence declined more than it did following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in 2008. After July 31, when the deal to break the impasse was announced, consumer confidence stabilized and began a long, slow climb that brought it back to its starting point almost a year later.
****
All told, the data tell us that a debt-ceiling standoff is an act of economic sabotage.
So just threatening another fight over the debt ceiling as Boehner does definite and almost immediate harm to the U.S. economy. As I said when Boehner announced that he again was going to hold the debt ceiling hostage, the threat would be reckless if it came from someone in the rank and file. But, at a minimum, it's totally irresponsible when it comes from the speaker of the House or Representatives, the person who according to the U.S. Constitution is second in line behind the vice president to become the president.
Given the damage to the economy Stevenson and Wolfers cite in their column, does anyone wonder how long it would take for someone on Capital Hill to be calling for a president's impeachment if he or she threatened to use the debt ceiling as Boehner is now doing?