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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 671 Registered: Mar-04 | Ok so you engage in the ad hominem attacks and then dictate what is and what isn't fact. "I can figure out what is factual and what is purely BS", actually Norma I don't agree with you. You are far to emotional to be objective and it shows. You take my skepticism not as constructive, but as a license to act foolish. I understand you like to bully people on this forum. Bullies need appeasers, and I am not going to take the latter role towards you. Give your opinions, but don't be so arrogant as to dismiss what you don't agree with as non-factual or "nuts". You will not dictate what is said in this thread, whether or not you started it as a vehicle to get on your left wing soapbox and chant at the top of your lungs. You are a democratic supporter/drone, and that is your prerogative, but don't expect me not to respond. Your emotional outbursts will not chase me off this thread (actually they strengthen my resolve) and I think you would realize this by now. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16674 Registered: May-04 | . I have never had the power on this forum to keep anyone from displaying their utter and complete ignorance of all things under discussion. You are certainly no exception to that rule - as you have proven numerous times since you posted, "Thanks mr Vigne, ... I try to basically listen to those with more knowledge and learn what I can." You seem you forget just how you entered this thread just as easily as you forget how repubs have come to the point where 76% of their words are considered to be false. You accept that Politifact is biased while receiving the information from a source which is clearly biased. You accept that Dems will do such and such but you ask for no proof - you just mindlessly accept your role. And, as usual, you have no capacity for discerning fact from opinion - rancid, stinking, big*tted crap that masquerades as "information" for those poor beggars jonesing for another jolt of "resolve". You want to believe Obama has "thugs" but you are willing to forget Bush's pattern of rendition? You want to believe Obama is fiddling while on vacation but forget W took four times as many days away from Washington as Iraq and Afghanistan went down the toilet with trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives wasted on his hubris and his follies. You want to forget most of the Bush II administration cannot leave the country for fear of being arrested on charges of international war crimes. You prefer to believe the financial situation the US finds itself in is the creation of Obama yet you forget the three page document Paulson shuffled across the table to Congress when instructing them to hand over $1 trillion to his cronies at the banks. Your preference is to think only the US is failing due to Obama's decisions yet you ignore the problem existed before he took office and extends over the entire globe. That, little boy, is being a dumbed-down footsoldier. And you accept the role so willingly! Most of all, you allow yourself to be distracted by the constant BS that pours out of the right wingnut blogs and talking heads; http://mediamatters.org/ - on any day! Believing a lie is as easy as telling one when all you see is that lie serving the purpose of the cause. In your case, and as in the case of every little plebeian repub drone I've encountered on a forum, the cause is to remain as completely in the dark about reality as you possibly can get by ceasing all brain activity that would save a cockroach from its ultimate fate on the sole of a shoe. Struggle, little footsoldier! Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps like any mindless little footsoldier must. You have no emotion, do you? No, because you do not think. You react when told. You obey the authority above you. You are the persectued ones. You are being persecuted by those with ... "emotions"! Listen to your leaders and they'll get you through this. You are the bearers of all that is good and you must defeat all those who disagree with you. Fear them since fear is a main motivator for good little brainless footsoldiers. Fear everyone and everything that doesn't believe as you do, talk as you do, or look like you do. They are the enemy! They want to "confiscate" your money and your freedoms. Begin by attacking anyone who claims anything you do not already believe for that is all there is - what you have been told to believe! They are clearly biased and you should not even pretend to listen to what they say. You are a waste of time. Hope that helps your "resolve", you good little iditiotic footsoldier. It certainly cannot be intelligence - or a desire for truth and facts - that keeps you spinning that gerbil's wheel full of BS. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16675 Registered: May-04 | . Fox Anchor Wonders If Moon Volcanoes Mean Global Warming Isn't Happening ; http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201107280007 Same Fox anchor ... Fox's Payne: "Why Exactly Do We Need The Government-Backed National Weather Service And We Can't Even Afford It?" The crawl beneath his image reads, "At least 37 dead on East Coast in Wake of Hurricane Irene". http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201108300008 . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16676 Registered: May-04 | . From a self-described "Goldwater Conservative" and one time White House Counsel to Richard Nixon with a nod to Goldwater's own book "The Conscience of a Conservative" ... Conservatives Without Conscience In "Conservatives Without Conscience," author John Dean makes the observation that seemingly good people will do unconscionable even criminal acts, and put their consciences aside without guilt. Dean wants to know why, and he provides a hypothesis to explain why some will lead people in this direction, and explain why others are willing to follow them. The author may be well-suited for such a task. As White House Counsel to President Richard M. Nixon, and an admitted Barry Goldwater conservative, he was surrounded by the Watergate Investigation, in which White House staffers conducted burglary, perjury, obstruction of justice, and other crimes, or knew of them, or concealed them, all in the name of their leader, Richard Nixon. John Dean relies heavily on the work of a social psychologist, Dr. Altemeyer of the University of Manitoba, who has done much work on the theory of authoritarianism. According to Dean, Altemeyer's work in this area has been officially recognized, and he is considered an expert in the field. Dr Altemeyer categorizes authoritarians as followers and leaders to varying degrees. What he also found was that authoritarians are likely to maintain certain beliefs about themselves which include a deep belief in God, patriotic, conservative, and see themselves as being more moral, ethical, honest, and better people than others in general. Their behavior however, is likely to be less honest, loyal or ethical than others. Dean attempts to apply this to our modern day politicians of whom he is very selective. He finds a match between Altemeyer's theories and list of traits in people like Dick Cheney whom he contends is the real president, George W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, Bill Frist, Tom Delay and others. The author provides plenty of anecdotal evidence to support his hypothesis: the president's signing statements, the secret meetings that are withheld from the public because of national security, George Bush's comments: "A dictatorship wouldn't be bad, just so long as I'm the dictator," or "I'm the decider." Newt Gingrich's ability to discard friends once he no longer finds them useful, and of course, Tom Delay who changed the rules of congress, where subterfuge and heavy-handed tactics have replaced debate, discussion, and compromise. Because of the abiding belief in their leaders, authoritarian followers will put their scruples aside, for the greater good. Examples of these followers were: Attorney General, John Mitchell, G. Gordon Liddy, Paul Ehrichman, H.R. Haldeman, and Charles Colson during the Nixon administration. According to Dean, their modern day counterparts are members of Congress, cabinet secretaries who serve at the pleasure of the president, and millions of others who believe that patriotic Americans are leading them. The reader should keep in mind that the author is attempting to prove a thesis here but offers no scientific evidence. It does not prove that all the people described earlier fit neatly in this authoritarian theory, nor can it explain their behavior with any certainty. The one part of this book that is unquestionable is Dean's assertion that Americans must participate in their democratic form of government if it is to succeed. It cannot be simply observed or ignored. If it is, authoritarians will pick it up and take it away. Dean warns that we haven't lost it yet, but we are losing it day by day. I recommend this book (after the first chapter) because it provided another way for me to look at family members and acquaintances whose rabid or knee-jerk loyalty for anything conservative I could not explain. At least, now I have an explanation.; http://www.amazon.com/review/R2LW9WAAQB87VH/#R2LW9WAAQB87VH A brilliant effort at uncovering the truth of the Republican party, July 12, 2006 John Dean's latest book manages to question his own former political ideals years after they have evolved into something reminiscent of authoritarian rule. For those of you who complain just to say "conservatives are always right and liberals are always wrong," you aren't going to like this book because you are clearly not an open-minded and intelligent person. I consider myself to be conservative, but I promise you that the facts stated in this book will not offend anyone. As a matter of fact, this really is Dean's most scientific and unbiased book to date. Bottom line: for you intellectuals and open-minded people, you will find this a fascinating read. For those of you who are going to bash anything that perhaps challenges your own personal beliefs, avoid this book. But don't give it a poor rating just because you are a conservative. The first thing you must understand about this book is it's title. On first blush, it would probably appear to the average reader to be a vitriolic attack on conservatives in the line of Coulter's attacks on liberals. But you would be quite (if understandably) mistaken. No, Dean's title takes off from the title of Barry Goldwater's famous book, "The Conscience of a Conservative" (in fact, Dean dedicates his book to Goldwater, who was actively working with Dean on this new book until he died). Dean is still a conservative, yet he can read the writing on the wall at least as well as anyone and knows how dangerous and ultimately anti-American the authoritarians within the ranks of conservatism have become and how they're riding higher and higher on that dubious vehicle into American despotism. This book is above all a rational, scientific book with Dean adopting the role of Carl Sagan in popularizing the too-little known political social science involving authoritarianism, which is predominantly conservative (Stalinism was, social-scientifically speaking, conservative authoritarianism, regardless of the labels one applies to its other elements). It desperately needs to be read by all who wish to be politically aware and those who wish to examine their consciences. Sociology has much to tell us about this complex subject, and John Dean is a direct witness to how conservative authoritarianism can lead us to disaster. It even explains the strident negative reviews here: conservative authoritarians always take particularly great umbrage when their personalities and attributes and characters are examined honestly and scientifically, for as social scientists have discovered about them, they realize they can't stand up well to scrutiny without inward or outward deception. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16677 Registered: May-04 | . What's your most liberal source of information, squiddy? Where do you go to hear an opposing viewpoint? |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 672 Registered: Mar-04 | "Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501©(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Well good of you to cite a group that at least comes clean about their agenda. It isn't to advance the "progressive" cause as much as it is to destroy conservative or any non progressive media. Too bad they couldn't save air america, what will the nation do without it.. I would attempt to answer your rant point for point but....there really isn't a point in doing so. I have asked you several times simply questions and you refuse to answer them. You continue to lose focus, engage in mudslinging, and cite your sources which in your mind are beyond reproach... It is easy to criticize obama because despite your encroaching dementia his lack of positive results matters. Everything isn't his fault and I don't recall anybody saying so...what is his fault is accepting all the faint praise and delivering nothing for the nation as a whole. Barry picks winners and losers based upon what he deems "fair"... What is really sad is watching the little man flounder in a job he isn't (and never would be) ready for. What is even worse is the simpletons who lapped up the nonsense, which put the man on a pedestal and voted for him not just the first time (on a national stage) but will without hesitation will do so again. I know you will vote for the empty suit, what else could a drone like you do... I know you want to move the discussion in a different direction, focus on the Republicans or anything but barry the golfer, but crazy woman in room 237 the focus needs to be on the "man" at the top. Media matters...I was waiting for you to wade into that septic tank. It is always comfortable to be amongst your own no matter how unstable they are.... |
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Gold Member Username: MagfanUSA Post Number: 2545 Registered: Oct-07 | Jan, Your characterization of the authoritarian mindset as 'primarily conservative' is utter rubbish. Please have a look at 'The True Believer' by Eric Hoffer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 673 Registered: Mar-04 | "What's your most liberal source of information, squiddy? Where do you go to hear an opposing viewpoint?" Fair enough question Norma B.... I peruse the Huffington post, and I watch several MsNbc programs though I can only take it in limited doses (like staring at the sun or radiation). I certainly want to know what "your" side of the fence is up to and taking to time to do so is time well spent. I don't deny the right of the progressive movement to exist, promote their causes, and tilt at windmills. I simply want to see them defeated at the ballot box. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16678 Registered: May-04 | . I see you find MediaMatters not to you're liking either. Tell me, is it that they are a self proclaimed left wing group? Or, is it that they actually post videos and transcripts of the right wingnuts saying the d*mning and often times dangerous, looney tunes stuff MM claims they have said? You see, the idea of Media Matters is not like your Red State BS. MM takes the actual words of those they cite and they offer them as actual proof of what the rightwingers are saying. They're not making anything up as your wingnut bloggers feel free to do. What you see is taken from the actual broadcasts and cannot be denied. They are posting facts which cannot be denied. The crap you offer here on the other hand is pure BS without any proof what so ever. For yet another example of what doesn't prove aything, "From 1936 to 2010 the population of the United States grew by 240% (128 million to 308 million). Over the same time period the Federal Register grew by over 3131%. That means that the page count of federal regulations has grown at over 13 times the rate of population growth since the middle of the New Deal", which you posted here on Monday, August 29, 2011 - 16:37. Explain what population growth has to do with more pages in the Federal Register when the Federal Register is "the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other presidential documents." The Federal Register is an accumulation of all the documents produced by the US government - laws and things that aren't laws, proposed legislation from both the right and the left and legislation that has no chance of passing into law. The announcements congratulating a Boy Scout troop which open the day in Congress are in the FR. Announcements of meetings and proceedings, grant applications and so forth. Everything the US Government does is placed in the Federal Register. Did you know that when you posted that BS from, what was it, The American Thinker? The American Thinker which we've already identified as a right wingnut, hyper-partisan group which "serves as part of the right wing's echo chamber"; http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Thinker But you keep going back there for more BS. And then you complain about Media Matters! So, tell me, what does population growth have to do with how many pages are in the Federal Register? Isn't this statement, " Another way to measure the gross impact of federal regulation is to count the pages in the official publication of all federal regulations, the Federal Register", a simple and plain Pants on Fire lie when regulations are not the entirity of the FR? Did you realaize the 800 plus signing statements made by W would be in the FR? Those signing statements which said neither W nor any of his agents were bound to follow the laws enacted by an co-equal branch of government. Can you tell me which party was in control of the Senate, the House and the White House during those years when the FR grew? Or, have you not even considered that? Did you just automatically blame the liberals in another knee jerk, do as you're told, the author offers no proof of his claims, reflexive act of ignoring the real world? Or, what does 42% have to do with Perry's 21,000 doctors? Or, if you want to believe the fool who wrote this, "For instance, Democrats imply conservatives are racists or that Republicans want to kill senior citizens by limiting the growth of the Medicare system, they imply Republicans want to deny kids lunch money without offering real proof", why are you not asking him for his proof that this is what Democrats will do? And, why ask what job Obama has held when half of the current repub candiates running for 2012 are all career politicians or have spent their working life in a government job? Why attack Obama for using the word "has" rather than "have" when for eight years (fourteen for me) we suffered through W's malapropsims ... Your Kid is Smarter Than Me Fish Are Friends The Wings Beneath His Wind The Miseducation of America Can't Fool This Guy Your Own Worst Enemy? The Love Doctor Is In Using The Google But What About Dolphins, Mr. President We're Going to Miss You, Too and, of course, Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning? and There's an old saying in Tennessee .. I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee ... that says, fool me once, ... shame on ... shame on you. Fool me ... you can't get fooled again. Explain all of that to me, squiddy. I'm really curious as to how you selective pick what you're going to get your backside up for. I'm incredibly inquisitive about how you can simply ignore the most obvious and logical facts and just go on pulling more crap from the right wingnut bloggers. \b {If you had read the first few pages of this thread as I have asked of you on numerous occasions, you would have found out that Wikipedia is far from a reliable source for most things and certainly for most things political. But let's go with the feeble crap you can pull out of your @ss and have you explain to me what this ... The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements is a 1951 social psychology book by Eric Hoffer which discusses the psychological causes of fanaticism. The book analyzes and attempts to explain the motives of the various types of personalities that give rise to mass movements; why and how mass movements start, progress and end; and the similarities between them, whether religious, political, radical or reactionary. As examples, the book often refers to Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, Christianity, Protestantism and Islam. Hoffer believes that mass movements are interchangeable, that adherents will often flip from one movement to another, and that the motivations for mass movements are interchangeable; that religious, nationalist and social movements, whether radical or reactionary, tend to attract the same type of followers, behave in the same way and use the same tactics, even when their stated goals or values differed ... ... has to do with this, "Your characterization of the authoritarian mindset as 'primarily conservative' is utter rubbish." How about a far more recent and peer reviewed study done by researchers in the cognitive sciences; "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition". The researchers set as their goal the synthesis of many previous methodologies of research in the hopes of coming up with a broad definition and analysis of Conservative thought and behavior. Many different theoretical accounts of conservatismhave stressed the motivational underpinnings of conservativethought, but they have identified different needs as critical. Ourreview brings these diverse accounts together for the first time andintegrates them. Specific variables that have been hypothesized topredict conservatism include fear and aggression ..., intolerance of ambiguity ..., rule following and negative affect ..., uncertainty avoidance ..., need for cognitive closure ..., personal need for structure ..., need for prevention-oriented regulatory focus ..., anxiety arising from mortality salience ..., group-based dominance..., and systemjustification tendencies. In what follows, we summarize major theoretical perspectives and use them to generate a comprehensive list of motives that are potential predictors of political conservatism. We first describe the theories and then, because many of them postulate similar motives, we review the cumulative evidence for and against each of the motives all at once. It's quite interesting to read the words in the summary of the research, "In May of this year a group of psychology researchers released a paper which caused a stir, titled "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition". Because some government grants were involved in funding the research, conservatives, who now control both the United States Congress and Senate took a sudden, and rather unfriendly, interest in the paper. It would seem that they did not particularly care for the results of the research, and certain threatening sounds were made about preventing further waste of government money' to fund research into the conservative mindset. The study was biased' against conservatives they insisted."} So there you have it, rather than a six decades' old book which doesn't claim to reflect on the personality traits of conservatives or liberals, we have a recent scientific study of the "conservative mind" which is; first, stressing the "authoritarian" nature, the "group based dominance" along with the "system justification tendencies" and the "fear" which exists at the core of the supposed "conservative mind" and, second, once more finding repubs claiming what they don't want to hear is "biased". LOL!!!!! "Your characterization of the authoritarian mindset as 'primarily conservative' is utter rubbish." Oh, you mindless little footsoldier drenched in fear based upon the dominance of authoritarian obedience! It's not me who claims you to be what you are. It's scientific research and it is a life long conservative who has served in the highest reaches of a repub administration. You do know who John Dean is, don't you? He is the writer who lays the claim of obedient footsoldiers following an authority figure upon all you tiny little plebeian drones out there. So, tell me this also, what makes you think a life long Goldwater Conservative is biased against conservatives? How exactly would that work, squiddy? What motivation would Dean have to write such things? Really, squiddy, your inability to process information in any way normal to a functioning adult is what is truly astounding about the BS you post! Is this like The Washington Spectator being biased against repubs because they stand for "for human rights, international peace, civil liberties and for an open, accountable government"? You didn't even think before you posted that, did you? It doesn't even register with you, does it? And you just keep going back to The American Thinker for more crap from the echo chamber. You do not belong here. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16679 Registered: May-04 | . Glenn Beck: "Why Are We Made To Feel Bad" For Using The Word "Colored"? Beck: Pat, correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't you feel ridiculously stupid everywhere in Africa, in, uh, Eurpoe, in, uh, South America .. uh, in Jerusalem when you would say the words "African American"? Pat: Oh, yeah. Beck: (laugh/snort) Because it doesn't apply there. It doesn't apply! Now how can people be one thing in one country and nowhere else in the world? ... Uh, ... because you weren't in the United States of America when you said it? Just guessing! Beck: Look what happened with Martin Luther King. That makes you an American ... Pat: I've always felt it's such an insult ... that "African American", ... that they for some reason need to have some ... Beck; Special help. Pat: ... qualifier - not even special help but just some distinction as if they are different than us ... Beck: They've been using this. It's our Achille's heel. Have no fear - dismiss these human rights' frauds ... I see what you mean, squiddy, obviously The Washington Spectator is biased against people like this. And MM is waaaaaay biased for playing this verbatim - waaaay, waaaay, waaaaay biased! No doubt! I mean alot of white folk had ancestors who were slaves too, right? Brought over from another country against their will and sold like cattle. Families broken up and women folk r@ped by their owners. Alot of white folk had their father or brother hung for looking at a white woman, right? And, definitely a lot of white folk couldn't vote for decades because they couldn't guess the number of beans in the jar - right?! See? no difference! Oh, and what happened to MLK? He was assassinated - by a white man. http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201108300014 (with real time audio) . |
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Gold Member Username: MagfanUSA Post Number: 2547 Registered: Oct-07 | Nice attempted twist, Jan. Cudos. Now that you've read the Wiki on Eric Hoffer, (Hey, I thought Wikis weren't allowed?) you're an expert? Have you ever bothered to read 'The True Believer'? You can borrow my copy. Keep telling yourself.....'Gotta run the arguement...Don't let it get away from me'. Do you really think human nature is suspended for the 'left'? Are republican / conservatives the ONLY ones in this country partial to exaggeration, misstatement or outright lies? Of course you do. Hoffer makes no distinction between left and right, though at the time of writing, WWII was fresh in everyones mind, so he uses that for much of his source material, with a liberal (sorry, unavoidable use) sprinkling from more distant history. I see much of Hoffers thoughts to apply to the modern situation with the radical Islamic movement(s). Anyway, Here is a superficial breakdown of Election 2008. You brought Red / Blue into evidence, so I'm guessing it is now an approved subject for comment. Ok with you? http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/exit-polls.html Not many surprises here, people making <50,000$ per year made up over 1/3 of Obamas votes. He got about 2/3 of the vote of those under 30. From Conservative Libertarian Outpost: (gee, 2 forbidden concepts and a loony one in a single title) Obama's largest constituent groups fall under the general umbrella of "disenfranchised victims," those who feel they are ethnically or economically handicapped. Other significant constituent groups are those who identify with the disenfranchised; this includes two small but highly ideologically influential groups, the economic and academic elite. A good graphic of voter turnout. http://style.org/mappingvotes/ Above link is for California's election of Arnie over Cruz during the Grey Davis recall. A better version, and for the Presidential Election of 2008 is linked below:: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/ Analysis is missing but it is clear from looking at the county maps, that Obama won in Urban areas. Of course, all that economic disadvantagedness leads to a much higher murder rate and all the attendant ills that brings. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16680 Registered: May-04 | . "Other significant constituent groups are those who identify with the disenfranchised; this includes two small but highly ideologically influential groups, the economic and academic elite." leo, oh leo, you've done so well at adopting to and and adapting to yourself the verbage of the ideologically pure repub. Frame those issues with loaded words, leo! Frank Luntz would be proud of your work and I'm sure you have a very clear idea what those repub codes are intended to imply in a cognitive sense in the "obey or be punished", "fear everyone who opposes you" mind of a groudling repub footsoldier. But I'm a poor dumb schlub of a liberal - you know, someone whose mind doesn't work right according to you repubs - and I don't always see those words and make the internal synaptic connections they are intended to imply to you "conservatives". Moreover, I'm not interested in playing the game using your code words on your game field which automatically gives you the advantage of me having to defend your ideas of what a liberal is. Your attempt is no different than squiddy's, "... Democrats imply conservatives are racists or that Republicans want to kill senior citizens by limiting the growth of the Medicare system, they imply Republicans want to deny kids lunch money without offering real proof", and then neither squid nor the author offering any proof to lay literal truth to the preposterous claim. In other words, your post is really just more right wingnut crap. Let's reframe the issue so we both understand what you mean and what you want me to take away from your coded words. Before I take your post apart sentence by sentence and rant by rant - and "run the argument" - I would like you to define two terms you've used here; "disenfranchised" and "elite". I certainly don't want this to "get away" from me now that you've tried to steal it away with BS words. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16681 Registered: May-04 | . "Analysis is missing but it is clear from looking at the county maps, that Obama won in Urban areas. Of course, all that economic disadvantagedness leads to a much higher murder rate and all the attendant ills that brings." I believe the operative here is "analysis is missing ... ". You don't seem to know what you're talking about, leo. I am, however, convinced you think you know exactly what you intend to say. You are making an extremely broad and even more extremely vague statement which tries to tie what to what? Democrats and violent crime? What exactly is "all the attendant ills that brings" intended to mean? What ills do you, in your fearful little repub mind, see out there in "disenfranchised land"? I would like a detailed explanation of what I am suppose to take on here rather than this nonsense terminology and made up threat to civilization which only makes sense to those with brains wired a certain way. A way which automatically and irrationally senses fear and hostility toward those not like yourself. Or, maybe my liberal mind is once again missing the connections your's so quickly makes. I wonder if I might not be one of those "elites" you also need to explain. leo, what you've posted is pure red meat Red State garbage. Are you sitting there in your PJ's making up this crap, leo? Let's begin by reviewing the most recent statistics I can pull up. If you can find contrary facts which would go against these figures, please do so rather than just play your repub game of scaring everyone with the unknown, unseen, undefined boogeyman of "the disenfranchised" - when we all - deep down and in our B horror flick imaginations - understand just whom you are referring to there, leo. These statistics indicate a general drop in crime rates across the board in 2009 - the year Obama took office and, if I understand correctly, the year you claim "economic disadvantageness" - whatever that is - should have peaked due to Obama's presence; http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm Several of the numbers indicate a drop in rates for the first time occurring in 2009 - as a matter of statistical fact that is, rather than make believe ideology. And yet, in 2009, weren't we supposed to have somewhere between 12 and 60 million "Illegals" in the country? Depending, of course, on how rabid the repub was to whom you were listening. (I'm sure Tom Tancredo and the Gov. of Arizona put the number in the billions.) Would the "illegals" be some of the "disenfranchised" you mentioned? I'm rather certain you think a large majority of those "illegals" voted for Obama. No? Now let's turn to a slightly older set of numbers and evaluations to see, "For example, Dallas is mentioned as having one of the highest crime rates in the nation. This indicator is important in demonstrating this statistic and understanding the intricacies of crime in Dallas. As noted above, 'the crime rate' as reported in the news media typically refers to a combination of violent crime and property crime. In 2002, Dallas reportedly had 17,018 crimes, and 15,429 in 2005. However, in Dallas, as in many other cities, property crime accounts for the majority of offences, while 'the crime rate' is frequently interpreted as the rate of violent crime. http://www.enotes.com/topic/Crime_in_the_United_States And, yes, that appears to have been pulled from Wiki source, so we can - if you insist - be somewhat suspect of the veractiy of the source. However, if you would like to check out the numbers for a change, they are available to you if only you would do a little digging before you post your ... uh, ... "thoughts". So, is property crime what you are referring to as "and all the attendant ills" that come from electing a Democratic President? Or, from electing a black Democratic President? Those numbers have also fallen in 2009. So, what exactly are you trying to say here, leo? Your words don't match the numbers, leo. And your - I have to say - seemingly bigg*tted comments without real meaning are borderline offensive. Since you are the "expert" on Hoffer, you might find these quotes interesting, You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you. -- Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, aph. 222 (1955), quoted from The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be. -- Eric Hoffer, cited in Eugene Brussell, Dictionary of Quotable Definitions (1970), quoted from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power. -- Eric Hoffer, Reflections on the Human Condition, aph. 13 (1973), quoted from The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations How about 'splaining just what you mean in your post, Lucy? Oh! I'm sorry! Was that too much of a reference to "disenfranchised" Hispanics? . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 674 Registered: Mar-04 | "Your attempt is no different than squiddy's, "... Democrats imply conservatives are racists or that Republicans want to kill senior citizens by limiting the growth of the Medicare system, they imply Republicans want to deny kids lunch money without offering real proof", and then neither squid nor the author offering any proof to lay literal truth to the preposterous claim. In other words, your post is really just more right wingnut crap. " Andre Carson: Tea party wants blacks 'hanging on a tree A top lawmaker in the Congressional Black Caucus says tea partiers on Capitol Hill would like to see African-Americans hanging from trees and accuses the movement of wishing for a return to the Jim Crow era. Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana who serves as the CBCs chief vote counter, said at a CBC event in Miami that some in Congress would love to see us as second-class citizens and some of them in Congress right now of this tea party movement would love to see you and me ... hanging on a tree. Continue Reading Carson also said the tea party is stopping change in Congress, likening it to the effort that were seeing of Jim Crow. The explosive comments, caught on tape, were uploaded on the Internet Tuesday, and Carsons office stood by the remarks. Jason Tomcsi, Carsons spokesman, said the comment was in response to frustration voiced by many in Miami and in his home district in Indianapolis regarding Congresss inability to bolster the economy. Tomcsi, in an email, wrote that the congressman used strong language because the Tea Party agenda jeopardizes our most vulnerable and leaves them without the ability to improve their economic standing. The Tea Party is protecting its millionaire and oil company friends while gutting critical services that they know protect the livelihood of African-Americans, as well as Latinos and other disadvantaged minorities, Tomcsi wrote. We are talking about child nutrition, job creation, job training, housing assistance, and Head Start, and that is just the beginning. A child without basic nutrition, secure housing, and quality education has no real chance at a meaningful and productive life. Carson is hardly the first lawmaker to use heated rhetoric. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) yelled you lie as President Barack Obama was addressing Congress. Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) yelled baby killer at former Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) as abortion was being discussed during the health care debate. Carson, who represents Indianapolis, is the second Muslim to ever serve in Congress. He has been in office since 2008 and took the seat that was held by his late grandmother Democratic Rep. Julia Carson. I told you this election is going to get ugly, uglier than anything before it. I just don't see why this sort of garbage isn't put down by the administration because it will only do harm. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16682 Registered: May-04 | . Particularly since the repubs did such a good job of controlling the Tea Party's extreme radicals; http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=slv8-hptb5&va=te a+party+extremists Don't forget to click on "The Final Option" with Hitl*r implanting a brain in a black child who will be born sixteen years later. Or possibly the one declaring the Tea Party to be "Right Wing Extremists". Try "Does 'tea party' populism verge into extremism?" from that far leftwing publication The Christian Science Monitor. Fox News host Bill O'Reilly flatly called some tea partiers "nuts,"†"â€crazy" and "just loons," before putting the number of extremists in the movement at 10 percent.; http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0217/Does-tea-party-populism-verge-in to-extremism I thought this comment was interesting, "Perhaps thumbs is only considering where the two organizations are in very recent history. Looking at the KKK platform, it doesn't seem all that different from what one might hear listening to right-wing commentators on Fox News or the radio: http://www.kkk.bz/program.htm Would Glenn Beck / Rush Limbaugh / Ann Coulter disagree with any of that?"; http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=190194&page=4&pp=20 Or, speaking of hanging a black man; Video: Proud Ohio Racist Lynches Obama in Effigy; http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/10/20/video-proud-ohio-racist-lynches-obama-in -effigy/ Yes, it is hard to see where Carson might have got the idea some people want to lynch blacks. You can decide whether this headline is true or not, "Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher Suggests Lynching Chris Dodd . . ." Wurzelbacher is, of course, the firteen minutes of fame "Joe the Plumber". http://chimpsternation.com/forum?c=showthread&ThreadID=3764 Living in Texas I remember when W was governmor and we had a black man dragged to death behind a pick up truck being driven by three whites. The picked a black man at random, beat him and chained him to the truck. They then drove to a gravel road where the man's body was literally ripped to pieces and parts were strewn over several miles of road. As governor, W refused to allow the prosecution to label the act as a hate crime. 3 whites indicted in dragging death of black man in Texas http://www.cnn.com/US/9807/06/dragging.death.02/index.html Extremists? Try Ann Coulter to choose just one ... We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. * Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America's self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant. * You will find liberals always rooting for savages against civilization * I don't really like to think of it as a murder. It was terminating Tiller in the 203rd trimester. ... I am personally opposed to shooting @bortionists, but I don't want to impose my moral values on others * If I'm going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot * We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee * Liberals love America like O.J. loved Nicole * We need to execute people like (John Walker Lindh) in order to physically intimidate liberals * Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots * My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building * Liberals hate religion because politics is a religion substitute for liberals and they can't stand the competition * God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. R@pe it. It's yours' * Liberals hate America, they hate flag-wavers, they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam, post 9/11. Even Islamic terrorists don't hate America like liberals do. They don't have the energy. If they had that much energy, they'd have indoor plumbing by now * I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo * 'The Democrats are giving aid and comfort to the enemy for no purpose other than giving aid and comfort to the enemy. There is no plausible explanation for the Democrats' behavior other than that they long to see U.S. troops shot, humiliated, and driven from the field of battle. They fill the airwaves with treason, but when called to vote on withdrawing troops, disavow their own public statements. These people are not only traitors, they are gutless traitors And, certainly, do not forget her comments regarding the senseless killing of four unarmed, peaceful students at Kent State Univ, Ann Coulter On Kent State Massacre: "That's What You Do With A Mob"; http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201106060029 (with realtime video) While you're at MM, just wander over to virtually any of the quotes found there, watch the videos or listen to the audio transcripts and ask yourself, "(W)hy this sort of garbage isn't put down by the (repubs) because it will only do harm." . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16683 Registered: May-04 | . IMO groups which seek ideological purity are extreme ... Civil war: Tea party group invites Romney to speak, sparking protests by tea party group The tea party has split over Mitt Romney. FreedomWorks, a Washington, D.C.-based tea party organization led by former House majority leader Dick Armey, will protest during a New Hampshire rally this weekend sponsored by the California-based Tea Party Express. The reason for the protest: the Tea Party Express invited Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, to the event. The president of FreedomWorks, Matt Kibbe, pointed to what he referred to as Romney's support for "government-run health care, Wall Street bailouts and spending hikes," in a statement explaining the reasons for the counter-rally in Concord. "One of the great successes of the decentralized tea party movement has been its ability to self-police. If every political opportunist claiming to be a tea partier is accepted unconditionally, then the tea party brand loses all meaning," Kibbe said in the statement. "Our grassroots activists will be in New Hampshire on Sunday to defend the tea party ideas of small government and fiscal responsibility, and to remind Mitt Romney that when it comes to policy, actions speak louder than words." Calling FreedomWorks' announcement a "a misguided press stunt," a release from Tea Party Express defended its invitation to Romney and said the "tour is open to presidential candidates who want to speak to the tea party." The group noted that Romney will also make an appearance in South Carolina this weekend at a candidate forum hosted by Jim DeMint, the Republican senator from South Carolina who is an ally of the tea party. "It's just silly to protest a tea party where Governor Romney is speaking," the release said. "It would be just as ridiculous to protest Senator DeMint's gathering on Monday, to which Romney has also been invited. Narrow mindedness is not the way to strengthen the tea party movement." News of the protest comes on the same day that Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor, announced that she was considering dropping out of a tea party rally hosted by a third group, Tea Party of America. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/civil-war-tea-party-group-invites-romney-spea k-201044591.html . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16684 Registered: May-04 | . "squiddy posted on Tuesday, August 30, 2011 - 12:07 GMT ... Give your opinions, but don't be so arrogant as to dismiss what you don't agree with as non-factual or "nuts". You will not dictate what is said in this thread, whether or not you started it as a vehicle to get on your left wing soapbox and chant at the top of your lungs. You are a democratic supporter/drone, and that is your prerogative, but don't expect me not to respond. Your emotional outbursts will not chase me off this thread (actually they strengthen my resolve) and I think you would realize this by now. Cognitive Dissonance and Politics Yesterday, we looked at some new research* that found that when conservatives were exposed to evidence demonstrating the falsity of a partisan belief - such as a report demonstrating that Iraq didn't have WMD, or that lowering taxes doesn't increase government revenue - they became more convinced than ever that those beliefs were actually true. The scientists call this "the backfire effect". The researchers argue that conservatives are particularly vulnerable to this cognitive flaw, as their beliefs tend to be more rigid and immutable. This is a deeply human trait. One of the first scientists to really study this was Leon Festinger, a social psychologist at the University of Minnesota. In the summer of 1954, Festinger was reading the morning newspaper when he encountered a short article about Marion Keech; a housewife in suburban Minneapolis who was convinced that the apocalypse was coming. Keech had started getting messages from aliens a few years before, but now the messages were getting eerily specific. According to Sananda, an extra-terrestrial from the planet Clarion who was in regular contact with Keech, human civilization would be destroyed by a massive flood at midnight on December 20, 1954 ... On the night of December 20, Keech's followers gathered in her home and waited for instructions from the aliens. Midnight inexorably approached. When the clock read 12:01 and there were still no aliens, the cultists began to worry. A few began to cry. The aliens had let them down. But then Keech received a new telegram from outer space, which she quickly transcribed on her notepad. "This little group sitting all night long had spread so much light," the aliens told her, "that god saved the world from destruction. Not since the beginning of time upon this Earth has there been such a force of Good and light as now floods this room." It was their stubborn faith that had prevented the apocalypse. Although Keech's predictions had been falsified, the group was now more convinced than ever that the aliens were real. They began proselytizing to others, sending out press releases and recruiting new believers. This is how they reacted to the dissonance of being wrong: by being more sure than ever that they were right. In other words, those members of the alien cult were just like conservatives learning that Iraq didn't have WMD. They were so committed to their beliefs - they had so much invested in the idea that the world would end, or that Saddam had chemical weapons - that dissonant facts made them double-down. It would be too painful to be wrong, and so they convinced themselves that they were right.; http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/09/cognitive_dissonance_and_polit.php *Why the Facts Don't Matter in Politics I think this experiment helps explains a rather disturbing amount of our political discourse. What it neatly demonstrates is that the main reason so many campaigns traffic in dishonest allegations and pseudofacts is that, when it comes to voters, the facts don't really matter. Most of us are just partisan hacks: Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration's prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation - the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration's claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse. A similar "backfire effect" also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue. In a paper approaching publication, Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might "argue back" against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation. Nyhan and Reifler did not see the same "backfire effect" when liberals were given misinformation and a refutation about the Bush administration's stance on stem cell research. The Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels analyzed survey data from the 1990's to prove the same point. During the first term of Bill Clinton's presidency, the budget deficit declined by more than 90 percent. However, when Republican voters were asked in 1996 what happened to the deficit under Clinton, more than 55 percent said that it had increased. What's interesting about this data is that so-called "high-information" voters - these are the Republicans who read the newspaper, watch cable news and can identify their representatives in Congress - weren't better informed than "low-information" voters. (The sole exception was Republicans who are ranked in the top 10 percent in terms of political information. As Bartels notes, it's only among these people that "the pull of objective reality begins to become apparent.") These citizens According to Bartels, the reason knowing more about politics doesn't erase partisan bias is that voters tend to only assimilate those facts that confirm what they already believe. If a piece of information doesn't follow Republican talking points - and Clinton;s deficit reduction didn't fit the "tax and spend liberal" stereotype - then the information is conveniently ignored. "Voters think that they're thinking," Bartels says, "but what they're really doing is inventing facts or ignoring facts so that they can rationalize decisions they've already made." Once we identify with a political party, the world is edited so that it fits with our ideology.; http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/09/why_the_facts_dont_matter_in_p.php . |
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Gold Member Username: MagfanUSA Post Number: 2551 Registered: Oct-07 | WMD may not be the best example. Bush's troika WANTED war. They had unfinished business. Enough evidence exists to support the CIA knowing they (WMD) didn't exist while the American people, and perhaps much of the world, were willing to go along, having no evidence to the contrary of the existence of such materials. That Saddam had built a 'supercannon' only supported the possibility. It is clear, in retrospect, at least to me, that Bush was lead around by Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove. Rove appears on Fox, but has not gotten 10 seconds of my time. I'd rather watch Bowling reruns. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 675 Registered: Mar-04 | "Democrats imply conservatives are racists or that Republicans want to kill Senior citizens by limiting the growth of the Medicare system, they imply Republicans want to deny kids lunch money without offering real proof". These are your words right and then I simply put up something that proves you wrong. Your answer is to go to media matters, which is another left wing septic tank. As I said there is nothing wrong with them admitting their agenda, which is to destroy anyone and anything that opposes the progressive movement. Why don't you address the absurd comments made by Andre Carson and the ever loopy maxine waters ? Do his comments help or hinder our society ? How did the Democratic party allow Robert Byrd to stay in the party? Did you call for Byrd to step down after his Fox interview when he used the term white n!gger, because we both know if a Republican said anything close to this he/she would be gone the next day? I guess being a Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops in the Klan has it's benefits. The democratic party you shill for has a shameful record on race in it's past. Most major cities have been under Democratic leadership for decades now, how has life in the inner city improved? The Democratic party knows it will get 90% + of the black vote and with barry it will be 95% +, so why do anything constructive? It is better to just keep stoking the race issue and adding more programs. Strange that every time barry is feeling the heat out comes the race card. Crazy woman we can both search the internet and cherry pick out posters and other provocative statements made by both sides...including some of the nonsense from the recent protests in Wisconsin by your side. For every Texas lynching I can find you the Knoxville case of Channon Christen and Christopher Newsom and then some. What is revealing is that this is where you and the democratic party want the discussion to be, right in the gutter. Which speaks to the depths you and those like you will go to in order to get an incompetent reelected. I always took you to be little more than a useful idiot, but I didn't think you were the piece to Texas trash you have revealed yourself to be. Shame on you for taking to lowest and simplest path, you really are a bitter crone. I will take pleasure in reminding you when barry comes up short next year. The focus has to be on the Barry o administration and its performance. I ask you again why is it in the nations best interest to reelect Barry ? What did his stimulus plan actually accomplish? What do you feel he should speak about next week when he goes into a catatonic trance while staring at the teleprompter ? Why in particular are you going to vote for Barry again? For me this will be the third time I voted against the guy (Keyes in 04), 2008, and I expect the third time to finally send this puppet on his way. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 676 Registered: Mar-04 | According to the theories of Sigmund Freud, psychological projection is a psychological defense mechanism whereby one projects ones own undesirable thoughts, motivations, desires, feelings, and so on onto someone else (usually another person, but psychological projection onto animals and inanimate objects also occurs). The principle of projection is well-established in psychology. Norma all you have done is bash Republicans and defend (when you are able to) Democrats. To accuse another of being rigid is laughable. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16685 Registered: May-04 | . The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science "A MAN WITH A CONVICTION is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point." So wrote the celebrated Stanford University psychologist Leon Festinger (PDF), in a passage that might have been referring to climate change denial - the persistent rejection, on the part of so many Americans today, of what we know about global warming and its human causes. But it was too early for that - this was the 1950s - and Festinger was actually describing a famous case study in psychology (http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9781617202803-1 ... This tendency toward so-called "motivated reasoning"(1) helps explain why we find groups so polarized over matters where the evidence is so unequivocal: climate change, vaccines, "death panels," the birthplace and religion of the president (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~nyhan/obama-muslim.pdf, and much else. It would seem that expecting people to be convinced by the facts flies in the face of, you know, the facts ... We're not driven only by emotions, of course - we also reason, deliberate. But reasoning comes later, works slower - and even then, it doesn't take place in an emotional vacuum. Rather, our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that's highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about. Consider a person who has heard about a scientific discovery that deeply challenges her belief in divine creation - a new hominid, say, that confirms our evolutionary origins. What happens next, explains political scientist Charles Taber of Stony Brook University, is a subconscious negative response to the new information - and that response, in turn, guides the type of memories and associations formed in the conscious mind. "They retrieve thoughts that are consistent with their previous beliefs," says Taber, "and that will lead them to build an argument and challenge what they're hearing." In other words, when we think we're reasoning, we may instead be rationalizing ... That's not to suggest that we aren't also motivated to perceive the world accurately - we are. Or that we never change our minds - we do. It's just that we have other important goals besides accuracy - including identity affirmation and protecting one's sense of self - and often those make us highly resistant to changing our beliefs when the facts say we should ... Our individual responses to the conclusions that science reaches, however, are quite another matter. Ironically, in part because researchers employ so much nuance and strive to disclose all remaining sources of uncertainty, scientific evidence is highly susceptible to selective reading and misinterpretation. Giving ideologues or partisans scientific data that's relevant to their beliefs is like unleashing them in the motivated-reasoning equivalent of a candy store ... And it's not just that people twist or selectively read scientific evidence to support their preexisting views. According to research by Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan and his colleagues, people's deep-seated views about morality, and about the way society should be ordered, strongly predict whom they consider to be a legitimate scientific expert in the first place - and thus where they consider "scientific consensus" to lie on contested issues. In Kahan's research (https://motherjones.com/files/kahan_paper_cultural_cognition_of_scientific_conse sus.pdf), individuals are classified, based on their cultural values, as either "individualists" or "communitarians," and as either "hierarchical" or "egalitarian" in outlook. (Somewhat oversimplifying, you can think of hierarchical individualists as akin to conservative Republicans, and egalitarian communitarians as liberal Democrats.)} In one study, subjects in the different groups were asked to help a close friend determine the risks associated with climate change, sequestering nuclear waste, or concealed carry laws: "The friend tells you that he or she is planning to read a book about the issue but would like to get your opinion on whether the author seems like a knowledgeable and trustworthy expert." A subject was then presented with the resume of a fake expert "depicted as a member of the National Academy of Sciences who had earned a Ph.D. in a pertinent field from one elite university and who was now on the faculty of another." The subject was then shown a book excerpt by that "expert," in which the risk of the issue at hand was portrayed as high or low, well-founded or speculative. The results were stark: When the scientist''s position stated that global warming is real and human-caused, for instance, only 23 percent of hierarchical individualists agreed the person was a "trustworthy and knowledgeable expert." Yet 88 percent of egalitarian communitarians accepted the same scientist's expertise. Similar divides were observed on whether nuclear waste can be safely stored underground and whether letting people carry guns deters crime. (The alliances did not always hold. In another study (http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1095&context=fss_ papers), hierarchs and communitarians were in favor of laws that would compel the mentally ill to accept treatment, whereas individualists and egalitarians were opposed.) And that undercuts the standard notion that the way to persuade people is via evidence and argument. In fact, head-on attempts to persuade can sometimes trigger a backfire effect, where people not only fail to change their minds when confronted with the facts - they may hold their wrong views more tenaciously than ever ... Another study gives some inkling of what may be going through people's minds when they resist persuasion. Northwestern University sociologist Monica Prasad and her colleagues wanted to test whether they could dislodge the notion that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were secretly collaborating among those most likely to believe it - Republican partisans from highly GOP-friendly counties. So the researchers set up a study (http://sociology.buffalo.edu/documents/hoffmansocinquiryarticle_000.pdf) in which they discussed the topic with some of these Republicans in person. They would cite the findings of the 9/11 Commission, as well as a statement in which George W. Bush himself denied his administration had "said the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and Al Qaeda." As it turned out, not even Bush's own words could change the minds of these Bush voters - just 1 of the 49 partisans who originally believed the Iraq-Al Qaeda claim changed his or her mind. Far more common was resisting the correction in a variety of ways, either by coming up with counterarguments or by simply being unmovable ... It all raises the question: Do left and right differ in any meaningful way when it comes to biases in processing information, or are we all equally susceptible? There are some clear differences. Science denial today is considerably more prominent on the political right - once you survey climate and related environmental issues, anti-evolutionism, attacks on reproductive health science by the Christian right, and stem cell and biomedical matters. More tellingly, anti-vaccine positions are virtually nonexistent among Democratic officeholders today - whereas anti-climate-science views are becoming monolithic among Republican elected officials. Some researchers have suggested that there are psychological differences between the left and the right that might impact responses to new information - that conservatives are more rigid and authoritarian, and liberals more tolerant of ambiguity. Psychologist John Jost of New York University has further argued that conservatives are "system justifiers": They engage in motivated reasoning to defend the status quo. This is a contested area, however, because as soon as one tries to psychoanalyze inherent political differences, a battery of counterarguments emerges: What about dogmatic and militant communists? What about how the parties have differed through history? After all, the most canonical case of ideologically driven science denial is probably the rejection of genetics in the Soviet Union, where researchers disagreeing with the anti-Mendelian scientist (and Stalin stooge) Trofim Lysenko were executed, and genetics itself was denounced as a "bourgeois" science and officially banned. The upshot: All we can currently bank on is the fact that we all have blinders in some situations. The question then becomes: What can be done to counteract human nature itself? Given the power of our prior beliefs to skew how we respond to new information, one thing is becoming clear: If you want someone to accept new evidence, make sure to present it to them in a context that doesn't trigger a defensive, emotional reaction ... You can follow the logic to its conclusion: Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue. Doing so is, effectively, to signal a détente in what Kahan has called a "culture war of fact." In other words, paradoxically, you don't lead with the facts in order to convince. You lead with the values - so as to give the facts a fighting chance. http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney?page=1 (1) The case for motivated reasoning. Kunda Z. SourceDepartment of Psychology, Princeton University, New Jersey 08544-1010. Abstract It is proposed that motivation may affect reasoning through reliance on a biased set of cognitive processes - -that is, strategies for accessing, constructing, and evaluating beliefs. The motivation to be accurate enhances use of those beliefs and strategies that are considered most appropriate, whereas the motivation to arrive at particular conclusions enhances use of those that are considered most likely to yield the desired conclusion. There is considerable evidence that people are more likely to arrive at conclusions that they want to arrive at, but their ability to do so is constrained by their ability to construct seemingly reasonable justifications for these conclusions. These ideas can account for a wide variety of research concerned with motivated reasoning.} . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16686 Registered: May-04 | . "Democrats imply conservatives are racists or that Republicans want to kill Senior citizens by limiting the growth of the Medicare system, they imply Republicans want to deny kids lunch money without offering real proof". "These are your words right ... " No, you stupid piece of crap! They were first posted here by you; https://www.ecoustics.com/electronics/forum/home-audio/642674.html#POST1968463 Unbridled_id posted on Saturday, August 20, 2011 - 15:43 GMT "Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear and retreat." "Make the enemy live up to his/her own book of rules. You can kill them with this. They can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity." "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also, it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage." "The threat is generally more terrifying than the thing itself." "In a fight almost anything goes. It almost reaches the point where you stop to apologize if a chance blow lands above the belt." "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it." (Think Gingrich, Lott and the success of name-calling used by the likes of Bill Clinton, Paul Begala, James Carville, Maxine Waters and others against conservatives and Republicans. Think of how Clinton "enemies" like Paula Jones or Linda Tripp were treated.) "One of the criteria for picking the target is the target's vulnerability ... the other important point in the choosing of a target is that it must be a personification, not something general and abstract." (Trent Lott comes to mind. Meanwhile, a former Klansman by the name of Sen. Robert Byrd got away with saying "n*gger" on Fox News at least three times, and he still maintains his Senate seat and power.) "The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength." For instance, Democrats imply conservatives are racists or that Republicans want to kill senior citizens by limiting the growth of the Medicare system, they imply Republicans want to deny kids lunch money without offering real proof. These red-herring tactics work. I understand the playbook... Quite obviously, you understand nothing. You don't even remember the BS you pull from wingnut blogs. You don't even remember me arguing against this crap, do you? It doesn't even dawn on you that there has never been any proof for this. You argue against yourself and don't even realize what you are arguing. You believe what is expedient at the moment and to he11 with facts! You are a waste of time. When does it finally occur to you that you have nothing to say that matters and can produce nothing that doesn't come from the wingnut blogs that you can't even remember posting? Nothing you say makes sense. When does it finally settle in that you do not belong here? . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16687 Registered: May-04 | . Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain By Denise Gellene Los Angeles Times Staff Writer September 10, 2007 Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work. In a simple experiment reported today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information. Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions. The results show "there are two cognitive styles - a liberal style and a conservative style," said UCLA neurologist Dr. Marco Iacoboni, who was not connected to the latest research. Participants were college students whose politics ranged from "very liberal" to "very conservative"" They were instructed to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a W. M appeared four times more frequently than W, conditioning participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter. Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally accurate in recognizing M. Researchers got the same results when they repeated the experiment in reverse, asking another set of participants to tap when a W appeared. Frank J. Sulloway, a researcher at UC Berkeley's Institute of Personality and Social Research who was not connected to the study, said the results "provided an elegant demonstration that individual differences on a conservative/liberal dimension are strongly related to brain activity" Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy. Sulloway said the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat who opposed Bush in the 2004 presidential race, as a "flip-flopper" for changing his mind about the conflict. Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas. "There is ample data from the history of science showing that social and political liberals indeed do tend to support major revolutions in science," said Sulloway, who has written about the history of science and has studied behavioral differences between conservatives and liberals. Lead author David Amodio, an assistant professor of psychology at New York University, cautioned that the study looked at a narrow range of human behavior and that it would be a mistake to conclude that one political orientation was better. The tendency of conservatives to block distracting information could be a good thing depending on the situation, he said. Political orientation, he noted, occurs along a spectrum, and positions on specific issues, such as taxes, are influenced by many factors, including education and wealth. Some liberals oppose higher taxes and some conservatives favor abortion rights. Still, he acknowledged that a meeting of the minds between conservatives and liberals looked difficult given the study results. "Does this mean liberals and conservatives are never going to agree?" Amodio asked. "Maybe it suggests one reason why they tend not to get along."} 1,5376455.story?ctrack=1&cset=true,http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-po litics10sep10,1,5376455.story?ctrack=1&cset=true . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16688 Registered: May-04 | . Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults Summary Substantial differences exist in the cognitive styles of liberals and conservatives on psychological measures. Variability in political attitudes reflects genetic influences and their interaction with environmental factors and. Recent work has shown a correlation between liberalism and conflict-related activity measured by event related potentials originating in the anterior cingulate cortex. Here we show that this functional correlate of political attitudes has a counterpart in brain structure. In a large sample of young adults, we related self-reported political attitudes to gray matter volume using structural MRI. We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala. These results were replicated in an independent sample of additional participants. Our findings extend previous observations that political attitudes reflect differences in self-regulatory conflict monitoring and recognition of emotional faces by showing that such attitudes are reflected in human brain structure. Although our data do not determine whether these regions play a causal role in the formation of political attitudes, they converge with previous work and to suggest a possible link between brain structure and psychological mechanisms that mediate political attitudes. Highlights * Political liberalism and conservatism were correlated with brain structure * Liberalism was associated with the gray matter volume of anterior cingulate cortex * Conservatism was associated with increased right amygdala size * Results offer possible accounts for cognitive styles of liberals and conservatives ... Conservatives respond to threatening situations with more aggression than do liberals and are more sensitive to threatening facial expressions ... http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982211002892 Brain structure differs between liberals and conservatives The April 7th issue of ""Current Biology"" reports on an interesting finding, mainly that Individuals who call themselves liberal tend to have larger anterior cingulate cortexes (the part of our brain that is used when we deal with uncertanity and coping) while those who call themselves conservative have larger amygdalas (the fear center of the brain, used also in determining the emotions of others). The research came about from earlier studies that showed greater anterior cingulate cortex response to conflicting information among liberals. What does all of this mean? Basically it accounts for why conservatives are more sensitive to threat or anxiety in the face of uncertainty, while liberals tend to be more open to new experiences. The study occured in London, with MRI's performed on students who defined themselves as liberal or conservative. Obviously there are potential problems with the study (The population studied were younger - so its uncertain how representitive the results would be in a more divergent population; conservativism vs. liberalism is not a simple dichotic concept, some people can be liberal on some issues, conservative on others; it in no way speaks to what came first the extra brain matter or one's political ideology.) However it does reveal some interesting areas for further study, on different populations to see if the trend holds. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/07/964603/-Brain-structure-differs-between-liberals-and-conservatives http://neuropolitics.org/defaultdec05.asp . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16689 Registered: May-04 | . Liberal Brains vs. Conservative Brains: A New Neuroimaging Study ... In liberal brains, according to neuroimaging, greater liberalism is associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, a part of the brain associated with conflict (i.e. contradiction) detection, detection of error and similar problem-finding activities. It seems help detect errors involved in habitual tasks or repetitive stimuli. An adjacent area of the ACC appears to act as a link between higher cognitive forebrain activity and the emotional limbic system (empathy, etc.) ... In conservative brains, greater conservatism is associated with increased gray matter in the right amygdala Research shows that the amygdalae perform a primary role in processing memory and emotional response, particularly with the process of "emotional learning," as well as long-term memory formation. The amygdalae are commonly associated with fear and fear-conditioning, although their actual functions are quite a bit more complex and are better described as centers for emotionally-charged memory. Emotional intelligence and social network size are positively correlated (i.e. people with big amygdalae have more friends and are more "in touch" with their feelings). Artistic types have higher than usual readings of amygdala activity...in fact given the connection from powerful emotion to memory, you could think of the two amygdalae as the 'Proust regions' of the brain. As far as fear goes, as a component of the limbic system the amygdalae are directly involved in the physiology of fear responses, as well as fear-based (i.e. behaviorist) conditioning. Notable pathologies involved in over-developed amygdalae include Borderline Personality Disorder (extreme black-white thinking, paranoia, "overreacting," emotional instability), schizophrenia, the phenomenon known as "amygdala hijack," essentially, overreaction to a perceived threat. Emotion-driven decision making can be a bad thing. http://theforvm.org/diary/jordan/liberal-brains-vs-conservative-brains} . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16690 Registered: May-04 | . Ben Horton: Sea level rise faster now than in 2,000 years A team has direct physical evidence - microscopic fossils from a North Carolina salt marsh - that sea level is rising faster now than in the past 2,000 years. Using microscopic fossils from core samples obtained in a coastal salt marsh in North Carolina, researchers have determined the sea level has risen and fallen over the past 2,000 years and that - at the end of the 19th century, going through the 20th century - a rapid rise in sea level began. They say sea level is rising faster today than at any time over the past 2,000 years. The timing of a rapid rise in sea level in our time was "very, very abrupt," according to these researchers, whose paper was published in June 2011 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. EarthSky spoke with paper co-author and University of Pennsylvania geologist Ben Horton. He said his team didn't use computer models. Instead, they gathered direct physical evidence in North Carolina, on the U.S. Atlantic coast. Ben Horton told EarthSky: You have the observational record that we have in the 20th century, from tide gauge records, or from satellites in space, they record that sea level is rising. What you want to do is go back though time, and to see whether this sea level rise is out of the ordinary. To determine how much the sea level in North Carolina has fluctuated over the past two millenia - and precisely when it fluctuated - Horton analyzed core samples from a coastal salt marsh. The samples contained fossils of a microscopic organism sensitive to levels of salt in its environment. These fossils helped the team determine that sea level has fluctuated over the past 2,000 years - and that its rise and fall has tended to be gradual. But, Horton said: At the latter part of the 19th century, going through the 20th century: we have a pronounced increase in the rate of sea level rise to two millimeters per year. And the timing of that change was very, very abrupt. It is another piece of very, very strong evidence to support that the climate or the environment in which we have been living in the 20th century are so very different from what we have been living in prior to the industrial revolution. Horton added that this work may help experts understand better how sea level rise - believed by virtually all climate scientists to stem from an overall warming of the planet - will vary from coastline to coastline. It's something he's working to understand better, right now. Horton talked a little more about the process he used to record historical sea level rise and fall on North Carolina's coast: If you go out on a salt marsh, they would notice this sort of pattern of vegetation, you'd find different plant communities. And what they're responding to are changes in salinity. And therefore what you can think is that if the sea level changed, then the salt marsh species would change. We didn't look at the plant species themselves. We looked at microscopic organisms known as foraminifera. They live in the salt marsh sediments. Each species of foraminifera has a very specific level of salinity that it likes to live in, and an area it doesn't like to live in. So for example you can get a certain species that likes to be inundated by the tides 10% of the time, and a certain species that may want to be inundated by the tides 50% of the time. So you can take a core of the salt marsh, and if you see that in one part of the core that [Ed. Note: there are different species of microbes in different layers], you can see that there is obviously a sea level response, there. Horton said that the team also used fossilized pollen, in part, to date sea level rise and fall, because different species of plants were introduced to the area at different periods over the past two millenia. He credited lead author Andrew Kemp with this extremely creative method of creating timeline "horizons" for the salt marsh cores. He described the team's major findings. They sounded a little like a historical novel. The last 2,000 years are great to study, he said, because the Earth's major systems - the currents, the ice sheets, the storm patterns - are pretty similar to what they are today. Yet, things were still in flux. The first thing we found was that sea level was variable. Second of all, we could take this 2,000 years and divide it into four stages. What we found was that 0 A.D., the Roman period going through about 1000 A.D., things were pretty stable. It didn't really do anything. Then it's around 1000 A.D., the Medieval Warming Period, where temperatures increased. Not as warm as they are today, but they certainly increased. Sea level also rises, at rates of less than one millimeter per year. Very small rates, but they certainly were noticeable. And that period lasted for about 300 years. Then at the 14th century, sea level stabilized, and perhaps fell. And that's known to have occurred during what's called Earth's Little Ice Age period when temperatures have been known to have stabilized or fallen, and we get a sea level response. And the fourth stage is at the latter part of the 19th century, going through the 20th century when we have a pronounced increase in the rates of sea level rise to two millimeters per year: the fastest rates of rise in the past 2,000 years. And the timing was very, very abrupt. The other timings were very gradual. He added that one scientific advantage of creating a continuous physical and observational record of sea level rise is that there's less margin of error, in terms of results. That translates not only into better understanding the past, but also more accurately modeling the future.} http://earthsky.org/water/ben-horton-on-abrupt-sea-level-rise-in-our-time . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16691 Registered: May-04 | . Rick Perry said Obama aided drilling in Brazil PANTS ON FIRE!!! http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/sep/01/rick-perry-said-obam a-aided-drilling-brazil/ . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16692 Registered: May-04 | . A national study of 2,500 charter schools shows that "maybe 20 percent do better than the community public schools, 40 percent or so do worse and the rest are not having any significant difference." http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2011/sep/01/james-parisi/ri-un ion-leaders-says-national-study-shows-20-perc/ . |
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Gold Member Username: SuperjazzyjamesPost Number: 1750 Registered: Oct-10 | Found a good article, but it dissappeared! |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 677 Registered: Mar-04 | Jan as you well demonstrate there is more than one way to be a wh@re. You are not only cheap but easy as well, and even this would rate well on the truth o meter. Barone on the 'Audacity of Weakness' A third Obama weakness is his propensity to charge his political opponents with playing politics when he is doing exactly that himself. In previewing this latest jobs-and-the-economy speech, Carney said that Obama will make the case "that politics is broken, and that politics is getting in the way of the very necessary things we need to do." This from the president who has brushed aside one bipartisan initiative after another, from the health care initiative of Sens. Ron Wyden and Bob Bennett to the recommendations of his own fiscal commission headed by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. Instead he has taken a purely partisan course on one issue after another -- and heaped blame on Republicans. He invited House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan to his speech at George Washington University and then lambasted him harshly. Obama has been so consistently blaming Republicans in recent months for not approving the free-trade agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama that it came as an utter surprise to his assistant press secretary Josh Eager that he hasn't yet sent them to Congress. The cynicism it takes to declare oneself a non-partisan, or "the only adult in the room" and then launch partisan attack after partisan attack is breathtaking. And yet, his water carriers in the media claim that the reason his administration is in trouble is because he caves in to Republicans too much - that he is too "non-partisan." He is a "moderate" - who radically transformed the health care industry in America. He is reasonable - and he also overloaded the financial industry with regulations and saddled consumers with another agency designed to prevent us from making bad investments. He is brilliant - except every move he has made on the economy has proved how truly ignorant he is of even basic economic theory. He is nothing of the sort. He is a far left partisan liberal who has helped radicalize our politics and whose management of the economy is breaking us. And the American people are just waking up to that fact. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16695 Registered: May-04 | . You insult me because I have proven, through the use of impartial science and factual accounting, my contention that you - as a good little repub plebe - are fear based and mindlessly follow an authoritarian concept of morality which rationalizes the behavior of those such as G. Gordon Liddy and Scooter Libby to name just a few of the morally corrupt lawbreakers the right has built into heroes. When challenged with irrefutable facts, you double down on your baseless stupidity. "Serving the cause" is what you are all about. As such you spend your time here posting wingnut claims against Obama as a person. You can't even come up with a logical thought of your own. You need to copy/paste the hatred you find so appealing. You allow yourself to be distracted from the larger themes which threaten the world at large and the US in particular. "Has" vs "have" becomes a rationalization for you rather than solving issues or even coming to grips with their root causes. You have proven you are here only to enact some form of hatred for a person or persons you see as "the enemy" while ingoring what is actually at stake. Unable to reason or follow a simple thought to a rational conclusion, incapable of even knowing what you have posted, you have - on numerous occasions - shown just how stupid, vile and vacuous you have been and intend to remain. Those are - while you would never recognize them as such - facts which have been proven here by you as an indictment against your own existence on this thread. And, as Ron White says, "You can't fix stupid". You don't belong here, stupid. . |
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Gold Member Username: MagfanUSA Post Number: 2554 Registered: Oct-07 | Charter schools? Try homeschooling. http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp My niece completed her last year of HS in a homeschool environment and graduated, all while holding a part time job. The girl is a real go-getter and continues in college while working and living at home. Good kid with a great future. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 679 Registered: Mar-04 | Will Barack Obama condemn Joe Biden and Jimmy Hoffa for calling Republicans 'barbarians' and 'son of a b!tches' By Toby Harnden US politics Last updated: September 5th, 2011 I enjoy political hardball as much as the next reporter. Its barely concealed truth that campaign journalists, like the operatives we cover, love negative campaigning and revel in OTT insults and martial rhetoric. Even candidates often lapse into the language of rip his throat out, tear his eyes out or drive a stake through her heart. Its no secret either that many Republicans despise Democrats with a passion and vice versa. Just as British MPs hide their contempt of their opponents by referring to them as the honourable member, American politicians have their own, albeit less formal, ways of masking their true feelings with anodyne language for public consumption. But the statements today by Jimmy Hoffa Jr and Vice President Joe Biden demean the presidency and, tactically speaking, are stupid own goals. Hoffa, the Teamsters president, was warming up a Detroit crowd when he said: President Obama, this is your army, and we are ready to march. Everybody heres got a vote. If we go back, and we keep the eye on the prize, lets take these son of a b!tches out and give America back to America where we belong. Biden, whose mouth has long been a liability for Obama, was at an AFL-CIO rally when he told union members: You are the only folks keeping the barbarians from the gates the other side has declared war on labours house. These comments were not nearly as bad as the statement last week by Congressman Andre Carson that members of the Tea Party want black people hanging from a tree. Lets not get too sanctimonious here theyre fairly common sentiments behind the scenes on both sides of the political divide. The difference, of course, is that they were uttered publicly by someone chosen by the White House to introduce Obama and by the sitting vice-president at a time when Obama is calling for a bipartisan coming together to tackle the economy. To add to their foolishness, they follow on from Obamas sensible call in January for civility in public discourse and for people to talk in a way that heals, not a way that wounds. Hoffas comments were much worse than Bidens, though the vice-presidents demeanour suggests he could be a liability on the campaign trail (Id wager theres a campaign plan for him to be used only in rev up the base type events). Put together, they are embarrassing enough to require an apology from Obama. But will Obama have the political and moral courage to repudiate a powerful union boss and his own vice-president? Is the coward in chief going to bite the hand that feeds him ? Of course not, smokin barry does what his handlers tell him to do, like the puppet that he is. Oh by the way crazy woman I didn't insult you I told you the truth.... Cheap and easy. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16698 Registered: May-04 | . "Oh by the way crazy woman I didn't insult you I told you the truth ... " Jan as you well demonstrate there is more than one way to be a wh@re. You are not only cheap but easy as well ... " You abundantly and endlessly prove my point about your diminished mental capacity, squiddy. You do not have the ability to understand clear insults you use against your perceived enemies - those who merey disagree with you regarding how you aproach politics as a blood sport. Yet, you have the adolescent capacity for finding someone else's words to insult your preceived enemy. Then you have the brainless power to "copy/paste". And you can't even source your words nor indicate where their's end and your further insults begin. See here for more information regarding your post; https://www.ecoustics.com/electronics/forum/home-audio/642674.html#POST1970160 Truly, squiddy, it's easy to see why you and your peers were the inspriation and the "control" for the experiments performed on conservatives which demonstrate such personality disorders, "extreme black-white thinking, paranoia, 'overreacting,' (emotional instability), schizophrenia, the phenomenon known as 'amygdala hijack' essentially, overreaction to a perceived threat. Emotion-driven decision making" etc. You don't belong here. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16700 Registered: May-04 | . Obey your authoritarian leaders, squiddy. They instill fear and hatred and you blindly obey ... Fox Doctors Hoffa Speech To Fabricate Call For Violence Right-wing bloggers misled by dishonest Fox News video editing are attacking Teamsters President James Hoffa for supposedly urging violence against Tea Party activists during a Labor Day speech. Conservatives are also attacking President Obama, who appeared at the event, for "sanctioning violence against fellow Americans" by failing to denounce Hoffa. But fuller context included in other Fox segments makes clear that Hoffa wasn't calling for violence but was actually urging the crowd to vote out Republican members of Congress ... ... Fox News dishonestly edited the speech in the manner seen above. Andrew Breitbart's Big sites, Real Clear Politics, The Daily Caller, the Media Research Center, and the Drudge Report have all highlighted that footage, using it to condemn "the violence emanating from union thug bosses" and demand that Obama "denounce" the comments. In the Fox News segment that included the dishonestly cropped video, Republican consultant Brad Blakeman decried the comments as "thuggery at its best" and "the kind of remarks you'd expect out of Tony Soprano," and commented that "when a union president says 'let's take these sons of b*tches out,' that usually means someone's legs are going to get broken, somebody's going to disappear." Meanwhile, anchor Megyn Kelly somehow did not mention Henry's previous explanation that the comments were references to voting Republicans out of office ..." http://mediamatters.org/blog/201109050003 Remember, you exhibit "extreme black-white thinking, paranoia, 'overreacting,' (emotional instability), schizophrenia, the phenomenon known as 'amygdala hijack' essentially, overreaction to a perceived threat. Emotion-driven decision making" etc. You don't belong here. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16701 Registered: May-04 | . "The ratio of corporate profits to wages is now higher than at any time since just before the Great Depression." Robert Reich on Monday, August 29th, 2011 in an opinion column A reader asked us to check this out, so we did. We turned to statistics compiled by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the federal office that calculates official statistics about the economy. We found numbers for corporate profits as well as for two measures of worker income - wage and salary disbursements, and total employee compensation received. We then divided corporate profits by both of the income measurements, all the way back to 1929. (Here are the full statistics from 1929 to 2011 as we calculated them.) For wages, we found that Reich was essentially correct. The ratio in 2010 - the last full year in the statistics - was .281, which was higher than any year back to at least 1929, the earliest year in the BEA database. The next highest ratio was in 2006, at .265. (We didn't find pre-1929 data, so the one part of Reich's statement that we can't prove is that the ratio was higher "just before the Great Depression.") We also looked at total compensation, since the portion of worker compensation delivered outside of wages has grown significantly since 1929. The numbers were slightly different, but the general pattern still held. The ratio in 2010 was .226, which was matched or exceeded in only four years - 1941, 1942, 1943 and 1950. To capture the most up-to-date trends, we also looked at the ratios for the last six quarters. For both wages and compensation, the ratio has risen steadily over that year and a half period. For wages, the ratio has climbed from .274 in the first quarter of 2010 to .290 in the second quarter of 2011. For compensation, the ratio has risen from .220 in the first quarter of 2010 to .234 in the second quarter of 2011. So numerically, there's little question that Reich is essentially right. (Or, at least for now he is. Economists note that statistics about corporate profits and wages are often revised after the fact.) A more interesting question is what this trendline actually means. First, we’ll note that the ratio has been remarkably steady over the time we studied. In 2010, corporate income was 168 times what it was in 1929, and wages were 124 times what they were in 1929. But despite the dramatic increases for both measures individually, these two numbers have grown pretty much in tandem. While corporate profits have grown faster, they haven't grown dramatically faster. Over the eight decade period, the ratio between corporate profits and wages - at least prior to 2010 - almost always hovered between .150 and .235, a pretty narrow range, all things considered. Within this range, the ratio has regularly zigzagged up and down. The ratio has peaked during World War II, the early 1950s, the mid1960s, the mid1990s and the middle of the first decade of the 21st century. The 2010 high broke with this history, making the statistic Reich is talking about all the more striking. And as the quarterly data shows, the spike from 2010 has continued into 2011. This spike has its roots in basic mathematics. The ratio can rise for either of two reasons - because corporate profits rise, or because wages stagnate. To a greater degree than in past recessions, both of these developments have happened simultaneously in 2010 and 2011. That’s the immediate reason for the ratio's sudden increase. The ratio was well within historical norms as recently as 2009, the second year of the recession. Today, "indicators favorable to workers are either absolutely dreadful, like the percentage of the adult population that is employed, or else improving at a not very robust rate, like real compensation per hour, while indicators favorable to business owners, such as record profit levels measured in billions of current dollars, are very delightful indeed," said Gary Burtless, an economist at the centrist to liberal Brookings Institution. There are any number of explanations for why businesses are so reluctant to invest their profits today. For instance, Dan Mitchell, an economist at the libertarian Cato Institute, said the pattern of low corporate investment that we’re seeing today has to do with "a climate of economic uncertainty, largely thanks to the threat of more taxes and regulations." But the explanation that seems to mesh best with our numbers has to do with economic cycles. While the ratio Reich points to is exaggerated today due to an unusually deep recession and an especially sluggish recovery, the general pattern follows that of other recent recessions, said J.D. Foster, an economist with the conservative Heritage Foundation. Typically, businesses initially lose ground during a recession, while workers suffer somewhat less, in part due to "sticky wages" - the tendency for worker pay to increase or stagnate rather than fall, even in hard times. This pattern tends to decrease the ratio of corporate profits to wages. However, when the recovery begins, the reverse becomes true - businesses tend to gain ground faster than workers do, since soft labor markets prevent workers from reaping the rewards of improved productivity. This pushes the ratio of profits to wages higher. Since the current recovery is particularly weak, the increase in the ratio has been even stronger than normal. The hopeful news for workers, Foster says, is that once a recovery gathers steam and new capital-labor equilibrium is reached, workers tend to accelerate their gains. "Once a strong recovery is under way and labor markets return to normal, total labor compensation tends to catch up, as employers bid for employees out of the extra profit margin they accumulated during the recovery," Foster said. "So once we start heading toward full employment, we can expect total labor compensation to rise very rapidly relative to total income." So where does this leave us? On the numbers, Reich's claim is essentially correct. And in his analysis, Reich doesn’t over promise on what the data indicate. Amid evidence that these numbers could turn out to be a temporary spike, he resists the temptation to label it the culmination of a long term trend. We find Reich's formulation both factually supportable and appropriately cautious in its interpretation. We give it a rating of True. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/sep/01/robert-reich/robe rt-reich-says-ratio-corporate-profits-wages-hi/ If you'd like to dispute the statement, squiddy, dispute the statement. Don't just mumble something incoherent about Politicfact being "baised" and "leftwing". Prove the statement itself false and score some points for doing reserach that doesn't come from the right wingnut parade of clowns and hypocrits which you cannot seem to pull away from. Otherwise, you do not belong here with your fears and hatred. . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 680 Registered: Mar-04 | White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked by ABC's Jake Tapper to give a response to Teamsters President James Hoffa's controversial comment at yesterday's union rally in Detroit, Michigan in which President Obama also attended. Tapper asked for the White House's reaction in light of President Obama calling for civility in political rhetoric after the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. "First of all, those weren't comments by the president," Carney told Tapper. "The President wasn't there. I mean, he wasn't on stage. He didn't speak for another twenty minutes. He didn't hear it." "Mr. Hoffa speaks for himself. He speaks for the labor movement," Carney said about the Teamsters President. "The president speaks for himself. I speak for the president," he added." "Were the comments appropriate," Carney was asked. "Can we move on," Carney responded as he tried to get a question from another reporter. Big labor tells barry to jump, barry says how high.... Still going to the St Petersburg times for your "facts".... Cheap and easy... |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16702 Registered: May-04 | . Fear mongers say jump - even against your own best interests, don't pay any attention to what we're really doing and you say, "OK". Stupid, full of hate, full of sh*t and afraid. It was easy. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16703 Registered: May-04 | . Since you're so gung-ho on people being told to shut up, squiddy, answer me this; who's going to tell the Koch brothers to keep their yaps shut when the Koch brothers own every repub politician? Exclusive Audio: Inside the Koch Brothers' Secret Seminar "We have Saddam Hussein," declared billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, apparently referring to President Barack Obama as he welcomed hundreds of wealthy guests to the latest of the secret fundraising and strategy seminars he and his brother host twice a year. The 2012 elections, he warned, will be "the mother of all wars." Charles Koch would probably not publicly compare the president of the United States to a murderous dictator. (As a general rule, he and his brother don't do much politicking or speechifying in public at all.) But Mother Jones has obtained exclusive audio recordings from the Koch seminar, a private event that took place in June at a resort near Vail, Colorado. These unprecedented recordings provide a behind the scenes look at how the Koch brothers and their comrades talk when they gather ..} http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/exclusive-audio-koch-brothers-seminar-ta pes (with audio) . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16707 Registered: May-04 | . Should the repubs repudiate Christie? No, according to the article, they cheered him on ... Audio: Chris Christie Lets Loose at Secret Koch Brothers Confab At this point, Christie promised to tell a "good" story about Sweeney, his Democratic partner/rival in the state Senate. It involved the state's recent overhaul of public employees' pensions and health benefits to close what Christie described as a $54 billion deficit in the fund. By day, he said, he would go "out on the stump and beat the bejeezus out of" Sweeney, a former union leader... Christie went on to explain how he'd convinced the state's Democratic majority leaders, against the wishes of most of their caucus, to help him slash public sector pensions and benefits. And he drew a bead on his next major target: public school teachers and their union. "That's where we head next," Christie said. "We need to take on the teachers' union once and for all, and we need to decide who is determining our children's future, who is running this place. Them or us? I say it's us." He presented his accomplishments in New Jersey as a model for curing the nation's ills: "We know the answers. They're painful answers. We're going to have to reduce Medicare benefits. We're going to have to reduce Medicaid benefits. We're going to have to raise the Social Security age. We're going to have to do these things. We're going to have to cut all types of other government programs that some people in this room might like." ... The speech was classic Christie, but the governor expressed his views to the Koch crowd with a candor that politicians - especially those with a reputation for having mainstream appeal - usually reserve for very select audiences: He called New Jersey Democratic legislators "stupid" ... The crowd cheered loudly as Koch, whose estimated $22 billion personal fortune derives from his family's oil refinery empire, described Christie's unilateral withdrawal, on behalf of New Jersey, from a regional cap-and-trade market created by 10 northeastern states to curb industrial greenhouse gas emissions ... (Christie) "claimed to have told his aides, referring to the majority Democrats in the state Legislature: Listen. We've got to fix this problem, but I do not want to deal with those people down the hall… And so they told me, "If you declare a fiscal state of emergency, you can use your emergency powers as governor to impound $2.2 billion in planned spending and balance the budget. And you can do it by executive order."" I said, "Man, I love this state!" So, I went in my office, all by myself, and set up the executive order, and I signed it. But I thought it would be rude for me not to go down and tell that coequal branch of government what I had just done. [Scattered chuckles.] So I asked them for a joint session speech…I basically said this: "You left me with a $2.2 billion problem. You want me to raise taxes. I'm not going to. I just impounded the money by executive order. I fixed your problem. Thanks, have a nice day." And I walked out ... The money Christie impounded had been slated, among other things, for local school districts, hospitals, and the state's commuter rail system, as well as colleges and universities ... [The Democrats] were gonna raise what, in New Jersey, we call "the Millionaires' Tax."…But the New Jersey "Millionaires' Tax" applies to anyone, individual or business, who makes over $400,000 a year. That's called New Jersey math. [Laughter.] Christie—who, according to the Star-Ledger, had promised to work out last-minute details with Sweeney—instead used his line-item veto to make what Sweeney called vindictive cuts targeting people and institutions who had sided against the governor during the negotiations. In one instance, Christie cut a fellowship program run by a Rutgers University professor who had served as a referee in the state's contentious redistricting fight. He also "mowed down a series of Democratic add ons, including $45 million in tax credits for the working poor, $9 million in health care for the working poor, $8 million for women's health care, another $8 million in AIDS funding and $9 million in mental health services," wrote Star-Ledger columnist Tom Moran. "But the governor added $150 million in school aid for the suburbs, including the wealthiest towns in the state. That is enough to restore all the cuts just listed." "Now, pain will be inflicted when we change that," he went on. "People are going to do with less. People who are used to having entitlement at a certain level will not have them at that level anymore. That's the story." Christie cited Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's "courageous" and "thoughtful plan" to "fix those systems" by replacing Medicare with a voucher program. } http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/audio-chris-christie-koch-brothers-seminar?page=1 . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 681 Registered: Mar-04 | Mother Jones (abbreviated MoJo) is a leading American independent news organization, featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,[1] 2008,[2] and 2010.[1] In addition, Mother Jones also won the Online News Association Award for Online Topical Reporting in 2010[3] and the Utne Reader Independent Press Award for General Excellence in 2011.[4] With a paid circulation of 200,000, Mother Jones magazine is the most widely read liberal publication in the United States. Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery serve as co-editors. Madeleine Buckingham has served as Chief Executive Officer and Steve Katz as Publisher since 2010. The magazine was named after Mary Harris Jones, called Mother Jones, an Irish-American trade union activist, opponent of child labor, and self-described "hellraiser." She was a part of the Knights of Labor[5], the Industrial Workers of the World[5], the Social Democratic Party[5], the Socialist Party of America[5], the United Mine Workers of America[5], and the Western Federation of Miners[5]. The stated mission of Mother Jones is to produce revelatory journalism that in its power and reach informs and inspires a more just and democratic world.[6] Mother Jones is published by the Foundation for National Progress, a nonprofit 501©(3) organization. Mother Jones and the FNP are based in San Francisco, with other offices in Washington D.C. and New York. You found yourself another left leaning rag to cite.... Good work crazy woman. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16708 Registered: May-04 | . Awwwww, another publication "biased" against your type of nonsense. How many is that now? Oh, yes, every site that doesn't preach your malarkey and march in lockstep to the repub game. That would, in other words, be those "biased" sites with actual facts and not those party-line talking heads with 76% BS lies. It must be tough being the ever downtrodden people. Sort of like Moses leading his people out of the wilderness I suppose. If Moses were the Koch brothers, that is. Twice yearly, highly secretive meeetings of the "elites", eh? Loudspeakers outside blasting static to keep eavesdropping down? Participants cheering the reduction or downright theft of what has been promised to the eldery, the sick and the poor - not to mention the unemployed. All while providing the corporations and the millionaires the money taken from Medicaid funding. All by the decree of one man. That's called fascism in any other part of the world. But the repubs applaud such actions here in the US. What the he11 is wrong with you people? You do, once again, ignore the facts. The MJ site has audio of the actual words being spoken. Trying to deny these words are the actual thoughts of the participants is like denying Media Matters is quoting and providing transcripts of the actual words to which they provide videos. Words such as Rushbo describing retirees as "parasites" who are "non-productive". What the he11 is wrong with you people? No, small minded one lacking the capacity to reason your way out of a paper bag, this is what the repubs stand for and you are nothing more than another unknown, unimportant, disposable piece of flotsam doing their bidding against your own self interest. So, who should censure the Koch's and Christie? You - and your party - are awfully quick to want to shut others up. How about doing the same with your own masters? Should it be Boehner? Or maybe Cantor? "Ponzi scheme" Perry? Who, squiddy, who? . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16709 Registered: May-04 | . Mich. governor signs 48-month welfare limit LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Gov. Rick Snyder on Tuesday signed into law a stricter, four-year lifetime limit on cash welfare benefits, prompting advocates for the poor to warn that tens of thousands of residents will find themselves without cash assistance on Oct. 1 ... "We are returning cash assistance to its original intent as a transitional program to help families while they work toward self sufficiency," Snyder said in a statement. He noted that the state still will help the poor by offering food stamps, health care coverage through Medicaid, child care and emergency services ... The 2010 election of Snyder and the simultaneous Republican takeover of the Michigan House gave the GOP a free hand to set its own course on public assistance. The change gives Michigan the Midwest's toughest welfare time limit, according to a survey by The Detroit News. It said there are five year limits in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin. Indiana has a two year limit for adults - but none for children. Gilda Jacobs of the Michigan League for Human Services said she expects about 41,000 people to lose their cash assistance payments on Oct. 1 when the state's new budget year begins. That includes 29,700 children, according to the Michigan Department of Human Services. "We're very, very concerned," Jacobs said. "As the days go by, new people will be meeting the 48 month limit. ... More will be falling off that cliff." The new law will reduce the number of children and adults receiving cash assistance by nearly a fifth, from more than 221,000 to around 180,000. Enforcing a four year limit will save the state more than $60 million annually, according to a House Fiscal Agency analysis. Jacobs said it's hard to see how 11,000 adults will find a job when Michigan's July unemployment rate was 10.9 percent, tied with South Carolina for third highest in the nation. "We still have to preserve a safety net for people who, through no fault of their own, can't find a job," she said, noting that most cash assistance goes to help poor residents pay their rent. "There's obviously a lot of anxiety out there. Folks aren't sure exactly what this means to them." State officials say they're working with nonprofit organizations to direct welfare recipients to other services and provide a "soft landing" as they lose benefits. Recipients will be connected with other resources, given housing and job placement assistance for up to three months beyond October and mentored by trained job navigators. "Michigan continues to face financial challenges, and the fiscal reality is that we cannot afford to provide lifetime cash assistance to recipients who are able to work," Health and Human Services director Maura Corrigan said in a statement. "Enforcing lifetime limits for cash assistance ensures that available funds are targeted toward those recipients who need a helping hand while they find employment." Michigan ranked 38th in child poverty for 2009, defined as income below $21,756 for a family of two adults and two children. About 23 percent of Michigan's children lived in poverty in 2009, compared with 20 percent nationally. In 2000, only 14 percent of Michigan children lived in poverty. The average age of a child in a family receiving cash assistance is around 7 years old. Snyder, a Republican, has said reducing the number of children living in poverty is a priority of his administration. The Michigan Catholic Conference has objected to the four year limit. The conference said the effect will be felt for years by society and by children who lose services. http://news.yahoo.com/mich-governor-signs-48-month-welfare-limit-231915012.html "Reducing the number of children living in poverty is a priority"? And this program accomplishes that goal how? Really, would someone explain how this is going to accomplish that goal. What? they'll die? Or, they'll move to another state and become that state's problem? The law applies equally to adults and children. Is a five year old now supposed to find a job? Is this just repub plan to get around child labor laws and minimum wage provisions? I am truly in the dark here. How does this program accomplish a reduction in the number of children living in poverty? . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16710 Registered: May-04 | . http://www.politico.com/wuerker/archive/20110906-the-land-of-sacrifice.html |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 682 Registered: Mar-04 | One Reason Why Keynesian Stimuli Aren't Working: They Aren't Keynesian Nick Gillespie | September 7, 2011 In The Washington Times, businessman Mike Whalen (who's associated the free-market think tank NCPA) writes up an interesting take on why various federal stimulus program have tanked like the Titanic (while causing few ripples on the way down). His points are worth thinking about. According to the Keynesians, the remedy for todays economic problem is for the federal government, as the single biggest actor, to prime the pump. As government money starts to ripple through the economy, consumers and businesses will be encouraged and cautiously respond with limited increases of their own. Vroom! The economic engine steadily revs up in billions of responsive steps until happy days are here again. This pump-priming reaction is termed the multiplier effect. There are many reasons to doubt that the multiplier exists at all and if it does, it certainly isn't at the levels the Obama administration has claimed. As Reason's economics columnist Veronique de Rugy has pointed out, the administration claimed that one dollar of government spending would create as much as four dollars in economic activity while other economists were coming in with multipliers of between 0.8 and 1.2, meaning that each dollar of government spending might yield just 80 cents to $1.20 in activity. Even if accurate, that buck-twenty is nothing to write home about, especially given the fact that government spending has to be pulled out of some other part of the economy via current or future taxes or borrowing. Which casts huge doubt on the possibility of any stimulus to work. But Whalen isn't simply dumping on Keynesianism, he's bent on pointing out that even its latter-day adherents are straying far from their master's theory. And in this, he's surely correct. As Allen Meltzer has argued, Keynes was against the very sort of large structural deficits that characterize contemporary federal budgets and policy, believing instead that deficits should be "temporary and self-liquidating." And Keynes believed that any sort of counter-cyclical spending by government should be directed toward increasing private investment, not simply spending current and future tax dollars on public works projects. Or, to put it another way: If the federal government had a strong track record of responsible spending, it would mean one thing if it went into hock for a short period of time to goose the economy (again, whether this would work is open to question). It means something totally different when a government that spent all of the 21st century piling on debt and new, long-term entitlement programs responds to an economic downturn first by creating yet another gargantuan entitlement (Obamacare) and taking on even more debt in the here-and-now. This cuts in a Milton Friedmanesque, monetarist direction too. If the Federal Reserve had not been keeping money artificially cheap for the past couple of decades and it worked to lower interest rates and increase the availability of money in a given moment, that would mean one thing. Promising to keep rates low for the next couple of years - after years of loose money and statements that all those bubbles weren't bubbles at all - doesn't mean the same thing. Whalen again: I think John Maynard Keynes would be horrified at the slavish adherence to this simplistic strategy by so many policymakers and economic thinkers, as his theory was much more complex. This thinking might be correct under circumstances other than those in which we find ourselves. If the ratio of our national debt to gross domestic product was low - say 25 percent - and the federal government had run surpluses before the downturn, this college freshman-level Keynesian analysis would have great weight. Put another way, if Uncle Sam were a rock-solid financial entity with low debt to value and he had judiciously used debt for capital improvements that were accretive in value, as the biggest dog on the porch, a stimulus might work. But with a national debt of more than $14 trillion and unfunded, future off the books debt of Social Security and Medicare combined at $104 trillion in present value, according to the Dallas Federal Reserve, Uncle Sam aint the man he used to be. This in turn makes American businesses that are sitting on a pile of cash focus on deleveraging. The American consumer is doing the same. In fact, from where I sit, it appears as though everyone except Uncle Sam is working like mad to strengthen his balance sheets. The legitimate fear across the country is that Washingtons refusal to join our common-sense parade will result in higher taxes, more regulations, more inflation and Japanese-style stagflation. In other words, Washingtons attempts at stimulus through spending are having the opposite effect. Businesses and consumers stay hunkered down. If the federal government announced a real road map to fiscal soundness, the impact would be truly stimulating. If American businesses and consumers saw that Washington was really cutting, not just reducing future increases, there would be tremendous relief and an increase in confidence across the country. Job creators would sing hallelujah; they would get off their wallets, start hiring, and then you}d see that Keynesian multiplier kick in. Except, of course, that it wouldn't be Keynesian at all. Which I don't think anyone would care about |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16724 Registered: May-04 | . Lies, Damn Lies, And Statistics:: Social Security Edition September 09, 2011 10:56 am ET by Hardeep Dhillon On his radio show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh claimed that Social Security is "unsustainable" because "we've gone from spreading out the burden of payment from 140 taxpayers to three and that number is getting smaller." But Robert Ball, former Commissioner of Social Security under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, has pointed out that this argument is ""highly inaccurate" ... http://mediamatters.org/blog/201109090007 "There's nothing about the present situation that is any more dangerous than it was "when the program was thought to be in jeopardy in years past", Ball says. "There are lots of ways to fix it other than privatization."' Hidden Agenda? Says Alan Blinder, a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve and critic of private accounts: "The true agenda here, I think, is to put a very big camel's nose under the tent. You start with partial privatization, and in a generation's time you have no Social Security system. The agenda is to go back to the 1920s." Ball, who was Social Security commissioner from 1962 to 1973, has a unique perspective on the issue, says Edward Berkowitz, a George Washington University professor who wrote the 2003 book Robert Ball and the Politics of Social Security http://uwpress.wisc.edu/socialsecurity.html#anchor425030 Mitt flier: Perry 'wants to kill Social Security'; http://www.politico.com/2012-election/ . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 683 Registered: Mar-04 | Guy Benson Repulsive: Richard Trumka's Hyper-Political 9/11 Essay 9/9/2011 | Email Guy Benson | All Posts By Blogger As you read this 9/11 "memorial" missive to rank-and-file union members, bear in mind that its author -- AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka -- was an honored presidential guest at last night's campaign rally disguised as a "jobs speech." This is much, much more offensive than Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.'s juvenile "SOB's" slur on Monday. Without further ado, I present top White House ally Richard Trumka's reflections on the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001 (emphasis mine): All of us will remember the horror and anguish we experienced 10 years ago. Whether we lost loved ones ourselvesfamily members, union brothers and sisters or felt the shock of a society that lost nearly 3,000 people and was forever changed, we need no reminding. Instead, I would like to reflect on doors that were opened on Sept. 11, 2001, and what has come of them in the 10 years since. Working men and women rushed through doors to danger and became Americas everyday heroes. Firefighters, construction workers, nurses and EMTs all kinds of professionals and volunteers were there not just on the fateful day but some for weeks and months and even years after. And we swore we would never forget. Doors opened within us to each other. We came together. We flew the flag. We comforted one another. In our grief, we found the best in ourselves. What an overwhelming sense of unity we shared, all across our nation. And it was this unity that allowed us to begin healing and rebuilding. There is no time in my memory of a more proud example of what we can accomplish when we work together. Solidarity, the cornerstone of the union movement, flowed through all of us and carried us through. So far, so good. Then, the floodgates open: But other doors opened, too doors to hate, suspicion of others and self-centered greed. Our fear was twisted into something much more dangerous. The unity that had helped us survive faded as divisiveness took root. I look around today in amazement at just how far apart our nation has become the endless possibilities that came with our unity have all but vanished. Just 10 years after 9/11, despite our vows, the public servants, construction workers and others who lost their lives or still suffer with the cancerous remnants of the Twin Towers haven't just been forgotten. They've been vilified. The extremist small government posse has turned them into public enemy No. 1, as though teachers and firefighters, EMTs and nurses and union construction workers ruined Americas economy. In state after state this year with the heroism of 9/11 less than a decade behind us politicians targeted the paychecks, benefits and basic rights of these workers in a rabid campaign to shift government support to tax breaks for the wealthy and already profitable corporations. Wealthy CEOs, anti-government extremist front groups and frothing talk show hosts from the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks to the Koch brothers, Karl Roves American Crossroads group, Americans for Prosperity, the Club for Growth, Freedom Works and the American Legislative Exchange Council also pushed open the door to hate. Make no mistake setting workers against workers is a highly profitable endeavor. How many times during the vilest state attacks on public workers did we hear the question: Other people don't have pensions. Why should he? Prompting that question required twisting the American psyche which, by its founding nature, seeks to lift the common good. The appropriate question should have been, Why doesn't everybody have a pension? followed by collective action for retirement security. We've seen the costs of hatred in ill-thought wars, in shameful attacks on immigrants and our LGBT neighbors. We saw it in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. We saw it in the racism that has found overt and covert expression since Barack Obama began his run for office from outright declarations of people who said out loud they would never vote for a black man to the ridiculously persistent obsession with our presidents birth certificate. Regardless of his policies or priorities, President Obama is shadowed by the drumbeat of suspicion based on his other-ness. And those suspicions are fed and watered constantly by forces that were threatened by his message of hope and change. We've seen the cost of greed in the recklessness of financial institutions that created the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression and the devastating jobs crisis that persists today. But I remember that other door that opened on 9/11 the door to our better selves, to our understanding that we are one and our values require us to care for one another. Thats what sent 347 firefighters to their death at the Twin Towers 10 years ago. It's also what sent firefighters to stand with teachers in Wisconsin even though Gov. Scott Walker had exempted them from his attack on public employees. It's what moves employed people now to demand good jobs for the 26 million Americans who are looking for work. It's what gives us the courage to take on a crumbling economy and the politicians preaching austerity and ignoring our jobs crisis to take them on and say, We are America. We are better than this. And we are one. Brothers and sisters, friends, I hope you will join me in marking this solemn anniversary by committing to redouble your activism on behalf of Americas everyday working heroes. We will rise or fall together. This is appalling, and requires no further commentary. It truly speaks for itself. My only concern was that it was so cartoonish and vile that it might not be authentic. I called the AFL-CIO, and a representative told me it "appears to be legitimate." She said she'd get back to me with final confirmation, but conceded that it's a fair assumption that Trumka is, in fact, the piece's author. Egads. UPDATE - I received the following confirmation from an AFL-CIO spokesperson: "The September 11 (9/11) page on the AFL-CIOs website is valid, per our phone conversation earlier. Thank you for your patience as we verified this." |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 684 Registered: Mar-04 | Obama: The Obsolete 'Post Office President' By Robert Tracinski The preposterous irrelevance of President Obama's jobs speech is summed up by the fact that he repeatedly urged Congress to "pass this jobs bill right away"--but there is no bill. By the admission of his own aides, Obama's jobs bill is still being drafted. It won't be submitted until next week, and his plan for how to pay for it won't be submitted until the week after that. (Even then, the plan is mostly to pass the buck to the "super-committee" created by this summer's debt ceiling compromise.) All of this gave his exhortations an air of "buy now!" hucksterism. For a moment there, I wasn't sure whether he was selling us a jobs bill or the Slap Chop. Except that Vince Shlomi is a much better salesman. Yet there is a much deeper and more profound irrelevance to the president's proposals. They are all based on the premise that the government can come up with a few targeted initiatives and select some worthy projects to fund through a federal "infrastructure bank," and this will somehow press the magic levers that produce economic growth. None of this has any relation to the actual dynamism of a free economy, because Obama does not grasp the source of that dynamism. We're about to get a really big reminder of how the constant change and progress or a free society overturns the static calculations of government bureaucrats. The US Postal Service is bankrupt. At its current rate, it will have to shut down this winter because it will run out of cash to pay its bills. This has been coming for a long time, and not just because of a bloated union payroll. First-class mail is the core business of the Postal Service, and the Internet has simply made it unnecessary. From everyday communications to bills and bank statements, practically everything can now be done by e-mail or online. Even our junk mail is digital now. So while President Obama is talking about a jobs bill, an obsolete government-run entity is about to lay off hundreds of thousands of superfluous workers. This is a monument to the folly that politicians and bureaucrats are able to make judgments about the most productive investments in infrastructure and economic growth. They can't make these predictions because no one can. Recently Newsweek posted on its website on old article from its 1995 print issue informing us that this whole "Internet" thing is an overblown fad, because "no online database will replace your daily newspaper" and "the myopic glow of a clunky computer" can't replace "the friendly pages of a book." She'll never fly, Orville. But even those who got the predictions right didn't get them right. Recently, a series of 1993 commercials for AT&T have been making the rounds on the Internet. The ads predict virtually every part of our current online existence, from e-books to EZ-Pass. But the details are a bit off: the ads predict tablet PCs, but assume they will be used to send faxes. Try not to giggle. And these old ads were sent out by Newsweek on a special CD-ROM edition, back when they were predicting that magazines would someday be delivered by CD-ROM. The most ironic twist is the ad's tagline: "and the company that will bring it to you: AT&T." In fact, these things were brought to us by everybody but AT&T. AT&T's actual role today is as one of a small number of major data-carriers, who transmit the information for all of those other functions. They have recently tried to improve their position against stronger competitors (such as Verizon, which stole a lot of iPhone traffic away from them) through a merger with T-Mobile. But just as with the Post Office, the federal government is not up to speed with the era of tablet PCs and e-mail and video teleconferencing. They're trying to block the merger to keep AT&T from becoming a big, scary monopoly, as if we were still back in the age of Ma Bell. These are the same people who, in 2005, blocked a merger between Blockbuster Video and Hollywood Video, because no one should be allowed to dominate the highly profitable business of retail VHS rental stores. This was only six years ago, when Netflix was already starting to destroy Blockbuster's business, leading it to declare bankruptcy this year, long after the company ceased to be a presence in most of our lives. And now Netflix itself is in trouble, as more people are beginning to download movies over their Internet connections, where competition is plentiful and Netflix has no particular market advantage. Such is the frantic cycle of innovation in the private economy. Some day, a few decades from now, someone will make a movie set in 2009, and one of the visual giveaways will be those little red envelopes arriving--by way of the Postal Service!--with silver discs inside of them. We will all chuckle with the recognition of a time gone by, while 15-year-old kids will snort and roll their eyes and wonder how their elders ever survived in such primitive conditions. Meanwhile, the federal government will still be trying to figure out how to subsidize the Postal Service and keep Netflix from becoming a monopoly. The pace of commercial and technological innovation is not news. It is a daily reality that we take for granted. But the story underneath it is what politicians like Barack Obama refuse to acknowledge, and it is what makes all of their fake jobs programs and "infrastructure banks" so futile and destructive. What they refuse to grasp is the root of America's dynamism: the endless creativity of the individual human mind when it is left free to innovate. The government does not need to intervene to get people to come up with new ideas or to encourage entrepreneurs to grow and become successful. It only needs to get out of the way. When, instead, geniuses like Barack Obama decided they are going to use the power of government to impose their ideas and grow only the kinds of enterprises they favor, the result is not brisk innovation but the dead hand of static ideas. That is the lesson of the government's failed experiment with solar panel maker Solyndra, which President Obama touted last year as the wave of the future, and whose technology was rendered obsolete before they even finished building their gleaming new factory backed by $600 million in federal loan guarantees. And it's not just Solyndra. The whole solar and "alternative" energy sector is crashing. These companies were not profitable and have not become profitable. The moment government subsidies and loan guarantees evaporate, so do they. So much for Obama's career as a high-tech venture capitalist. Too bad the money he's risking is ours. The whole "alternative energy" boondoggle is based directly on the failure to anticipate or acknowledge individual thinking and new ideas. The push for alternatives to oil and natural gas was based partly on the premise that we were facing an impending shortage of these resources. But breathless predictions of "peak oil" have been shattered by new techniques of exploration and extraction, such as "fracking," that have opened up vast new reserves. The other basis for "alternative energy" was the supposed need to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide in order to avoid runaway global warming. But here, too, the federal government has stuck to a theory Al Gore glommed onto in 1988, while ignoring powerful new ideas that have superseded it. In this case, I am speaking of the truly path-breaking theories of Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark. Over the past 15 years, Svensmark has quietly made the whole global warming theory obsolete by developing a new theory about how cosmic rays--fast-moving charged particles from deep space--react with the atmosphere to create the "nucleation sites" that lead to the formation of clouds, cooling the Earth. Svensmark has begun to demonstrate in detail how this effect, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the mileage of your SUV, explains variations in cloud cover and variations in global temperatures. Svensmark's theory just passed a new milestone, with some of its key claims being demonstrated in a "cloud chamber" experiment at Europe's CERN particle accelerator. This was not reported in the left-leaning media, but is extensively covered by Daily Telegraph blogger James Delingpole and summarized in the Wall Street Journal. Yet here is Barack Obama, our Post Office President, bitterly clinging to the theories of the past and doubling down his investments in failure, while new ideas and innovations pass him by. Such is the fate of anyone who presumes to place the static judgments of an entrenched bureaucracy over the rational thinking and creative efforts of free minds. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16734 Registered: May-04 | . Poll: Congress sinks even lower http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63679.html . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 685 Registered: Mar-04 | Back to the Future? By Thomas Sowell Those who are impressed by words seem to think that President Barack Obama made a great speech to Congress last week. But, when you look beyond the rhetoric, what did he say that was fundamentally different from what he has been saying and doing all along? Are we to continue doing the same kinds of things that have failed again and again, just because Obama delivers clever words with style and energy? Once we get past the glowing rhetoric, what is the president proposing? More spending! Only the words have changed -- from "stimulus" to "jobs" and from "shovel-ready projects" to "jobs for construction workers." If government spending were the answer, we would by now have a booming economy with plenty of jobs, after all the record trillions of dollars that have been poured down a bottomless pit. Are we to keep on doing the same things, just because those things have been repackaged in different words? Or just because Obama now assures us that "everything in this bill will be paid for"? This is the same man who told us that he could provide health insurance to millions more people without increasing the cost. When it comes to specific proposals, President Obama repeats the same kinds of things that have marked his past policies -- more government spending for the benefit of his political allies, the construction unions and the teachers' unions, and "thousands of transportation projects." The fundamental fallacy in all of this is the notion that politicians can "grow the economy" by taking money out of the private sector and spending it wherever it is politically expedient to spend it -- so long as they call spending "investment." Has Obama ever grown even a potted plant, much less a business, a bank, a hospital or any of the numerous other institutions whose decisions he wants to control and override? But he can talk glibly about growing the economy. Arrogance is no substitute for experience. That is why the country is in the mess it is in now. Obama says he wants "federal housing agencies" to "help more people refinance their mortgages." What does that amount to in practice, except having the taxpayers be forced to bail out people who bought homes they could not afford? No doubt that is good politics, but it is lousy economics. When people pay the price of their own mistakes, that is when there is the greatest pressure to correct those mistakes. But when taxpayers who had nothing to do with those mistakes are forced to pay the costs, that is when those and other mistakes can continue to flourish -- and to mess up the economy. Whatever his deficiencies in economics, Barack Obama is a master of politics -- including the great political game of "Heads I win and tails you lose." Any policy that shows any sign of achieving its goals will of course be trumpeted across the land as a success. But, in the far more frequent cases where the policy fails or turns out to be counterproductive, the political response is: "Things would have been even worse without this policy." It's heads I win and tails you lose. Thus, when unemployment went up after the massive spending that was supposed to bring it down, we were told that unemployment would have been far worse if it had not been for that spending. Are we really supposed to fall for ploys like this? The answer is clearly "yes," as far as Obama and his allies in the media are concerned. Our intelligence was insulted even further in President Obama's speech to Congress, when he set up this straw man as what his critics believe -- that "the only thing we can do to restore prosperity is just dismantle government, refund everybody's money, and let everyone write their own rules, and tell everyone they're on their own." Have you heard anybody in any part of the political spectrum advocate that? If not, then why was the President of the United States saying such things, unless he thought we were fools enough to buy it -- and that the media would never call him on it? |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 686 Registered: Mar-04 | Swing Voters Recoil From Unions, and Obama By Jack Kelly Unions are all that protect America from "barbarians," Vice President Joe Biden said at a Labor Day rally in Cincinnati. But the only barbarian in evidence that day was Teamsters' President Jimmy Hoffa, who threatened to "take out" tea party critics of President Barack Obama's spending, albeit through the ballot box. Mr. Hoffa was a warmup speaker for the president at the Labor Day rally in Detroit. Though he rarely misses an opportunity to lecture others on civility, Mr. Obama had no comment on Mr. Hoffa's remarkable incivility. And though the president didn't adopt Mr. Hoffa's threatening tone, he did imply his critics are unpatriotic. A crowd that Detroit police estimated at 13,000 responded warmly to Mr. Obama. But when Candidate Obama spoke there in 2008, more than 30,000 came to hear him. Unions have had few better friends than Mr. Obama. One of his first acts as president was to stiff Chrysler's bondholders to provide a windfall to the United Auto Workers. His National Labor Relations Board stretches the law to load the dice for unions. But Mr. Obama has not been an effective friend, which is why the smiles of labor bigwigs seemed forced. They'd dreamed big dreams on Labor Day 2008. By Labor Day 2011, there were more nightmares than dreams. Unions often lose representation elections, so their number one goal was "card check," which would dispense with secret ballots. Had Mr. Obama pushed card check when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, it surely would have passed. He concentrated instead on Obamacare. This cost him popularity and Democrats the House. Obamacare played a role in the pitiful end, for labor, of the Verizon strike. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communications Workers of America went on strike Aug. 7 to protest the company's plans to make union workers pay for health insurance. The change was needed, management said, because Obamacare will impose a 40 percent tax on "Cadillac" plans like Verizon's. The strike was nasty. Management reported hundreds of acts of sabotage. A judge enjoined an IBEW local from, among other things, "throwing feces." But it was doomed, because union members are concentrated in Verizon's rapidly shrinking landline business. The unions called the strike off Aug. 20. More than half of all union members today belong to public employee unions. These suffered a blow when Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill passed in Wisconsin. Among other things, the Wisconsin Education Association may no longer automatically deduct dues from teachers' paychecks. When public employees are not required to pay union dues, most choose not to, noted columnist George F. Will. He wrote about how membership in the Colorado Association of Public Employees declined 70 percent after Colorado, in 2001, required annual votes reauthorizing collection of dues. Indiana stopped collecting dues from unionized public employees in 2005. There's been a 90 percent drop in dues paying members since then. When Washington state in 1992 ended automatic dues deductions for political activities, the percentage of teachers making such contributions fell from 82 to 11. In Wisconsin, too. The teachers union announced Aug. 15 it would lay off 40 percent of its staff. The teaching assistants union at the University of Wisconsin announced Aug. 22 it would decertify. Labor leaders fret they've gotten a poor return on the $400 million they spent to elect Democrats in 2008. Unions will reduce contributions to Democrats in 2012, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Aug. 25. How vigorously unions support Mr. Obama depends on whether he abandons his current strategy of promoting "little nibbly things," Mr. Trumka said. But the big things labor wants -- card check, a bailout of the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., massive pork barrel projects -- are out of reach. With GOP control of the House, the outlook even for "little nibbly things" is cloudy. Labor's problems stem from our massive debt and dismal economy. They are exacerbated by thuggish behavior, and by the unwillingness of unions to tighten their belts as other Americans must. President Obama is polling in Jimmy Carter territory. Unions are less popular now than in many decades. Mutual weakness will draw Democrats and unions closer, despite labor's discontents. But the closer to each other they get, the more swing voters will recoil from both. |
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Platinum Member Username: ArtkAlbany, Oregon USA Post Number: 14709 Registered: Feb-05 | As an aside. I work in the Welfare business and can tell you that the time limits are already a Federal law that States must apply for a waiver to to avoid. The Federal limit is 5 yrs and States have the right to limit TANF (the old ADC program) to any number under 5 yrs. Idaho's limit is 2 yrs. Oregon (where I work) braced for a large number of Idaho refugees when the 2 yr limit starting expiring on Idaho families. Didn't happen, our analysts studies showed that by and large folks found jobs. They weren't good jobs but they were the jobs that the recipients had the skills to work. At one time Oregon had one of the most aggressive JOBS programs in America. We went from over 40,000 families on TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) to under 15,000. Then we hit a wall. The folks who were easy to train and to prepare for the work world had gone through the program and were successful. What we were left with were families with multiple barriers. Drug & Alcohol & mental health being the primary barriers but there are others as well such as criminal history. We tried everything that we knew to address those barriers and IME nothing has been successful. The numbers bore that out and the number of recipients has been on the rise since then. Some of the states with the shortest terms allow for the most aggressive training programs and that is a positive, they also generally have the harshest penalties for not complying with the program and lowest number of advocate programs to fight the sanctions imposed on clients. Oddly, clients are statistically more successful in those states. I recently saw one of my most difficult to serve clients working at a grocery store. She hadn't been in the office for a couple of years. I asked her how she was doing and stated that she had never been better. She was one of our clients who was adamant that she could never work and that our mental health counselors agreed would never work. The client told me that we should have kicked her off of TANF years earlier (for the record we never did kick her off, we don't have a limit in Oregon) as it's the best thing that ever happened to her. She said that when Oregon announced that it may have to adhere to the Federal time limits she saw the handwriting on the wall and knew that to survive she was going to have to do something different. Well the time limits didn't go through but her child grew up to maturity and she was no longer eligible, so she went and found a job. Exactly what they found was happening in Idaho. I'm a big supporter of self sufficiency programs for families. SNAP (formerly called Food Stamps), ERDC (Employment Related Daycare), OHP (Oregon Health Plan, Medicaid in the rest of the U.S.), TADVS (Temporary Assistance to Domestic Violence Survivors) and so forth as they help families that can't make it to bridge the gap. I'm also a big supporter of the TANF program for the purpose it was intended and that is to help families to transition from events such as loss of job, or from training to a job. With the rate that families are paid on TANF a life time with TANF assistance is the equivalent to a life sentence in abject poverty. A full time minimum wage job in Oregon pays almost 3 times what a TANF grant for 2 pays. Welfare is a trap and many families fall for it because our programs aren't aggressive enough in addressing the barriers and getting the families back into the mainstream economy. Just my 2c. PS..these are tougher times and there aren't a lot of jobs available but I still see signs all over the place advertising for minimum wage workers. Many of the recently unemployed (from our recession) won't take these jobs and these are exactly the jobs that many of our welfare recipients are qualified to fill. These jobs are not good ones but they are the starting point to a life of employment. As our partner agency, a Community Action Agency's Employment Specialists like to say, 95% of people who find the job that they really want are working when they find it. What that says is that working that minimum wage job and being successful at it may be a ticket to better things. BTW I hear the recently unemployed tell me everyday that they won't take the McDonalds jobs so that was not speculation on my part, it's just how it is. Well I'll duck out of here again. Take care all. |
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Platinum Member Username: ArtkAlbany, Oregon USA Post Number: 14710 Registered: Feb-05 | Oops, sorry, one last thing... I will be voting for Barack Obama again. There is not anyone in the Republican field that looks one bit interesting with the possible exception of Jon Huntsman. Let's face it he is far too cerebral to get the Rupublican nomination...just sayin'! Time for the Tea Party Repubs to let up and let the President do his job. Hey, they could look at the bright side if they let the President implement a plan and he fails they will have plenty to celebrate. Problem is that they are afraid he will succeed and then what...hmm. OK, now I really am out, peace!} |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 687 Registered: Mar-04 | Sorry to hear you will be voting for Obama again, anything in particular he has accomplished that would warrant another term ? Huntsman is a joke, and there is a reason as to why the freaks at MSNBC embraced him, he is their kind of Republican. To follow the old line of Republicans are not intelligent which has gone on since at least Ike isn't a thoughtful line of attack. By the way does anyone really put Obama and cerebral in the same sentence after the last 3 years ? The man has proven himself to be a lightweight/incompetent in just about every possible way. I can understand some who were duped by the media and his deceptive campaign, but there isn't an excuse at this point unless you are politically of the left and would vote for him no matter what. Since I am from Illinois I have been aware of the media creation that is Barry for years now. I have voted against him twice already, and feel confident that the third time will be the one to ship him, wifey with the sourpuss, grammma, and the kiddies out. Art barry O had the house and a filibuster proof majority in the senate for well over a year, and one short of a filibuster proof majority until January. He has passed all the major legislation he has wanted and the voters have said they are not pleased. There is a reason as the why there is an opposition, they were voted in, and they will have company come Nov 6 2012. Look to Henry Ford, not Barack Obama, to End Unemployment By William A. Levinson Money for President Obama's new jobs bill will have to come from somewhere else, whether in the form of higher taxes or higher debt. Productive jobs pay taxes, but taxes do not create productive jobs. As for taking on more debt, the private sector would already be borrowing money at today's very low interest rates to create jobs that fill a genuine economic need. Social Security is already struggling to remain solvent, so a payroll tax cut that is not balanced by increased taxes elsewhere is simply not realistic. The summer jobs for disadvantaged youth would create themselves if there were a demand for whatever goods or services they might produce. Green and renewable energy jobs would create themselves if they could meet a genuine need instead of a self-serving ideology. Most people understand this, so it comes as no surprise that the Dow Jones Industrial Average reacted to Mr. Obama's speech with a nosedive of more than 300 points the next day. As shown by Mr. Obama's long trail of failures in so-called green jobs (e.g., Solyndra), the government is far less qualified than the free market to distribute resources efficiently and effectively. To this may be added his ongoing calls for taxes or cap-and-trade mandates on fossil fuels, both of which would drive up the cost of energy to make American goods even less competitive in the world marketplace. This president is clearly not qualified either by education (political science, law) or experience (politics) to lead the United States back to affluence and prosperity. We should look instead to the person who not only helped make the United States the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth, but also left us a legacy of books that describe how he did it. Henry Ford wrote not for MBA students, but for front-line production workers who might not have even finished high school. His books combined the fundamental principles of organizational and human behavior (specifically the need for a square deal in every transaction) with industrial efficiency methods that developed and are now known as the Toyota Production System. Ford identified and practiced what we now know as, among other things, green and sustainable manufacturing, just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing, and porous organizational structures as later advocated by W. Edwards Deming and Tom Peters. Ford Ideals (1922), which Ford wrote during or shortly after the postwar depression that followed the First World War, includes "'No Help Wanted:' An Untrue Sign," and it applies to our country's condition today (emphasis added): The "No Help Wanted" sign is a limited statement addressed only to the job seeker, and to him it does not mean "No Help Wanted" at all; it means "We Have No Help To Give You." ... Suppose you are a man out of a job. You see a shop which says "No Help Wanted" and you know, of course, that the sign means that the shop needs help before it can give any. Have you an idea that will start another wheel turning? Have you any help to give that shop? Can you open any channel for the outflow of its product? Can you serve as an ignition point in its organization? The Post Office is a very simple example of a shop that needs help as opposed to more full-time employees. Businesses like drugstores and groceries have begun to provide that help by serving as branch Post Offices that can sell postage and accept packages for shipment. The business eliminates the overhead associated with a Post Office branch while maintaining roughly the same level of service for customers. This exemplifies Ford's question -- "Have you any help to give that shop?" -- and it should guide our country's thinking in terms of restoring economic competitiveness. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and the only way labor can have high wages (or a business higher profits) is to deliver more value. Almost every job on earth contains substantial waste (muda to the Japanese), the removal of which yields more value for everybody involved. Waste includes for example walking, whether by workers in a factory or nurses in a hospital. Ford therefore stated that no job should require a worker to take more than one step in any direction to get or move parts or tools. A Ford worker who placed a nut or bolt did not tighten it, for even the motion of picking up and putting down a tool for each fastener is non-value-adding exertion. Waste often hides in plain view. Ford observed during his early years in agriculture that farmers would carry buckets of water every day instead of installing a length of pipe to make the water carry itself. He also saw rust in a pile of slag outside his steel mill and realized immediately that the mill was not capturing all the iron. Even the transportation of water in green wood constituted waste, so Ford had wooden parts dried prior to shipment. Waste wood from his lumber operations was distilled into wood chemicals like methanol, and the remaining charcoal sold for backyard barbecues (Kingsford Charcoal today, but originally Ford Charcoal). Ford's ability to recognize waste on sight, and to teach this skill to his workforce, multiplied his productivity and profits enormously, which in turn allowed him to create more jobs and pay higher wages. Ford also identified in Moving Forward (1930) one of the biggest problems with our country today: "There is no profit and loss account staring a government in the face. There is no check on high prices or poor service, such as customers can exercise upon private concerns. A government can monopolize a service and thus compel one to use it, it can under-serve and over-charge and make one pay a deficit in the form of taxes." This is a very stern warning against letting any government run anything, including health care. Ford's My Life and Work (1922) is, with the exception of the chapter "Things in General" and its anti-Semitic content that Ford later repudiated, probably the best business book ever written. The copyright has expired, so it can be read online for free. A reprint of Today and Tomorrow (1926) is available, and used copies of Moving Forward should be available. Ford Ideals (1922) also is in the public domain. It is past time for America to stop reinforcing Mr. Obama's failures, and to embrace instead the legacy of the man who proved that affluence and prosperity are achievable despite almost any odds. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16735 Registered: May-04 | . GOP Senate Candidate 'Regrets' Comparing Poor People To Scavenging Animals Nebraska Attorney General and GOP Senate candidate Jon Bruning caused a stir this week when he compared welfare recipients to raccoons scavenging for insects. According to an aide, he's since realized he may not have picked the best metaphor for the poor ... In a video released by liberal tracker American Bridge 21st Century on Tuesday, Bruning told an audience about a misguided environmental program that collected endangered beetles in buckets using rat carcasses as bait _ only to be thwarted when raccoons raided the buckets for the tasty bugs. "The raccoons figured out the beetles are in the bucket," Bruning said. "And its like grapes in a jar. The raccoons - they're not stupid, they're gonna do the easy way if we make it easy for them. Just like welfare recipients all across America. If we don't incent them to work, they're gonna take the easy route." http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/gop-senate-candidate-regrets-comparin g-poor-people-to-scavenging-animals.php (with, of course, video of the very statement cited) "The incident recalls similar language from South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer ®, who apologized in January 2010 for saying in a speech on America's "culture of dependency" that he learned "as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed." http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/nebraska-ag-jon-bruning-compares-welf are-recipients-to-scavenging-racoons.php?ref=fpb SC GOPer: Comparing Poor People To 'Stray Animals' Probably 'Wasn't The Best Metaphor' South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer ® has allowed that "maybe the stray animals wasn't the best metaphor" to use when discussing poor people. However, he also stood by his call to end the "culture of dependency" that he says government assistance has created. Last Friday, Bauer told an audience in South Carolina that his grandmother told him "as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed." He compared this to receiving assistance from the government, which he said is "facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better." In an interview with CNN, Bauer apologized, sort of. ""I never intended to tie people to animals," he said, before...tying people to animals: "If you have a cat, if you take it in your house and feed it and love it, what happens when you go out of town?" He continued that the U.S. has a "culture of dependency" that is a "systemic problem."" Bauer also added: "If some of these people who are currently on welfare were put to work you wouldn't have an immigration problem. The welfare system is so entrenched that nobody wants to do manual labor jobs." Bauer is currently running for the Republican nomination for SC Governor. http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/andre-bauer-comparing-poor-peop le-to-stray-animals-probably-wasnt-the-best-metaphor.php While touring the damage in his district, (House Majority Leader Eric) Cantor (R-VA) surmised, "Obviously, the problem is that people in Virginia don't have earthquake insurance." Cantor Says Congress Won't Pay For Missouri Disaster Relief Unless Spending Is Cut Elsewhere House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), however, said that before Congress approved federal funds for disaster relief, it had to offset the spending with cuts to other programs. The Washington Times reports: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Monday that if Congress passes an emergency spending bill to help Missouri''s tornado victims, the extra money will have to be cut from somewhere else. "If there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental," Mr. Cantor, Virginia Republican, told reporters at the Capitol. The term ""pay-fors" is used by lawmakers to signal cuts or tax increases used to pay for new spending. In 2005, Republicans criticized then House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R--TX) for his willingness to fund relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina by adding to the deficit. "It is right to borrow to pay for it," he said at the time, explaining that cuts could "attack" the economy. link{http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/24/169075/cantor-disaster-relief/ , http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/24/169075/cantor-disaster-relief/} Eric Cantor's Hurricane Hostage taking Eric Cantor's threat to withhold additional federal funding of FEMA's post-Irene reconstruction if Congress doesn't take the money away from other services and priorities has sparked widespread, justified outrage. Most notably, Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond, who lived through Hurricane Katrina, called it "sinful." FEMA has done a great job responding thus far, and it would be the height of cynicism to block them from finishing the job until Congress meets a list of ideological demands. This isn't hardnosed politics, it's utterly craven - especially given Cantor's lack of concern for the costs of wars, tax cuts for the wealthy and even previous disaster-relief efforts. http://blog.faithinpubliclife.org/2011/08/eric_cantors_hurricane_hostage.html Rep. Cantor Did Not Mention Offsetting Cuts In 2004 Requests For Disaster Relief In 2011, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has consistently opposed federal disaster relief without offsetting budget cuts. However, Cantor didn't always prioritize fiscal ""discipline" over helping his constituents recover from disasters. After Tropical Storm Gaston hit the Richmond, VA area in 2004, Cantor appealed to President Bush and DHS Director Tom Ridge for disaster assistance and took credit for securing federal funds when they became available.} http://politicalcorrection.org/mobile/factcheck/201108290007 Cuccinelli: Health Care Is 'Secondary' Issue In My Health Care Lawsuit Presenting his lawsuit against health care reform in apocalyptic and grandiose terms, Ken Cuccinelli ® has said that health care itself is a "secondary" issue in the legal challenge. The real goal, the Virginia Attorney General acknowledges, is to limit federal power. "If we lose, it's very much the end of federalism as we've known it for over 220 years," he said ... Since taking office this year, Cuccinelli has quickly built a profile as a right wing champion. He has launched a fraud investigation into a climate scientist caught up in the "Climate-Gate" controversy, and has pressed the state's colleges and universities not to ban anti-g@y discrimination. http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/ken_cuccinelli_has_said_that.p hp . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 688 Registered: Mar-04 | Book portrays dysfunction in Obama White House The new book Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President, by Ron Suskind, says women have occupied many of the West Wings senior positions but felt outgunned and outmaneuvered by male colleagues. By Peter Wallsten and Zachary A. Goldfarb, Published: September 16 Obama administration officials scrambled Friday to hunt down copies of a new book scheduled to be released next week that paints an unflattering portrait of a dysfunctional and acrimonious White House that sometimes stymied President Obamas effort to rescue the countrys economy. The book, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President, by journalist Ron Suskind, comes at an inconvenient time for an administration that increasingly finds itself on the defensive over questions of effectiveness. The Washington Post obtained a copy of the book Friday. This week, one prominent Democratic strategist, James Carville, said Obama should panic and fire much of his staff, and a Republican victory in a special House election in a heavily Democratic district in New York raised concerns among Democrats about Obamas ability to win strong support from core party voters in next years reelection campaign. Moreover, some Democrats are voicing frustration with a West Wing strategy they say allowed House Republicans to outmaneuver the president during the summers debt-ceiling talks. The challenges have mounted as Obama and his advisers try to go on the offensive and boost the presidents low approval ratings, which are the worst of his tenure. But as copies of the book began circulating around town Friday, Obamas aides and allies were forced to defend his management style against the portrayal conveyed by Suskind, who secured White House cooperation for much of his work. Suskind interviewed many top officials and was granted a White House interview with Obama. White House officials were still reviewing the book late Friday. Communications director Dan Pfeiffer said that such books tend to take the normal day-to-day activities of governing and infuse them with drama, palace intrigue and salacious details. The president made very tough decisions in the most difficult of circumstances, and his team executed those decisions faithfully and tirelessly, he said. Some of the defense came from former senior officials who were quoted making some of the books most provocative allegations. Anita Dunn, a former communications director, is quoted as saying that looking back, this place would be in court for a hostile workplace. Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace for women. Dunn said Friday that she told Suskind point-blank that the White House was not a hostile environment. Christina Romer, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, is quoted as saying, after being excluded by top economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers at a meeting, â€I felt like a piece of meat. On Friday, Romer said, can't imagine that I ever said this. The book says Romer shared her thoughts with Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, then a candidate to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Why is it always the women? Romer asked. Why are we the only ones with the balls around here? I was told before I went to Washington that there has always been a lot of testosterone in the West Wing, Romer said Friday. What was different in the Obama administration is that there were so many women in important positions and, when problems arose, the president worked hard to fix them. I felt respected, included and useful to the team. The book, which covers Obamas presidency through February of this year and is based on more than 700 hours of interviews, suggests that the president was not always the dominant figure in his White House. Suskind cites a series of memos from top aide Pete Rouse sharply critical of the White Houses operations, including one cautioning that an ongoing rolling dialogue by Summers and others on the economic team with Obama strengthens Larrys power to shape policy. The book portrays discord within the economic team, with Summers, then director of the National Economic Council, attempting to shut out the views of Romer and then-budget director Peter Orszag. According to the book, Summers sought to derail Obamas push on several policies, including a financial transactions tax. At one point, Orszag delivered a private report to the president, at his request, about what might happen if the government did not act to rein in the long-term federal budget deficit. Summers was outraged that Orszag would communicate with the president without going through the National Economic Council. What you've done is immoral! Summers shouted. Orszag told Suskind, according to the book: Larry just didn't think the president knew what he was deciding. Meeting over dinner at the Bombay Club one night, Summers told Orszag that we're really home alone, according to the book. I mean it, Summers said. We're home alone. Theres no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes. Suskind asked Summers about the comment. What I'm happy to say is, the problems were immense, they came from a number of very different sources, they were all coming at once, and there were not very many of us, Summers replied. In an e-mail Friday to The Post, Summers, who left the administration last year, said, The hearsay attributed to me is a combination of fiction, distortion, and words taken out of context. I can't speak to what others have told Mr. Suskind, but I have always believed that the president has led this country with determined, steady and practical leadership. The book also claims that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner essentially ignored a key request by Obama to come up with a plan to restructure the mega-bank Citigroup, which had been bailed out by the government. In early 2009, Obama had decided to authorize a series of Geithner-designed stress tests for the banks to determine whether they were likely to survive the financial crisis without additional funds. According to the book, Obama saw this moment as one when he could begin to overhaul Wall Street and told the Treasury secretary to develop a plan to restructure Citi. A month later, at a meeting Geithner didn't attend, Obama asked about the plan. I'm sorry, Mr. President, Romer said, but there is no resolution plan for Citi. The book says Obama was stunned. Well, there better be, he said. Suskind alleges that Geithner, who disagreed with immediately pressing a plan to overhaul Citi, simply did not produce the plan. In an interview with Suskind, Geithner denied that he ignored the presidents request. I don't slow-walk the president on anything, he told him. On Friday, the Treasury Department called the books account untrue. The Treasury said Obama asked Geithner to develop backup plans to overhaul banks if the government was forced to maintain a big ownership stake in the companies. There was fortunately never a need to put them in place, the department said. Senior Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod, who was a top White House aide during the administrations first two years and was interviewed by Suskind, said Friday that the books account was not accurate. He said Obama was in command of his White House and ran an inclusive West Wing. Still, apart from the book, Axelrod said he is not surprised that many Democrats at the moment are finding fault with the White Houses strategies criticisms that he said would likely be different if Obamaâs political standing improved. Whenever you hit turbulence, these kinds of questions always arise, he said. It's like sports. If a team has a losing streak, then the heralded manager all of a sudden doesn't know baseball. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16736 Registered: May-04 | . Watch Republicans Cheer Texas' Record Number Of Executions Perhaps the most bizarre and chilling episode from last night's GOP debate came from the audience, who cheered, literally, Texas Gov. Rick Perry's record on capital punishment. Supporting the death penalty is one thing - applauding the loss of life seems like something else entirely. Editorial: Perry's odd ease with death penalty Two things seemed creepily out of whack last week when the subject of the Texas death penalty came up during the GOP presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. First was the crowd's reaction at the mention of this state's leading execution statistic, a record 234 of them under Gov. Rick Perry. The audience actually applauded the body count tallied in Huntsville over the last 11 years. That bizarre outburst set the stage for the governor's defense of his record, and, with the crowd behind him, it probably was a politically effective media moment for the governor. Yet the justice system Perry depicted is not the system that comes into focus when taking a hard look at the facts. His is a black-and-white rendition: bad crime, fair trial, thorough review, last words on a gurney. The reality of Texas justice is not so sound bite simple. The fight for fairness and truth can be an agonizing and often futile one. Debate moderator Brian Williams might have thought he had a clever question - do you sleep well at night, governor? - but that overlooked the goings on in Texas even as he spoke. A better question might have focused on the refusal by Texas courts to permit forensic analysis of untested evidence in the Hank Skinner murder case out of West Texas. Does the governor lose sleep over Skinner's execution date of Nov. 9, or is he confident that the courts will have it all sorted out by then? Perry also might have been asked about this week's scheduled execution of convicted double murderer Duane Edward Buck out of Houston. In the trial's punishment phase, an expert testified that Buck was more likely to be a future danger to society because he is black. Then Texas Attorney General John Cornyn admitted that the state was wrong to allow juries to consider such outrageous testimony in this case and six others, and he asked the Supreme Court to allow for punishment retrials. But technicalities prevented a new sentencing from happening in the Buck case, unlike the others. Has the governor lost sleep over an unconstitutional punishment process? And has the governor lost a wink thinking about how to address the hideous Anthony Graves miscarriage of justice? Here was a man railroaded by a Central Texas prosecutor in the sensational slayings of six family members. Isn't it true that Graves might never have been freed last year had it not been for college journalism and law students who laid the foundation for his innocence? Is this the same system in which the governor has unshakable faith? Perry was right about one thing: The public is generally comfortable with the death penalty. But consider that a mere theoretical statement. Dig deeper into uncomfortable truths and, we think, the public will see hard realities that are impossible to defend. http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20110911-editorial-perrys-odd-ease-with-death-penalty.ece The Dallas Morning News is a staunchly conservative paper and arguably the most influential in Texas. The past election cycle, however, was the first since his rise to power that did not see the DMN endorse Perry as the best candidate for Governorship of Texas. In an extremely rare move, the DMN endosed instead his Democratic rival. Tea Party Debate Audience Cheered Idea of Letting Uninsured Patients Die If it was up to Ron Paul, or many of the Tea Party audience members at Monday night's GOP presidential debate, churches, not the federal government, would help foot the bill for the medical costs of America's 50 million residents living without health insurance. CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer's hypothetical question about whether an uninsured 30 year old working man in coma should be treated prompted one of the most boisterous moments of audience participation in the CNN/Tea Party Express. "What he should do is whatever he wants to do and assume responsibility for himself," Paul responded, adding, "That's what freedom is all about, taking your own risk. This whole idea that you have to compare and take care of everybody…" The audience erupted into cheers, cutting off the Congressman's sentence. After a pause, Blitzer followed up by asking "Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?" to which a small number of audience members shouted "Yeah!" Paul, a doctor trained in obstetrics and gynecology, said when he got out of medical school in the 1960s "the churches took care of them." "We never turned anybody away from the hospital," he said. "We've given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves or assume responsibility for ourselves. Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it. That''s the reason the cost is so high." According to census data released Tuesday, the number of uninsured people rose by about 900,000 from 2009 to 2010, bringing the total number of people living in the United States without health coverage to 50.9 million, or 16.3 percent of the population. Texas, where GOP candidate Rick Perry has served as governor for more than a decade and Paul has served as a U.S. Congressman for more than 20 years, has more uninsured people, as a percent of population, than any other state. In the Lone Star State 26 percent of the population does not have health insurance, according to census data compiled by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured ... http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/tea-party-debate-audience-cheered-idea-of-letting-uninsured-patients-die/ We've gone from the repubs being the party of Terry Schiavo to the tp's being the party of "let them die". Or as The Daily show opined, the tp has gone from being afraid of death panels to being the death panels. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16737 Registered: May-04 | . Ahhhh, the GOP, where facts are not of importance but "being told" something in such a way that agrees with your position works for them ... Two more GOPers say unemployment benefits encourage folks to stay unemployed As you know, Republicans such as Sharron Angle have gotten national attention for making the creative argument that we need to cut unemployment benefits because the current high benefit levels act as an incentive for the jobless to stay unemployed. Dems have been seizing on such comments to argue that the GOP is institutionally hostile to the jobless. Now Dems have unearthed two more examples of Republicans making a similar case: Ron Johnson, the Tea Party backed Senate candidate challenging Russ Feingold in Wisconsin; and Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina. Here's Johnson, in an interview last month with Wisconsin Public Television: One of the economic advisors to President Obama actually wrote a paper or made statements a few years ago talking about the extension of unemployment benefits actually prolongs unemployment. When you continue to extend unemployment benefits, people really don't have the incentive to go take other jobs. They'll just wait the system out until their benefits run out, then they'll go out and take, probably not as high paying jobs as they'd like to take, but that's really how you have to get back to work. You have to take the work that's available at the wage rates that's available. I'm not sure what Obama economic adviser Johnson is referring to, and it's unclear whether this Obama adviser ever said this, but either way, Johnson is clearly citing the idea approvingly. And here's Burr in an interview on C-Span in March flagged by the North Carolina Democratic Party: The wrong thing to do is to automatically today extend unemployment for 12 months. I think that's a discouragement to individuals that are out there to actually go out and go through the interviews This is just wrong. As many have pointed out already, there are multiple people who remain unemployed per every job available. And there are no studies I've seen showing that those who have lost their unemployment benefits have miraculously enjoyed better luck finding a job since ...} http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/07/two_more_republicans_say_unemp.html Jobless benefits raise unemployment by less than thought, study finds ... a new study (pdf) about the impact of jobless benefits on employment comes at a crucial time. Jesse Rothstein, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, used a sophisticated statistical analysis to conclude that extensions of benefits had a "significant but small" effect on the unemployment rate, by deterring the unemployed from looking for work. How small? Rothstein, who previously served as a top economist in the Obama White House and Labor Department, found that the various extensions of jobless benefits enacted during the current downturn raised the unemployment rate by around 0.2 to 0.6 percentage points. By our back of the envelope calculations, that translates to somewhere between 310,000 and 930,000 jobs. But hold on! Rothstein says that half or more of this effect is thanks to "reduced labor force exit among the unemployed rather than to the changes in re-employment rates." What does that mean? In plain English, unemployment benefits can exert a perverse pressure to keep job seekers counted in the ranks of the jobless. To continue to receive benefits, you're required to keep searching. So some people who would otherwise have grown discouraged and stopped looking for work continue to do so in order to receive benefits. That has the effect of artificially raising the official unemployment rate - since once you stop searching for a job, you're no longer counted in the official rate. But this pattern of lingering nonparticipation in the workforce doesn't mean there are more people without a job. So once you exclude those people, you're left with perhaps around 300,000 people who would have jobs were it not for unemployment benefits creating an incentive of sorts to remain out of work. That's not nothing, but as Rothstein notes, the magnitude of this drag on the unemployment rate is "much less than is implied by previous analyses" ... http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/jobless-benefits-raise-unemployment-less-thought-study-finds-170337381.html Jobless benefits cut unemployment rate, Fed economist confirms The Wall Street Journal reports that the extension of unemployment benefits included in Washington's pending tax cut plan will raise the jobless rate _- chiefly by making people less energetic in looking for work. But the author of the very government study the Journal relies on to make its case tells The Lookout that he believes the opposite is the case ... As part of the deal to preserve the Bush tax cuts for two years, the president and GOP congressional leaders agreed to an extension of jobless benefits for another 13 months. The Journal's Kelly Evans writes that this bodes ill for the jobless rate, pointing to an April study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. In that document, Fed economists found that extending benefits at the end of 2009 made unemployment slightly higher than it would otherwise have been. Congressional Republicans have long argued against extending benefits on these grounds. As Evans sums it up: "More jobless benefits, more unemployment." But Rob Valletta, the San Francisco Fed economist who co-authored the study with Katherine Kuang, said that conclusion is off the mark. The confusion arises from the distinction between how expanded benefits affect the overall economy and how they may influence individual behavior. On the individual level, the report found a 0.4 percent rise in unemployment - modest, but not trivial - as a result of extending benefits, for exactly the reasons Republicans and the Journal say: Unemployment insurance "makes it easier to bear unemployment, and people therefore take more time looking for a new job," Valletta told The Lookout. Indeed, a follow-up study conducted by Valletta and Kuang through November 2010, at the request of Bloomberg Businessweek, found a slightly larger effect of 0.8 percent. But as Valletta noted, plenty of other research indicates that on the macro-economic side, the benefits can improve economic conditions. Studies show [pdf] that unemployment benefits are a particularly effective way to stimulate the economy, because the poor have little choice but to spend the money rather than save it. And stimulating the economy creates jobs. A study last month by the progressive Economic Policy Institute found that extending the benefits would create more than 700,000 jobs. Indeed, some commentators described Obama's tax cut deal as a "second stimulus" - largely because of the benefits extension. "These separate effects act in opposition to one another," said Valletta. So the question becomes: Which effect is greater, in our current situation? On this, Valletta was clear. In the current weak labor market, he said, the micro effect is relatively small. "I think the macro-economic effects, in terms of reducing the unemployment rate, outweigh the micro effects that increase the unemployment rate," he said. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/jobless-benefits-cut-unemployment-rate-fed-economist-confirms.html pdf: http://epi.3cdn.net/d5a99f04921083739f_t7m6bxpa7.pdf In further developments of speaking without facts ... Michele Bachmann stirs debate with "false statements"" on HPV vaccine ... Bachmann's claim echoes the claims that vaccines cause autism, which have been widely debunked since the landmark Lancet study - which has since been retracted - reported a link, CBS News reported. "Congresswoman Bachmann's decision to spread fear of vaccines is dangerous and irresponsible," Evan Siegfried, a spokesman for the Global and Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership, told Politico. ""There is zero credible scientific evidence that vaccines cause mental retardation or autism. She should cease trying to foment fear in order to advance her political agenda." ... http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20106117-10391704.html Let's see, we have facts which indicate repubs are driven by fear. We also have facts which indicate approximately 3/4 of repub statements prove false to pants on fire when investigated for truthfulness. Says the vaccine to prevent HPV can cause mental retardation. Michele Bachmann, Tuesday, September 13th, 2011. False!; link{http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/sep/16/truth-serum-needed-incorrect-vaccine-claim/,http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/sep/16/truth-serum-needed-incorrect-vaccine-claim/} While we're here, let's do some more checking ... Fact-checking the CNN/Tea Party Express GOP debate; http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/sep/12/Fact-checking-cnn-tea-party-express-gop-debate/ About average, out of 9 statements, three are Pants on Fire and three are simply False ... why! amazingly that comes to 75% of the tested statements being incorrect! CNN/Tea Party Debate GOP presidential hopefuls exchange false, misleading claims in Florida forum Summary The GOP presidential candidates debated for the second time in six days — tossing out a variety of false and misleading claims on everything from Social Security to vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases.; http://factcheck.org/2011/09/cnntea-party-debate/ FactChecking the Reagan Debate The Republican presidential candidates stray from the facts at the Reagan Library Summary The GOP candidates took some liberties when discussing jobs, Social Security, immigration, health care and other issues during the presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Library ; http://factcheck.org/2011/09/factchecking-the-reagan-debate/ FactChecking Iowa Debate GOP presidential hopefuls make some false and misleading statements about Obama -- and each other. Summary Republican presidential candidates squared off in Ames, Iowa, on Aug. 11, offering claims, criticism and arguments. We found some false and misleading statements among them: http://factcheck.org/2011/08/factchecking-iowa-debate/ Sometimes, it just appears as though certain people and a particular party just can't stick to facts to be trusted to tell the truth. . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 689 Registered: Mar-04 | Obama admin reworked Solyndra loan to favor donor By MATTHEW DALY The Associated Press WASHINGTON â€" The Obama administration restructured a half-billion dollar federal loan to a troubled solar energy company in such a way that private investors â€" including a fundraiser for President Barack Obama â€" moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment in case of a default, government records show. FILE - In this Aug. 31, 2011, file photo, Solyndra workers leave Solyndra in Fremont, Calif. Newly released emails show that the Obama administration was worried about the financial health of a troubled solar energy company even as officials publicly declared the company in good shape. An email from a White House budget official to a co-worker discussed the likely effect of a default by Solyndra Inc. on President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. Administration officials defended the loan restructuring, saying that without an infusion of cash earlier this year, solar panel maker Solyndra Inc. would likely have faced immediate bankruptcy, putting more than 1,000 people out of work. Even with the federal help, Solyndra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month and laid off its 1,100 employees. The Fremont, Calif.-based company was the first renewable-energy company to receive a loan guarantee under a stimulus-law program to encourage green energy and was frequently touted by the Obama administration as a model. Obama visited the company's Silicon Valley headquarters last year, and Vice President Joe Biden spoke by satellite at its groundbreaking. Since then, the implosion of the company and revelations that the administration hurried Office of Management and Budget officials to finish their review of the loan in time for the September 2009 groundbreaking has become an embarrassment for Obama as he sells his new job-creation program around the country. An Associated Press review of regulatory filings shows that Solyndra was hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars for years before the Obama administration signed off on the original $535 million loan guarantee in September 2009. The company eventually got $528 million. Given the company's shaky financial condition, Republican lawmakers say the decision to restructure the loan raises questions about whether the administration protected political supporters at taxpayers' expense. "You should have protected the taxpayers and made some forceful actions here after this analysis," Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., told a top Energy Department official this week. "Because you should have seen the problems. And you should have said, 'Taxpayers need to be protected and this has got to stop.' " The loan restructuring is one element congressional investigators are focusing on as they look into the federal loan guarantee Solyndra received under the economic stimulus law. Under terms of the February loan restructuring, two private investors â€" Argonaut Ventures I LLC and Madrone Partners LP â€" stand to be repaid before the U.S. government if the solar company is liquidated. The two firms gave the company a total of $69 million in emergency loans. The loans are the only portion of their investments that have repayment priority above the U.S. government. Argonaut is an investment vehicle of the George Kaiser Family Foundation of Tulsa, Okla. The foundation is headed by billionaire George Kaiser, a major Obama campaign contributor and a frequent visitor to the White House. Kaiser raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama's 2008 campaign, federal election records show. Kaiser has made at least 16 visits to the president's aides since 2009, according to White House visitor logs. Madrone Partners is affiliated with the Walton family, descendants of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. Rob Walton, the eldest son of Sam Walton, contributed $2,500 last year to the National Republican Congressional Committee. The AP review also found that officials at Solyndra had been seeking a second round of loans from the Energy Department to expand the company's Silicon Valley headquarters. The request for a second loan was denied. "We have incurred significant net losses since our inception, including a net loss of $114.1 million in 2007, $232.1 million in 2008 and $119.8 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2009, and we had an accumulated deficit of $505 million at Oct. 3, 2009," the company said in a December 2009 filing to the SEC. "We expect to continue to incur significant operating and net losses and negative cash flow from operations for the foreseeable future." Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera said Friday that the company's financial losses were not uncommon for a high-tech startup and were a major reason Solyndra applied for the federal loan. The loan program is intended to help promising companies that cannot receive financing through private banks because of high risk. Jonathan Silver, executive director of the Energy Department's loan program, said DOE officials faced a stark choice late last year and early this year: Refuse to allow the loan restructuring, "thereby ensuring that Solyndra would close its doors immediately" or allow the company to accept emergency financing, "thereby giving it and its almost 1,000 workers a fighting chance at success, and the government a higher expected recovery on its loan." The decision by Energy Secretary Steven Chu was not an easy one, Silver told the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but appeared to be the right action at the time. "Without DOE's agreement to restructure Solyndra's loan, the company likely would have faced bankruptcy much earlier â€" in December 2010" or soon after, Silver said. "Restructuring gave them a fighting chance to compete and succeed, and kept approximately 1,000 workers from losing their jobs." Republicans were not impressed. "If their model was weak to begin with, and then the market gets worse, doesn't that mean that maybe we should have just not thrown good money after bad?" asked Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va. "Because now we're in a worse position in the bankruptcy courts to get our money back." GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann called the Solyndra loan an example of "crony capitalism" that benefited political donors. "It's wrong to abuse executive authority with unilateral actions" Bachmann said at a campaign event Friday in California. "And of course the other problem with Solyndra is the fact that it appears there was crony capitalism, that there were political donors that benefited by this $535 million loan." Newly released emails show the White House was worried about the likely effect of a default by Solyndra on Obama's re-election campaign. "The optics of a Solyndra default will be bad," an OMB official wrote in a Jan. 31 email to a colleague. "The timing will likely coincide with the 2012 campaign season heating up." The budget official, whose name is blacked out in the email, wondered whether Solyndra should be allowed to restructure its loan. "Questions will be asked as to why the administration made a bad investment, not just once (which could hopefully be explained as part of the challenge of supporting innovative technologies), but twice (which could easily be portrayed as bad judgment, or worse)," the email says. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16738 Registered: May-04 | . The history of Solyndra and George W. Bush's ... 'Merit-Based Decision' Selection of companies to receive U.S. backing are "merit based decisions made by career staffers at the Department of Energy, and the process for this particular loan guarantee began under President George W. Bush," Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman, said in an emailed statement Sept. 1 ... Stimulus Legislation Originally authorized by Congress in a 2005 energy law, the loan guarantee program to encourage the development of clean energy sources didn't choose its first recipient until it was revamped under Obama's 2009 stimulus legislation. Trade groups such as the Solar Energy Industries Association and the American Wind Energy Association lobbied Obama, urging in a letter that he prevent "further delay." Energy Secretary Steven Chu pledged during his Senate confirmation hearing to speed the approval of applications for the federal backing. Solyndra, identified during Bush's administration as a promising applicant, received the Energy Department's first loan guarantee after Obama took office. Solyndra was given conditional approval in March 2009 and the award became final that September ... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-12/obama-team-backed-535-million-solyndra- aid-as-auditor-warned-on-finances.html After spending months touting the Obama administration's decision to loan $535 million to Solyndra, top officials took a new tack Wednesday while testifying about the company's abrupt shut-down and bankruptcy: the loan, they said, was actually the Bush administration's idea. The Energy Department's top lending officer told Congress that the Solyndra loan application was not only filed during President Bush's term, but it surged towards completion before Obama took office in January 2009. "By the time the Obama administration took office in late January 2009, the loan programs' staff had already established a goal of, and timeline for, issuing the company a conditional loan guarantee commitment in March 2009," said Jonathan Silver, who heads the Energy loan program ... ; http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/solyndra-loan-now-treasury-launching-investigation /story?id=14521917 Solyndra and Bush Type in "Solyndra" and "Bush" at Google and you’ll get pages of media references (Fox, too, but not exclusively) to "Obama trying to blame Bush for Solyndra." In the page I looked at, there was only one "Bush role in Solyndra" From CNN to ABC to dozens more, the story is Obama Blaming. Facts? What emerges is that a bunch of Republican donors and allies had invested in Solyndra. That is probably the motivation for the Bush administration's support of Solyndra. So the loan originated during the Bush administration and was passed along for renewal to the Obama administration. Andrew Revkin does a nice job of "separating issues from myths" in the Solyndra matter. He also credits the reporting of the Washington Post's Brad Plumer who sees the brouhaha as the "newest political chew toy." Let's look at the potential "irregularities" in how the White House dealt with Solyndra. Evidence is mounting that there was something irregular about the way the Solyndra deal got greenlighted. My colleagues Joe Stephens and Carol D. Leonnig have obtained emails showing that the White House pressed the Office of Management and Budget to hurry up in reviewing the deal (note, however, that this only came after the Energy Department had approved the loan), even as OMB officials voiced concern about being rushed. Does that prove the White House engaged in cronyism, shoveling cash toward a political ally? Not necessarily. Democrats have pointed out that Solyndra's loan process was initiated by the Bush administration and that many key investors were Republicans. Still, there could have been other reasons the deal was hastened. As a former Clinton energy aide stressed to me, it was arguably a mistake to sell the loan guarantees as job creating stimulus ((the program was expanded as part of the 2009 stimulus bill). "It means you try to force huge amounts of money quickly through processes that aren't quite ready yet," the aide said. "It'd be better to have a calmer, steadier source of funding." What also emerges - and many of us find this to be the real scandal - is that the right is using this as an anti-environmentalism cause and their attacks are gleefully supported (funded?) by America's coal industry. Nice! The fact that Obama saw this as a way of creating jobs is probably another problem for the anti-job team on the right. You still need a timeline on the loan guarantee? Here's an excerpt from some research from the Center for American Progress: December 2006: Solyndra Applies for a Loan Guarantee under the 1703 program. Late 2007: Loan guarantee program is funded. Solyndra was one of 16 clean-tech companies deemed ready to move forward in the due diligence process. The Bush Administration DOE moves forward to develop a conditional commitment. October 2008: Then Solyndra CEO Chris Gronet touted reasons for building in Silicon Valley and noted that the "company's second factory also will be built in Fremont, since a Department of Energy loan guarantee mandates a U.S. location." November 2008: Silicon prices remain very high on the spot market, making non-silicon based thin film technologies like Solyndra's very attractive to investors. Solyndra also benefits from having very low installation costs. The company raises $144 million from ten different venture investors, including the Walton family run Madrone Capital Partners. This brings total private investment to more than $450 million to date. January 2009: In an effort to show it has done something to support renewable energy, the Bush Administration tries to take Solyndra before a DOE credit review committee before President Obama is inaugurated. The committee, consisting of career civil servants with financial expertise, remands the loan back to DOE "without prejudice" because it wasn't ready for conditional commitment. March 2009: The same credit committee approves the strengthened loan application. The deal passes on to DOE's credit review board. Career staff (not political appointees) within the DOE issue a conditional commitment setting out terms for a guarantee. Once taxpayer money was involved, the Obama administration was reluctant to let Solyndra fail. What critics fail to mention is that the Solyndra deal is more than three years old, started under the Bush Administration, which tried to conditionally approve the loan right before Obama took office. Rather than "pushing funds out the door too quickly," the Obama Administration restructured the original loan when it came into office to further protect the taxpayers' investment. Republicans don't, of course, want to yield their "chew toy." Republicans blasted Obama administration officials Wednesday for green-lighting a $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, a now bankrupt California solar company with close ties to the White House. The GOP attack at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing focused on emails they said showed the White House tried to rush a final decision on Solyndra's financing so that Vice President Biden could announce approval of the loan guarantee at the September 2009 groundbreaking for the company's new factory. The Hill; http://themoderatevoice.com/122532/solyndra-and-bush/ ... Jonathan Silver, the executive director of the Energy Department's Loan Programs Office, insisted at the hearing that Obama administration staff did not feel pressure to quickly finalize financing for the project ... Silver noted in his testimony that the Bush administration identified Solyndra as a top contender for receiving a loan guarantee. The Obama administration ultimately approved the loan guarantee in 2009 "on the exact schedule that had been developed during the Bush administration", Silver said ... http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/181633-white-house-scrambles-to-con trol-damage-from-gops-attack-on-solyndra Bush staff gets subpoenaed on Enron ties By Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY Subpoena for the Executive Office of the President WASHINGTON - A Senate committee issued the first congressional subpoenas to the Bush White House on Wednesday, seeking any documents that show contact between the administration and bankrupt energy trader Enron. The 9-8 party line vote came after two hours of sometimes bitter debate in which Democrats voiced exasperation with White House stalling ... " http://www.usatoday.com/money/energy/enron/2002-05-22-bush-subpoena.htm The U.S. will spend approximately $25 billion to repair Iraq by the end of next year - and billions will be needed after that. Almost all of that money will go to private contractors who vie for lucrative government deals to rebuild Iraq's roads, retrain its police force and operate its airports. Given all the taxpayer money involved, you might think the process for awarding those contracts would be open and competitive. But, as 60 Minutes reported last spring, the earliest contracts were given to a few favored companies. And some of the biggest winners in the sweepstakes to rebuild Iraq have one thing in common: lots of very close friends in very high places. Correspondent Steve Kroft reports. One is Halliburton, the Houston-based energy services and construction giant whose former CEO, Dick Cheney, is now vice president of the United States ... http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/25/60minutes/main551091.shtml Oh, my! How embarrassing it must be to be reminded of the real facts ... . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16739 Registered: May-04 | . Bush administration cronyism and incompetence ; http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bush_administration_cronyism_and_inco mpetence These Dogs Don't Hunt A Pentagon inspector's defense of Halliburton is a textbook example of the cronyism of Bush's so-called watchdogs.; http://prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=8076 Insiders Shape Postwar Iraq By Andrew Zajac Chicago Tribune June 20, 2004 A little over a year ago, Stuart Bowen Jr. was lobbying for a company looking for work in the impending reconstruction of Iraq. A former longtime aide to President Bush, Bowen tapped administration contacts on behalf of URS Group, a consulting firm, and the company eventually landed contracts worth up to $30 million for overseeing Iraqi construction projects. Today, Bowen works for the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. led bureaucracy running Iraq. In his new job as inspector general, Bowen is the corruption watchdog over more than $20 billion of rebuilding, including the activities of URS, the company he represented.; http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/168/36961.html "A Disaster Waiting to Happen. As FEMA weathers Bush administration policy changes, some insiders fear that concerns over terrorism are trumping protection from hurricanes and other natural hazards," Best of New Orleans, August 28, 2005. AP: Big Bush Fundraisers Get Admin Positions Friday, November 19, 2004 WASHINGTON - One-third of President Bush's top 2000 fundraisers or their spouses were appointed to positions in his first administration, from ambassadorships in Europe to seats on policy setting boards, an Associated Press review found. The perks for 246 "pioneers" who raised at least $100,000 also included overnight stays at the White House and Camp David, parties at the White House and Bush's Texas ranch, state dinners with world leaders and overseas travel with U.S. delegations to the Olympics and other events, the review found. Top fundraisers say the real charm of the rewards was getting the chance to rub elbows with the president. "All of us in politics, we've done so many parties and receptions it's old hat to us," said David Miner, a North Carolina textile executive and state lawmaker who helped raise more than $100,000 for Bush in 2000. He was rewarded with invitations to the White House, the vice presidential mansion and Bush's ranch. "But knowing that here's the commander in chief, the most powerful man on the face of the earth, and you have this first name basis with him, that's very special," Miner said.; http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,139051,00.html CRONYISM in the Bush Administration Among TIME's examples: - At the Food and Drug Administration, TIME obtained internal e-mail messages that show scientists drug safety decisions are being second guessed by a 33 year old doctor turned stock picker, Scott Gottlieb. - At the Office of Management and Budget, an ex-lobbyist with minimal purchasing experience, David Safavian, oversaw $300 billion in spending, until his arrest last week. - At the Department of Homeland Security, a well connected White House aide with minimal experience, Julie Myers, is poised to take over a crucial post in ensuring that terrorists cannot enter the country again. - Inspectors General, the watchdogs at every federal agency, may be increasingly chosen for their political credentials than their investigative ones. http://www.time.com/time/press_releases/article/0,8599,1109304,00.html Cronyism Creates Serious Risks for Texas Girls from Rick Perry; http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?314134-Cronyism-Creates-Serious-Risk s-for-Texas-Girls-from-Rick-Perry Palin Backs-Up Bachmann's HPV Drug Company Cronyism Charge Against Perry; http://www.breitbart.tv/palin-backs-up-bachmanns-hpv-drug-company-cronyism-charg e-against-perry/ Rick Perry's 10 Worst Crony Capitalists; http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/08/rick-perrys-10-worst-crony-capitalists-0 OK, anyone detecting a pattern here? . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 690 Registered: Mar-04 | Geithner's "succinct" message irks Europeans (Reuters) - It was an unprecedented visit designed to spur the euro zone into action. But Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's high-profile trip to Europe left some European officials more dumbstruck than starstruck. Geithner's decision to travel to the small city of Wroclaw to discuss the sovereign debt problems of Greece, Ireland, Italy and the wider euro zone was the clearest indication yet of the severity of the near two-year-old crisis, which now threatens the global economy not just the single currency bloc. Officials said Geithner was coming to propose how the region might try leveraging its emergency bailout fund -- the 440 billion euro European Financial Stability Facility -- to better tackle the crisis, much as the United States used leverage to handle the fallout from the subprime collapse. But however good Geithner's intentions, the indications were that the meeting did not go as smoothly as he might have hoped. Held in a concert hall, the gathering lasted for about 30 minutes. The euro zone ministers arrived together by bus. Geithner was sped to the doors in a private car. There was no word on whether voices were raised or what the temperature of the exchanges was, but Austria's finance minister, for one, was less than warm to Geithner's message. "I found it peculiar that even though the Americans have significantly worse fundamental data than the euro zone that they tell us what we should do and when we make a suggestion ... that they say no straight away," Maria Fekter told reporters afterwards, recalling a difference of opinion between Geithner and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble on how to reinvigorate the euro zone and tax financial deals. Although some dropped hints of disagreement behind the meeting's closed doors, few were prepared to disclose Geithner's full prescription to heal the euro zone crisis. "He was very succinct. He was kind of headlining, that is the way he deals with things," said Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan, adding that the leverage plan was the main thrust of what Geithner had delivered. But his language was perhaps too blunt for European ministers, fatigued by the crisis and the countless disagreements it has prompted amongst them. "We can always discuss with our American colleagues. I'd like to hear how the United States will reduce its deficits ... and its debts," Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders said somewhat tartly. Jean-Claude Juncker, the chairman of the Eurogroup, was even more to the point. "I don't think it would be wise for me to report from an informal meeting that we have with the treasury secretary. We are not discussing the expansion or increase of the EFSF with a non-member of the euro area," he said. The clearest sense of Geithner's thoughts came after the meeting, when he briefed policymakers and bankers on his views of the crisis. "Of course your financial challenges in Europe are within your capacity to manage financially, you just have to choose to do it," Geithner told the audience, sitting cross-legged and slightly slouched in his chair. "And that is why I said how important it is to us that Europe doesn't face a protracted period of weakness," he said, answering a series of polite questions delivered by Polish Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski. But he also spoke openly about his concerns. "One of the starkest ways to emphasize the importance of Europe getting on top of this is that you don't want the future of Europe to rest in the hands of those who provide financing to the IMF," he said. "There is no reason for Europe to be in that position and it would be very damaging to the credibility of the endeavour here in Europe," he said, before departing to warm applause. But his frank tone and warnings of "catastrophic risk" is unsuited to European diplomacy. For many in the meeting, Austria's Fekter most particularly, his message fell flat. "I had expected that when he tells us how he sees the world that he would listen to what we have to say," she said. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16740 Registered: May-04 | . Wow! Geithner disliked by the Belgians certainly d@mns Obama doesn't it? Especially in comparison to all the crap on Bush and Perry's illegal/unconstitutional abuse of power shennanigans. Good pull, squiddy. I'm definitely not voting for Geithner now. You don't belong here, squid. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16741 Registered: May-04 | . Oh, look! Yet another repub who demeans those unemployed citizens who probably won't vote for him ... Rep. Steve King: Unemployment Benefits Have Created "A Nation Of Slackers" KING: The United States of America borrows money and hands it to people and tells them, you don't have to work for this ... (President Bush Discusses Economic Stimulus Rebate Checks, April 2008, " President George W. Bush delivers a statement Friday, April 25, 2008, on the South Grounds of the White House regarding the economic stimulus rebate checks. "I'm pleased that the Treasury Department has worked quickly to get the money into the hands of the American people. Starting Monday, the effects of the stimulus will begin to reach millions of households across our country."; http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/04/images/20080425 _p042508jb-0159-515h.html) You don't have to produce anything for this. We just want you to spend it ... (A Look Back at Bush's Economic Missteps: Two terms, eight years - and eight significant economic mistakes ... Telling Us to Go Shopping: After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush didn't call for sacrifice. He called for shopping. "Get down to Disney World in Florida," he said. "Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed."; http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1872229_1872230_1872236,00.html The former speaker of the House, Speaker Pelosi, has consistently said that unemployment checks are one of those reliable and immediate forms of economy recovery ... The 80 million Americans that are of working age but are simply not in the workforce need to be put to work. We can't have a nation of slackers and then have me have to sit in the Judiciary Committee listening to them argue that there's work that Americans won't do, so we have to import people to do the work that Americans won't do, and borrow money to pay the welfare for people that won't work. That is a foolish thing for a nation to do. We've gotta get this country back to work and get those people out of the slacker rolls and onto the employed rolls. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PGKUIjCC4Q Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16742 Registered: May-04 | . Bush's Economic Mistakes Bush's Budget Blunders The Return to Deficits Iraq Tax Cuts for the Rich Financial Regulation Telling Us to Go Shopping Energy Policy A State of Denial The Muddled Bailout http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1872229,00.html . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 691 Registered: Mar-04 | "OK, anyone detecting a pattern here? " Yes the left is desperate and crazy and knows they have to destroy anyone and anything to to help the boy/king keep the position he was placed in. They also need accomplices/useful idiots to spread their gospel... Solyndra, the logical endpoint of Obamanomics Sep 16, 2011 11:38 EDT inShare crony capitalism | solyndra The bankruptcy of solar-panel maker Solyndra neatly encapsulates the economic, political and intellectual bankruptcy of Barack Obamas Big Idea. It was the presidents intention back in 2009 to begin centrally reorganizing the U.S. economy around the supposed climate-change crisis. To what end? Well, Obama claimed his election would mark the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal. But that was just the cover story. At its core, Obamanomics is about the top-down redistribution of wealth and income. Government spending on various green subsidies and programs, along with a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon emissions, would enrich key Democrat constituencies: lawyers, public sector unions, academia and non-profits. Oh, and Wall Street, too. Who was the exclusive financial adviser to Solyndra when it was trying to secure the $535 million loan from Washington? Goldman Sachs. And had the cap-and-trade scheme been enacted, big banks stood ready to reap billions from the trading of carbon emission credits. No wonder many Democratic strategists predicted their partys 2008 landslide win would usher in a generation of political dominance. Obamanomics, essentially, would divert taxpayer dollars to the Green Lobby and then into the campaign coffers of the Democratic Party. This is what crony capitalism is really all about: politicians enriching favored businesses, who then return the favor. Or maybe its the other way around, Who cares, really. Its an endless, profitable loop for both. And Obama almost pulled it off. The Great Recession conveniently allowed the president to start the spendathon under the guise of economic stimulus. You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, 2009). As it turns out, the $38.6 billion loan program for clean energy firms that Solyndra benefited from has created just 3,545 permanent new jobs after parceling out half its dough. That works out to around $5 million a job. Unfortunately for the Obamacrats, the financial meltdown also undercut political support for cap-and-trade on Capitol Hill. Voters worried the scheme would slow growth and cost jobs. But without permanently and continually raising the price of carbon-based fuels, many green businesses can't make the numbers work. As Peter Lynch, a New York-based solar energy analyst, told ABC News: It's very difficult to perceive a company with a model that says, well, I can build something for six dollars and sell it for three dollars. Those numbers don't generally work. You don't want to lose three dollars for every unit you make. Unless, of course, American taxpayers make up the difference though in the case of Solyndra, even governments thumb on the scale wasn't enough to save it. And it often isn't enough when an investments goals are a fat political reward rather than a financial one. Indeed, studies of similar government investment efforts around the world show they're usually a bad deal for taxpayers. An analysis of Canadas government-backed venture capital fund, for instance, found the recipient firms underperform on a variety of criteria, including value-creation, as measured by the likelihood and size of IPOs and M&As, and innovation, as measured by patents. Even after getting the loan, Solyndra spent $187,000 on lobbying efforts, according to Bloomberg, including trying to get the White House to push government agencies to install its panels on the rooftops of federal buildings and extend buy American rules that favor U.S. companies. Instead of revenue seeking, Solyndra was rent seeking, which means trying to make money by manipulating government . And when the White House was trying to determine whether to sink another $67 million into Solyndra, its calculus was political not financial (via The Washington Post): The optics of a Solyndra default will be bad, the Office of Management and Budget staff member wrote Jan. 31 in an e-mail to a co-worker. If Solyndra defaults down the road, the optics will be arguably worse later than they would be today. In addition, the timing will likely coincide with the 2012 campaign season heating up. That's not how the private sector makes investment decision. But it's routine for government where the stakeholders are politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists and favored constituencies. The takers, not the makers. Thats whose side Obamanomics is on. CRAZY LADY WITH THE BUSH DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, HE IS GONE. THE ELECTION WILL BE A REFERENDUM ON BARRY MUCH TO YOUR DISMAY. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16743 Registered: May-04 | . New York Times/CBS News Poll on Jobs and Election; http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/17/us/politics/20110917_poll_results. html?ref=politics Republicans appear more energized than Democrats at the outset of the 2012 presidential campaign, but have not coalesced around a candidate. Even as the party's nominating contest seems to be narrowing to a two man race between Mitt Romney and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, a majority of their respective supporters say they have reservations about their candidate. Half of Republicans who plan to vote in a primary say they would like more choices. * The poll found a 43 percent approval rating for Mr. Obama. It is significantly higher than Jimmy Carter, who had an approval rating of 31 percent at a similar time in his presidency, according to the Times and CBS News poll, which showed Ronald Reagan with an approval of 46 percent and the elder George Bush at 70 percent. * As the Republican Party experiences something of a reinvention, with Tea Party activists often clashing with the party's weakening establishment, the poll found an overall electorate that is not entirely in step with the campaign messages of the party's candidates. More than 8 in 10 Republicans voters would like to see the national health care law repealed, at least in part. About half say illegal immigrants should be deported, rather than offered a chance at citizenship or an opportunity to serve as guest workers. * Yet in stark contrast to the positions taken by some presidential candidates, three-quarters of Republicans say global warming exists - either as a result of human activity, natural patterns in the earth's environment, or both. Nearly 6 in 10 favor allowing same sex couples to either form civil unions or marry. And only one-third of Republicans support a ban on abortion. A slim majority of Republican voters say it is important for a presidential candidate to share their religious beliefs. And more than one-third of Republican primary voters say that most people they know would not vote for a candidate who is Mormon. * A fight over Social Security has emerged as one of the early yet defining differences between Mr. Perry, who has called the program a "monstrous lie," and Mr. Romney, who has called for maintaining the current system with some changes to shore up its long term financial condition. The poll found that nearly three-quarters of Republicans said they thought Social Security and Medicare were worth their costs. * The poll found that most Americans are familiar with the American Jobs Act, the president's $447 billion proposal to create jobs. Almost half of the public is confident the plan would create jobs and improve the economy. A substantial majority of Americans support the main proposals aimed at creating jobs, including tax cuts for small businesses, improvements in the nation's infrastructure and payroll tax cuts for working Americans. Yet despite their support, two-thirds of Americans from broad majorities across party lines are doubtful that Congressional Democrats and Republicans will be able to reach an agreement on a job creation package despite near universal bipartisan support for compromise. The poll also found a historically low approval rating for Congress, with just 19 percent approving of Republicans, compared with 28 percent that approve of Democrats. * The poll had a few promising signs for Mr. Obama. Americans strongly support his position that creating jobs should be a higher priority than cutting spending. Democrats and independents agree on that view, while Republicans do not. And across party lines, Americans support his position that a deficit reduction plan should include a mix of tax increases and spending cuts. * Two-thirds of the public say Mr. Obama has not made progress in fixing the economy, even though a majority of people concede the condition of the national economy is not something a president can do a lot about. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/us/politics/obamas-support-is-slipping-poll-fi nds-but-his-jobs-plan-is-well-received.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16744 Registered: May-04 | . "OK, anyone detecting a pattern here? " "Yes the left is desperate and crazy and knows they have to destroy anyone and anything to to help the boy/king keep the position he was placed in." Proving - as predicted by the scientific research noted in this thread - that, when confronted with hard facts and truths which disagree with their personal ideology, a repub will, rather than think through the evidence and reach a logical conclusion, double down and become even more stubborn and recalcitrant in their lunk headed, incorrect beliefs. "CRAZY LADY WITH THE BUSH DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, HE IS GONE. THE ELECTION WILL BE A REFERENDUM ON BARRY MUCH TO YOUR DISMAY." See the above note. I'm sure you've forgotten what it said by now. Oh, and you might just remember the fact (which was posted here not all that long ago) that a majority of Americans still believe Bush is the person most responsible for the present economic woes. Don't think that's true? Let's just see how much Bush does for the campaign of the repub nominee, eh? The repubs do not want anyone thinking about the "good ol'days" of W. So, if you think Bush won't be on the ballot, you're delusional. Oh, wait, you're a repub, that's obvious and repetitive. Dream on, lil'squiddy, dream on .... . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16746 Registered: May-04 | . Yikes! Another repub without facts ... John Boehner's misfire on pending federal regulations In a speech Thursday before the Economic Club of Washington, Speaker Boehner made an impassioned case about how federal regulations were harming businesses and imperiling jobs. This is indeed an important issue - one that the Obama administration claims it is also trying to tackle. As part of his evidence, Boehner pointed to "219 new rules" that were in the works, which he said "will cost our economy at least $100 million." He suggested the impact could be immediate. As he put it, "our economy is poised to take a hit from the government of at least $100 million - 219 times." Boehner, in recent weeks, has pressed the White House for answers about these 219 new rules. In a letter to President Obama dated Aug. 26, Boehner wrote: "This year the Administration'’s regulatory agenda identifies 219 planned new regulations that have estimated annual costs in excess of $100 million each." So we wondered - where did this "219" number come from? And does it really mean what Boehner suggests? The Facts The federal government is required to identify regulations that could have an economic impact of more than $100 million, but people frequently misunderstand what that means. It does not necessarily mean $100 million in costs; in fact, it can also mean more than a $100 million in benefits ... In other words, it’s a real stretch to assume, as Boehner does, that each one of these proposed regulations automatically means at least $100 million in costs to the economy ... The Pinocchio Test Boehner left the distinct impression that 219 new regulations were hanging like a Sword of Damocles over the U.S. economy. But it turns out the number of potential regulations is inflated, as well as the potential impact. Many of the regulations may turn out to have substantial costs, but others could have benefits, as a report on the speaker's Web site makes clear. Boehner wins points for admitting he may have overstated his case, but overall his statement contained significant factual errors. Three Pinocchios http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/john-boehners-misfire-on-p ending-federal-regulations/2011/09/15/gIQAufuhVK_blog.html?wprss=fact-checker Wow! Three out of four Pinnochios! That's right at that 76% figure. This "3/4 of what a repub says will be lies" is becomming a pretty good rule of thumb, eh? . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 692 Registered: Mar-04 | Obama administration 'pressured Air Force general to change testimony' Barack Obama's administration has been accused of pressuring a top US Air Force general into changing his congressional testimony to make it more favourable to the company of a major Democratic donor. According to Republicans on Capitol Hill, General William Shelton, head of Air Force Space Command, told them in a closed session the White House urged him to alter his testimony about the Pentagon's concerns about a new wireless project by a satellite broadband company. The furore over the issue comes as an increasing number of Democrats, many of whom are concerned about their own re-election prospects, begin to back away from their president. LightSquared, based in Virginia, is funded by the multi-millionaire Philip Falcone, a frequent donor to Democrats. The satellite and broadband communications company plans to build a nationwide, 4G phone network that many generals believe would seriously hinder the effectiveness of high-precision GPS receiver systems used by the military. According to officials who spoke to the "Daily Beast" website, Gen Shelton's prepared testimony was leaked in advance to LightSquared. The White House then asked the general to alter it to say that he supported the White House policy to add more broadband for commercial use and that the Pentagon would try to resolve its concerns in tests within 90 days. "There was an attempt to influence the text of the testimony and to engage LightSquared in the process in order to bias his testimony," Representative Mike Turner, a Republican, told the Daily Beast. "The only people who were involved in the process in preparation for the hearing included the Department of Defence, the White House, and the Office Management and Budget." The row over the allegedly improper intervention came as a Republican-controlled House of Representatives Committee investigated a federal loan guarantee to Solyndra, a solar firm also tied to a major Democratic contributor, which failed after receiving a half-billion US government loan guarantee. A spokesman for Gen Shelton said that his testimony was "his own, supported by and focused purely on documented tested results". LightSquared insisted it had not sought to interfere with the properly regulatory process. The White House said reviewing congressional testimony was routine. But Mr Obama is vulnerable on the issue, not least because of his lofty promises about transparency and cleaning up Washington on the campaign trail and when he first arrived at the White House. According to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, the president is losing support among elements of his own base as well as failing to attract independent voters. The results show that despite his effort to seize the initiative on the economy, nearly three-quarters of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. An increasing number of senior Democrats are breaking ranks to be openly critical of the White House. James Carville, the veteran Democratic consultant who managed Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential election campaign, said his advice to Mr Obama after the party's loss of a previously safe congressional seat in New York be summed up in one word: panic. He added that Mr Obama should "fire" someone. "No â€" fire a lot of people. This may be news to you but this is not going well. For precedent, see Russian Army 64th division at Stalingrad. "Mr President, your hinge of fate must turn. Bill Clinton fired many people in 1994 and took a lot of heat for it. Reagan fired most of his campaign staff in 1980. Republicans historically fired their own speaker, Newt Gingrich. "Bush fired Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. For God's sake, why are we still looking at the same political and economic advisers that got us into this mess? It's not working." Democrats on Capitol Hill, many of whom are concerned Mr Obama's unpopularity will "drag" on them, are less and less reluctant to support the White House. Sen Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, said that Mr Obama's new American Jobs Act, announced last week to help tackle an unemployment rate stuck at 9.1 per cent, was misconceived. "I'm afraid if we tried to pass one big bill, I think there's a lot of scepticism about big pieces of legislation with all kinds of different component parts. We should break this up," he told KDKA. Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, also from Mr Obama's party, said any final bill was "not going to be what the president wants". |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16747 Registered: May-04 | . "Barack Obama's administration has been accused of ... " Accused of?!!! WTF is "accused of"? " According to Republicans on Capitol Hill ... " Oh, I see, the people who have so quickly forgotten George H.W. Bush's record setting 75 Presidential pardons or commutations of felons ... Pardoned Joe llen Deckert (1979 Misprision of felony (relating to illegal firearms sales)) Donald Alvin Dibble III (1978 Illegal possession of firearm with obliterated serial number) Leo Friedman (1969 Mail embezzlement) Armand Hammer (1976 Making campaign contribution in name of another (misdemeanor)) Charles Arnold Jacobs (1979 Submission of false income tax return) Mary Lou Peet (1978 Fraudulent transfer of property in contemplation of bankruptcy) Robert Gary Rice (1973 Submitting false statements to Federal Housing Administration) Billy Wayne Rodgers (1973 Transporting firearm in foreign commerce, Insubordination in violation of Article 91, Uniform Code of Military Justice) Raymond Joseph Shovelski (1974 Conspiracy to accept kickbacks on Government contracts) [edit] CommutationDouglas Bruce Fenimore (1981 Receiving and concealing stolen property, interstate transportation of stolen property, and bank robbery) [edit] March 5, 1991 Dorothy Christina Damush (1982 Conspiracy to transport stolen goods in interstate commerce) David Feld (1980 Interference with agent of National Labor Relations Board (misdemeanor)) Mark Christopher Felling (1980 Theft of mail by postal employee) Howard William Fitzsimmons (1974 Embezzlement of Government property) Garth Stuart Hancock (1959 Conspiracy to violate Commodity Credit Regulations) Charles Walker Harrison (1966 Unlawful possession of narcotics without having paid transfer tax) Geary Travis Holstead (1978 Theft of mail by postal employee) Michael Dennis Larsen (1977 Bank embezzlement) Mark Allen Nelson (1975 Involuntary manslaughter in violation of Article 119, UCMJ) Robert Anthony Pagnanelli (1980 Conspiracy to defraud United States and mail fraud) William George Spurlock (1953 Interstate transportation of stolen motor vehicle) Harold Bennett Stewart (1963 Theft of Government property) Bernice Lena Telgemeier (1980 Attempted income tax evasion) Julius Henry Telgemeier (1980 Attempted income tax evasion) William Newton Tunnell, Jr. (1977 Bank embezzlement) Robert Lee Warner (1979 Obstruction of mail) James Alexander Womack (1978 Possession of stolen mail) Joseph Berger (1959 Transporting gambling devices within a special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States) Miles Oakley Bidwell (1962 Filing false statement) Edward Meredith Dawsey (1981 Making false statements to the Office of Workmen's Compensation Programs) Leonard Gilmor (1975 Mail fraud and aiding and abetting) Lewis Isador Goltz (1976 Sale of firearms to out-of-state resident, failure to register firearms, failure to make appropriate entry in firearm acquisition disposition records) Wayne Stanley LaTour (1980 Dealing in firearms without a license) Thomas Leoutsakos (1968 Sale of methamphetamine (misdemeanor)) Mary Mahoney Longwell (1976 Embezzlement of bank funds) Barbara Cecil Livenia Chapman Portwood (1962 Forgery) Laurie Virginia Rossetti (1976 Engaging in the conduct of an illegal gambling business) Myra Soble (1957 Conspiracy to receive and obtain national defense information and transmit same to foreign government) Rudolph Hartsel Young (1960 Embezzlement of postal funds and falsification of postal records) PardonedCaspar W. Weinberger (1988 Several counts of perjury, See Iran-Contra Affair) Elliott Abrams (1988 Two counts of unlawfully withholding information. See Iran-Contra Affair) Duane R. Clarridge (1991 Seven counts of perjury and false statements, See Iran-Contra Affair) Alan D. Fiers (1991 Two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from the Congress, See Iran-Contra Affair) Clair George (1991 Ten counts of perjury, false statements and obstruction) (1992 two felony charges of false statements and perjury before Congress - see Iran-Contra Affair) Robert C. McFarlane (1988 See Iran-Contra Affair) Joseph Bear, Jr. (1964 Burglary on Indian Reservation) Thomas Burley Berry (1980 Detaining and destroying mail) Robert William Dailey, Sr. (1943 Failure to report for induction into the military in violation of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940) Paul Karsten Fauteck (1950 Interstate transportation of stolen motor vehicle) (1955 Conspiracy to smuggle alien into United States and attempting to conceal alien) (1955 Transporting false securities in interstate commerce) (1954 Absent without leave from Army and wrongful disposition of government property) (1955 Absent without leave) Dale Leonard Fix (1944 Failure to report for military duty in violation of Selective Service Act of 1940) Francene Geiger (1980 Bank embezzlement) Ivan Leon Gentry (1946 Transporting stolen motor vehicle in interstate commerce) Joseph Gordon Haynie, Jr. (1973 Misapplication of bank funds) Thom Davies (1989 Illegal substance and prostitution offences) Henry Levin (1973 Violation of Customs regulations) Guillermo Medrano Moreno (1961 Failure to register as narcotics user) (1967 Illegal importation and sale of heroin) Frank T. Passini, III (1978 Possession and sale of 5,000 grams of m*rijuana and wrongful possession of 50 grams of m*rijuana in violation of Article 134, Uniform Code of Military Justice) Donald Rightmire (1984 Misprision of a felony) Edwin Roberts (1947 Carrying on the business of a distiller, possessing an unregistered whiskey still, and making and fermenting mash fit for distillation) Patrick James Sheehan (1981 Misapplication of bank funds) Hildred Earl Spates (1971 Theft of government property) Alfredo Encinas Villarreal (1971 Theft of mail by postal employee) Jack Alvin Walker (1956 Failure to report for military duty in violation of Selective Service Act of 1950) Carl Frank Westminster, Jr. (1977 Possession, sale, and transfer of controlled substance in violation of Article 92, Uniform Code of Military Justice) [edit] January 15, 1993[edit] CommutationJoseph Occhipinti (1991 Conspiracy to violate civil rights, deprivation of rights under color of law (misdemeanor), and making false statement) January 18, 1993[edit] PardonedRobert Edward Leigh Barnhill (1980 Bid rigging in violation of Sherman Antitrust Act) George Edward Clements, III (1987 Knowingly making false declarations before grand jury) Edwin L. Cox, Jr. (1988 Bank fraud) Lloyd Earl Davis (1981 Making false entries in bank records) James Lewis Donawho (1979 Making false statement to government agency) John Stinson Howell, III (1979 Income tax evasion) Charles Elvin Huffman (1955 Larceny on a government reservation) Thomas Arthur Kardashian (1974 Offering gratuities to public officials) Frederick Irwin Lorber (1962 Obtaining m*rijuana without paying transfer tax) Richard Norris Ware (1973 Aiding and abetting bank embezzlement (misdemeanor)) Albert Teyechea Williams (1980 Conspiracy to misapply bank funds) Clyde Henry Umphenour, Jr. (1956 & 1961 Two counts Interstate transportation of forged securities) Commutation - Aslam P. Adam (1985 Conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin, importation of heroin, and use of mail in committing felony) ... are accusing Obama of something as yet totally unsubstantiated and unproven. The people who have so conveniently forgotten Scooter Libby, Jack Abramhoff, Bob Ney and Tom Delay - all of whom were convicted and sentenced to prison - are accusing Obama of something only they see. Or, as Michelle Bachmann would put it, "I heard this from some one only I can see ... " How many individuals in the Obama administration have been accused of illegal activities which have reached formal (non-partisan) investigation scope? The answer; 0. How many of the George W Bush administration have been investigated or brought before a court? Here's a partial list (partial only because the entire list wouldn't fit within the space allotted to a sngle post by this forum) ... Executive Branch: Lewis Libby ® Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney ®, 'Scooter' was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Plame Affair on March 6, 2007. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000. The sentence was commuted by George W. Bush ® on July 1, 2007. The felony remains on Libby's record though the jail time and fine were commuted.[20][21] Alphonso Jackson ® The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development resigned while under investigation by the FBI for revoking the contract of a vendor who told Jackson he did not like President George W. Bush ® (2008)[22][23] Karl Rove ® Senior Adviser to President George W. Bush was investigated by the Office of Special Counsel for "improper political influence over government decision-making", as well as for his involvement in several other scandals such as Lawyergate, Bush White House e-mail controversy and Plame affair. He resigned in April 2007. (See Karl Rove in the George W. Bush administration)[24] "Lawyergate"[25] Or the Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy refers to President Bush firing, without explanation, eleven Republican federal prosecutors whom he himself had appointed. It is alleged they were fired for prosecuting Republicans and not prosecuting Democrats.[26][27] When Congressional hearings were called, a number of senior Justice Department officials cited executive privilege and refused to testify under oath, including: Michael A. Battle ® Director of Executive Office of US Attorneys in the Justice Department.[28] Bradley Schlozman ® Director of Executive Office of US Attorneys who replaced Battle[29] Michael Elston ® Chief of Staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty [30] Paul McNulty ® Deputy Attorney General to William Mercer [31] William W. Mercer ® Associate Attorney General to Alberto Gonzales[32] Kyle Sampson ® Chief of Staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [28] Alberto Gonzales ® Attorney General of the United States [33] Monica Goodling ® Liaison between President Bush and the Justice Department [34] Joshua Bolten ® Deputy Chief of Staff to President Bush was found in Contempt of Congress[35] Sara M. Taylor ® Aid to Presidential Advisor Karl Rove [36] Karl Rove ® Advisor to President Bush[37] Harriet Miers ® Legal Counsel to President Bush, was found in Contempt of Congress[35] Bush White House e-mail controversy - During the Lawyergate investigation it was discovered that the Bush administration used Republican National Committee (RNC) web servers for millions of emails which were then destroyed, lost or deleted in possible violation of the Presidential Records Act and the Hatch Act. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Andrew Card, Sara Taylor and Scott Jennings all used RNC webservers for the majority of their emails. Of 88 officials, no emails at all were discovered for 51 of them.[38] As many as 5 million e-mails requested by Congressional investigators of other Bush administration scandals were therefore unavailable, lost, or deleted.[39] Lurita Alexis Doan ® Resigned as head of the General Services Administration. She was under scrutiny for conflict of interest and violations of the Hatch Act.[40] Among other things she asked GSA employees how they could "help Republican candidates." [41] Jack Abramoff Scandal in which the prominent lobbyist with close ties to Republican administration officials and legislators offered bribes as part of his lobbying efforts. Abramoff was sentenced to 4 years in prison.[42][43] See Legislative scandals. David Safavian GSA (General Services Administration) Chief of Staff,[44] found guilty of blocking justice and lying,[45] and sentenced to 18 months[46] Roger Stillwell ® Staff in the Department of the Interior under George W. Bush. Pleaded guilty and received two years suspended sentence. [6] Susan B. Ralston ® Special Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor to Karl Rove, resigned October 6, 2006 after it became known that she accepted gifts and passed information to her former boss Jack Abramoff.[47] J. Steven Griles ® former Deputy to the Secretary of the Interior pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and was sentenced to 10 months.[48] Italia Federici ® staff to the Secretary of Interior, and President of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, pled guilty to tax evasion and obstruction of justice. She was sentenced to four years probation.[49][50][51] Jared Carpenter ® Vice-President of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, was discovered during the Abramoff investigation and pled guilty to income tax evasion. He got 45 days, plus 4 years probation.[52] Michael Scanlon ® former staff to Tom DeLay: working for Abramoff, pled guilty to bribery.[42][43] Tony Rudy ® former staff to Tom DeLay, pleaded guilty to conspiracy.[43] Bob Ney (R-OH) bribed by Abramoff, pled guilty to conspiracy, sentenced to 30 months.[43] Neil Volz ® former staff to Robert Ney, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy in 2006 charges stemming from his work for Bob Ney. In 2007 he was sentenced to two years probation, 100 hours community service, and a fine of $2,000.[53] Mark Zachares ® staff in the Department of Labor, bribed by Abramoff, guilty of conspiracy to defraud.[43] Robert E. Coughlin ® Deputy Chief of Staff, Crimianl Division of the Justice Department pleaded guilty to conflict of interest after accepting bribes from Jack Abramoff. (2008) [50] William Heaton ®, former chief of staff for Bob Ney ®, pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge involving a golf trip to Scotland, expensive meals, and tickets to sporting events between 2002 and 2004 as payoffs for helping Abramoff's clients.[54] Kevin A. Ring ® former staff to John Doolittle (R-CA) indicted on 8 counts of corruption. The judge declared a mistrial.[55] John Albaugh ® former chief of staff to Ernest Istook (R-OK) pled guilty to accepting bribes connected to the Federal Highway Bill. Istook was not charged. (2008) [56] James Hirni, ® former staff to Tim Hutchinson (R-AR) was charged with wire fraud for giving a staffer for Don Young ® of Alaska a bribe in exchange for amendments to the Federal Highway Bill. (2008) [57] Kyle Foggo Executive director of the CIA was convicted of honest services fraud in the awarding of a government contract and sentenced to 37 months in federal prison at Pine Knot, Kentucky. On September 29, 2008, Foggo pleaded guilty to one count of the indictment, admitting that while he was the CIA executive director, he acted to steer a CIA contract to the firm of his lifelong friend, Brent R. Wilkes.[58] Julie MacDonald ® Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior, resigned May 1, 2007 after giving government documents to developers (2007)[59] Claude Allen ® Appointed as an advisor by President Bush on Domestic Policy, Allen was arrested for a series of felony thefts in retail stores. He was convicted on one count and resigned soon after.[60] Lester Crawford ® Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, resigned after 2 months. Pled guilty to conflict of interest and received 3 years suspended sentence and fined $90,000 (2006) [61] 2003 Invasion of Iraq depended on intelligence that Saddam Hussein was developing "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs) meaning nuclear, chemical and/or biological weapons for offensive use. The Downing Street memo were minutes of a British secret meeting with the US (dated 23 July 2002, leaked 2005) which include a summary of MI6 Director Sir Richard Dearlove's report that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy" This was called the 'smoking gun' concerning W. Bush's run up to war with Iraq.(2005)[62] Yellowcake forgery: Just prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration presented evidence to the UN that Iraq was seeking material (yellowcake uranium) in Africa for making nuclear weapons. Though presented as true, it was later found to be not only dubious, but outright false.[63] Coalition Provisional Authority Cash Payment Scandal; On June 20, 2005 the staff of the Committee on Government Reform prepared a report for Congressman Henry Waxman.[64] It was revealed that $12 billion in cash had been delivered to Iraq by C-130 planes, on shrinkwrapped pallets of US $100 bills.[65] The United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, concluded that "Many of the funds appear to have been lost to corruption and waste.... Some of the funds could have enriched both criminals and insurgents...." Henry Waxman, commented, "Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone?" A single flight to Iraq on December 12, 2003 which contained $1.5 billion in cash is said to be the largest single Federal Reserve payout in US history according to Henry Waxman.[66][67] Bush administration payment of columnists with federal funds to say nice things about Republican policies. Illegal payments were made to journalists Armstrong Williams ®, Maggie Gallagher ® and Michael McManus ® (2004â€"2005)[68] Sandy Berger (D) former Clinton security adviser pleads guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unlawfully removing classified documents from the National Archives in (2005)[69] Bernard Kerik ® nomination in 2004 as Secretary of Homeland Security was derailed by past employment of an illegal alien as a nanny, and other improprieties. On Nov 4, 2009, he pled guilty to two counts of tax fraud and five counts of lying to the federal government(2009)[70] and was sentenced to four years in prison.[70] Torture: Top US officials including George W. Bush [71] and Dick Cheney [72] authorized enhanced interrogation techniques of prisoners, including waterboarding (called torture by many) by US troops and the CIA in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. In 2010 Bush stated "He'd do it again..." and Cheney stated on ABC's This Week, "I was a big supporter of waterboarding." [73] (2004) Plame affair (2004), in which CIA agent Valerie Plame's name was leaked by Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State, to the press in retaliation for her husband's criticism of the reports used by George W. Bush to legitimize the Iraq war.[74] Thomas A. Scully, ® administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), withheld information from Congress about the projected cost of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, and allegedly threatened to fire Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster, if Foster provided the data to Congress. (2003)[75] Scully resigned on December 16, 2003. NSA warrantless surveillance - Shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001, President George W. Bush ® implemented a secret program by the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on domestic telephone calls by American citizens without warrants, thus by-passing the FISA court which must approve all such actions. (2002)[76] In 2010, Federal Judge Vaughn Walker ruled this practice to be illegal.[77] Kenneth Lay ® a member of the Republican National Committee, financial donor and ally of George W. Bush and once considered a possible Secretary of the Treasury. Lay was found guilty of 10 counts of securities fraud concerning his company Enron, but died before sentencing.[78][79][80][81][82] Janet Rehnquist ® appointed Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services by George W. Bush. In 2002, Governor Jeb Bush's (R-FL) Chief of Staff Kathleen Shanahan asked Rehnquist to delay auditing a $571 million federal overpayment to the State of Florida. Rehnquist ordered her staff to delay the investigation for five months until after the Florida elections. When Congress began an investigation in to the matter, Rehnquist resigned in March 2003, saying she wanted to spend more time with her family.[83][84][85][85][86][87] John Yoo ® An attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel inside the Justice Department who, working closely with vice president Dick Cheney and The Bush Six,[88] wrote memos stating the right of the president to suspend sections of the ABM Treaty without informing Congress [89] bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allowing warrentless wiretapping of US Citizens within the United States by the National Security Agency.[89] state that the First Amendment and Fourth Amendments and the Takings Clause do not apply to the president in time of war as defined in the USA PATRIOT Act [89] allow Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (torture) because provisions of the War Crimes Act, the Third Geneva Convention, and the Torture convention do not apply.[89] Many of his memos have since been repudiated and reversed.[89][90] Later review by the Justice Department reported that Yoo and Jay Bybee used "poor judgement" in the memos, but no charges have yet been filed.[91] Do the research yourself squid. Find out how many individuals from the Clinton administration actually had formal charges brought against them. Do include the fact the repubs chased after the presonal conduct of individuals unrelated to their official duites or going decades into the their life prior to taking afffice. This is what the repubs do - they acccuse and they investigate others while being the largest single group of indicted, convicted and sentenced criminals in American history. But, please, do not forget the repubs have the distinct advantage of owning Richard Milhouse Nixon and every one of his felonious cronies. No single post on this forum could possiblt include all of the memebers of that club - many of whom have gone on to become famous as holders of the flame within the repub ranks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_St ates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff_Indian_lobbying_scandal . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16748 Registered: May-04 | . When Ronald Reagan both broke the law and violated the US Constitution ... Iran-Contra Affair Foreign Affairs, 1985-1992 "Irangate" The Iran-Contra Affair was a clandestine action not approved of by the United States Congress. It began in 1985, when President Ronald Reagan's administration supplied weapons to Iran¹ â€" a sworn enemy â€" in hopes of securing the release of American hostages held in Lebanon by Hezbollah terrorists loyal to the Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's leader. This article is rooted in the Iran Hostage Crisis. The U.S. took millions of dollars from the weapons sale and routed them and guns to the right-wing "Contra"² guerrillas in Nicaragua. The Contras were the armed opponents of Nicaragua's Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction, following the July 1979 overthrow of strongman Anastasio Somoza Debayle and the ending of the Somoza family's 43-year reign. Illegal trading The transactions that took place in the Iran-Contra scandal were contrary to the legislation of the Democratic-dominated Congress and contrary to official Reagan administration policy. Part of the deal was that, in July 1985, the United States would send 508 American-made TOW anti-tank missiles from Israel to Iran for the safe exchange of a hostage, the Reverend Benjamin Weir. After that successful transfer, the Israelis offered to ship 500 HAWK surface-to-air missiles to Iran in November 1985, in exchange for the release of all remaining American hostages being held in Lebanon. Eventually the arms were sold with proceeds going to the contras, and the hostages were released. In February 1986, 1,000 TOW missiles were shipped to Iran. From May to November, there were more shipments of various weapons and parts. Eventually Hezbollah elected to kidnap more hostages following their release of the previous ones, which rendered meaningless any further dealings with Iran. The affair is exposed It was not until 1986 that word had gotten out about the secret transactions. The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa published a series of articles in November 1986, that exposed the weapons-for-hostages deal. On November 18th, 1987, the Congress issued a report on the affair that stated the president bore "ultimate responsibility." Upon further investigation, Attorney General Edwin Meese verified the report and an independent special prosecutor, Lawrence E. Walsh, was assigned to investigate the deals involving the arms sale and the Contra support. President Reagan appointed a review board, headed by former Republican Senator John Tower. The Tower Commission's report concluded that the president had been inefficient in controlling the National Security Council, the agency that had actually made the illegal deals, and had known about the arms sale to the Iranians. However, it could not be discovered in hearings if the president had known about the Contra support. Court hearings and convictions The hearings surrounding the scandals were televised from May to August in 1987. Military aide Marine Lt. Colonel Oliver North, former CIA chief William J. Casey, National Security Advisor John Poindexter, former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger, and many other high-ranking government officials were publicly investigated. It was finally found that National Security Advisor Poindexter had personally authorized the diversion of money to the Contra rebels; all the while withholding the information from President Reagan. The CIA's William J. Casey played a part in the conspiracy, but he died during the hearings. As a military aide to the National Security Council, North had been the main negotiator. During his hearings he repeatedly explained that he was "under orders from his superiors." North's plea of innocence was overlooked, and in May 1989, he was convicted of obstructing Congress and unlawfully destroying government documents. A few years later, when George H.W. Bush was president, North's conviction was expunged on the grounds that he had acted strictly out of patriotism. Poindexter was convicted in April 1990 on five counts of deceiving Congress and sentenced to six months in prison. Two years later, Weinberger also was convicted of five counts of deceiving Congress. Both Poindexter and Weinberger's convictions were overturned - which relieved them of any accumulated responsibility. On Christmas Eve 1992, President Bush issued presidential pardons to all indicted in the scandal. The Iran-Contra Affair was ended. http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1889.html http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Iran-Contra_Affair The Iran Contra scandal unravels; http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/iran-contra-scandal-unravels Do I have it right, squiddy? These are the same people who are now accusing Obama of some sort of "scandal"? These are the people who are ginning up the Solyndra loan which was started under repub George W Bush? These are same people who, the moment he was inaugurated, began investigating the president's wife's business affairs a dozen years before he took office? These people - the ones who can't seem to not break the law - are accusing Obama of something on purely hearsay evidence? Once again, squddy, good pull. With your ignorant-of-history and totally incompetent "research" capacities, I defintiely know who I won't be voting for - ever! . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16749 Registered: May-04 | . I have to say, Gerald Ford was the "cleanest" repub President in recent history and he is, of course, tainted with giving Nixon and many of his cronies a "pardon" - unusual in the fact that Nixon had never formally been charged with any crimes. Possibly, his "cleanliness" comes from the fact he only served half a term, who know what he might have done given more time? He is, of course, the repub version of (what the repubs would like everyone to believe was) "Jimmy Carter" - except Ford never built anyone a house after leaving office. He just kept quiet - something repubs are very good at once they are no longer expedient to "the cause". As a matter of fact, I can't think of any repub President from the last seventy years who has done much of anything for anyone other than their cronies once they leave office. Carter builds homes and brokers international elections and peace treaties. Carter and Clinton both are involved in aid to the world - most especially the poor and needy of the world. Clinton is the most well known and respected politiican in the world today. He travels the world under the Clinton Global Intitiative; http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/ Hillary's poll numbers are the highest of any currently serving official at 68% approval. Let's not forget that most of the George W administration - including George, Dick and "Rummy" - cannot travel to foreign countries without fear of being arrested on international war crimes charges. Same goes for Kissinger. Reagan accepted a free ranch and house in California from his political "friends" when he left office. The Bushes are all living quietly and trying to keep their heads down - within the international boundaries of the United States that is. (Did you know that George H. W. Bush - the future CIA director - claims not to know where he was when he heard that JFK had been shot and killed? [Official reports and schedules say he had been in Dallas just prior to the assassination; http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-hptb5&p=Geortge%20H.%20W.%20Bush%20and%20the%20JFK%20assassination&type= ] Believe me, squiddy, no one who was above the age of three on Nov. 22, 1963 cannot remember where they were when they hear that news. "My senior year, I joined Skull & Bones, a secret society, so secret, I can't say anything more." George W. Bush, President of the United States ) Hmmmmm ... what is one to think? Is anyone seeing a pattern here? Can the entire repub party and all of the mindless little drones who vote them into office - most especially those who do so two or more times - be indicted for aiding and abetting? . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16750 Registered: May-04 | . "The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds." John F. Kennedy |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 693 Registered: Mar-04 | September 17, 2011 Long term unemployment and Obama (updated) Ed Lasky Obama's "jobs bill" is primarily a political prop to use against Republicans from Obama's bully pulpit. That much is clear, as he has telegraphed his desire to run a Truman-like campaign against a do-nothing Congress. But sometimes the details reveal his own weakness. One feature of the bill highlights a big problem for Obama that opponents should latch on to as 2012 approaches. That feature is the $4,000 tax credit to employers for hiring long-term unemployed workers . Those would be workers who have been without work for 6 months. Clearly, Obama is worried that Republicans will continue to emphasize not just the high unemployment rate but the fact that the long-term unemployment rate is staggeringly high. The average duration of unemployment has climbed to record highs and about 44 percent of jobless workers have not had a job in six months. Mitt Romney and others have sharpened their focus on this fact -- a devastating figure for a President and a party that has led us into this morass. Long term unemployment makes the chance of landing a job that much harder -- and a myriad of other problems emerge: family breakdown, loss of homes, increased credit problems, more reliance on food stamps (also at a record high), loss of morale and the corroding of the human spirit. The longer people are on unemployment the greater the chances they and their friends and family will hold Obama responsible. Focusing on long-term unemployed also can help Obama's political prospects in one other way. He had Congress pass and he signed into law the extension of unemployment benefits to 99 weeks. Many long-term unemployed may be reaching the end of that time period. But he needs to get long-term unemployed hired as fast as possible so he can get the one job he cares about: his own. This is why Republicans should continue to focus on this number. The poker playing President is not a sharp player: he has shown his hand. Update from Ed Lasky: I would be remiss if I did not mention one other sly tool that Obama slipped into his "jobs bill" like a stiletto. This is a provision that would allow people who felt they were not hired because they had been discriminated against for having been out of work to sue the people who refused to hire them. Investor's Business Daily wrote about this gift to trial lawyers (a key Democratic Party constituency) : Obama has shoved a provision into his jobs bill that would make it illegal for companies to discriminate against the unemployed, opening the door to a flood of costly, needless and ultimately job-killing legal actions. As Charles Lane, an editorial writer at the Washington Post put it, this will "probably destroy jobs in a misguided effort to save them," adding that "plaintiffs' lawyers are no doubt dreaming up new ways to wield this new cause of action - make that class action - every time a company turns someone down for a job." First a miserly tax credit to get the long-term unemployed back onto the employment rolls (at least until 2012) and then a threat that if companies do not hire unemployed people they will be sued. First bribe and if that does not work, threaten. No wonder this guy came from Chicago. How about enacting pro-growth policies and toning down the rage than animates your anti-free enterprise rhetoric? That might do wonders. What message do businesses get from this President? Run. The electorate isn't interested in Bush crazy woman.... You need to focus and not let the dementia take over.. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 694 Registered: Mar-04 | "The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds." John F. Kennedy Wisdom doesn't automatically come with old age. Nothing does - except wrinkles. It's true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the first place. Abigail Van Buren (1918 - ), 1978} |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16751 Registered: May-04 | . Apparently you've got sour grapes, squiddy. ROTFLMAO!!! |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16752 Registered: May-04 | . Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana Who also said ... Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim. Put another way and as we've already seen proven through scientific research ... Liberal Brains vs. Conservative Brains: A New Neuroimaging Study ... In liberal brains, according to neuroimaging, greater liberalism is associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, a part of the brain associated with conflict (i.e. contradiction) detection, detection of error and similar problem-finding activities. It seems help detect errors involved in habitual tasks or repetitive stimuli. An adjacent area of the ACC appears to act as a link between higher cognitive forebrain activity and the emotional limbic system (empathy, etc.) ... In conservative brains, greater conservatism is associated with increased gray matter in the right amygdala Research shows that the amygdalae perform a primary role in processing memory and emotional response, particularly with the process of "emotional learning," as well as long-term memory formation. The amygdalae are commonly associated with fear and fear-conditioning, although their actual functions are quite a bit more complex and are better described as centers for emotionally-charged memory. Emotional intelligence and social network size are positively correlated (i.e. people with big amygdalae have more friends and are more "in touch" with their feelings). Artistic types have higher than usual readings of amygdala activity...in fact given the connection from powerful emotion to memory, you could think of the two amygdalae as the 'Proust regions' of the brain. As far as fear goes, as a component of the limbic system the amygdalae are directly involved in the physiology of fear responses, as well as fear-based (i.e. behaviorist) conditioning. Notable pathologies involved in over-developed amygdalae include Borderline Personality Disorder (extreme black-white thinking, paranoia, "overreacting," emotional instability), schizophrenia, the phenomenon known as "amygdala hijack," essentially, overreaction to a perceived threat. Emotion-driven decision making can be a bad thing. http://theforvm.org/diary/jordan/liberal-brains-vs-conservative-brains The repub presidents have all been corrupt and absolute crooks ever since Nixon. The facts are the facts, squiddy, stick your head in the sand and cover your ears while doubling down on the same lame brained stupidity if you want. The facts are the repubs have produced the most dangerous US Presidents in the last fifty years while the Dems leave office and are in no danger when they travel abroad. They are welcomed across the globe as peace makers and those who are working for the most downtrodden of all peoples while the repub presidents leave office and have to hide out in locations provided by wealthy cronies. Prove that statement wrong and we can talk. Otherwise, "Proving - as predicted by the scientific research noted in this thread - that, when confronted with hard facts and truths which disagree with their personal ideology, a (drone worker, not all that intelligent) repub will, rather than think through the evidence and reach a logical conclusion, double down and become even more stubborn and recalcitrant in their lunk headed, incorrect beliefs." The republican party is corrupt from top to bottom and back up again. History shows us the evidence. You are suporting corruption and abuse of power in the government when you stand up for the repugs. The very people who proclaim their fealty to the US Constitution are the most likely to vote into office those who are the most likely to dishonor the US Consitution. repubs hold Reagan in esteem despite the fact he dishonored US laws and the US constitution. Same goes for Nixon, Bush I and Bush II. Facts are facts whether you like them or not. It comes down to two a very simple questions, squiddy, try to follow along. How many individuals from the Clinton administration went to prison for their illegal activites while serving in the administration? How many in the repub administrations from 1968 forward have or would have - if not provided a presidential pardon in order to keep them quiet - gone to prison? Numbers do not lie - repubs do (at least 76% of the time). . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16753 Registered: May-04 | . The Impoverished States of America; http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/18/sunday-review/20110918_Poverty.htm l?scp=2&sq=the%20impoverished%20states%20of%20america&st=cse |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16754 Registered: May-04 | . ... His career has certainly been marked by strokes of fortune. When Perry was still a Democratic state representative, Karl Rove took him under his wing and set Perry up for a run as a Republican against the liberal icon Jim Hightower. This was in a race for agriculture commissioner, a statewide post without a vast array of issues. Perry ran against a Hightower rule requiring farmers to get their workers out of the fields before they sprayed pesticide on them, and won. When Perry moved up to run in a very tight race for lieutenant governor, his campaign got a critical last-minute infusion of $1.1 million from a very, very conservative doctor/businessman from San Antonio named James Leininger, who is one of a large number of rich Texans who seem to enjoy giving things to Rick Perry. (In Texas, individuals can donate as much as they want to political candidates. The term "Wild West" is frequently invoked by campaign finance reformers.) Then Governor Bush went off to the White House, turning over his job to Perry, who went on to win election in his own right three times, once with 39 percent of the vote in a race that featured several third-party candidates. But in his last race, in 2010, Perry trounced Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who was certainly a real opponent. Paul Burka of Texas Monthly, who followed the two of them on the campaign trail, noted that Hutchison talked about important state issues, and Perry about the evils of Washington. "The problem for Hutchison is that the energy in the Republican Party today is not directed at how to make government work better," Burka wrote. "It is directed against government, and no one channels that anger better than Rick Perry." If Perry continues on his early trajectory, we will be hearing quite a lot of debate about how good a governor he's been, but Americans' lack of interest in anything connected with state government is so vast that in the end, it may turn out to be beside the point. Anyway, the real question isn't how Texas is doing but whether Perry's experience there has led him to think about the federal government at all, except as a sinister force that can be identified as the villain when anything goes wrong. Just one example: health insurance. More than a quarter of all Texans have no health insurance whatsoever. During his first presidential debate Perry blamed that fact - as he has in the past back home - on Washington. ("Well, bottom line is that we would not have that many people uninsured in the state of Texas if you didn’t have the federal government.") When Bush was in Washington, Texas proposed a half-baked plan to improve its Medicaid program by reducing benefits and coverage. The application was sent back to the state for reworking - by the Bush administration - and the state seems to have expended precious little energy in revising it. But the legend of federal overreaching lives on, a perpetual excuse for why more than six million Texans are uninsured. Having an interest in national government that’s mainly limited to disliking it might work fine if you're the governor of a state that has always regarded itself as "low tax, low service" anyway. It's a little more problematic if you're the guy in charge of keeping the dollar stable, the food supply safe and the national defense ready. We could live with a president who named his boots "Freedom" and "Liberty." Not sure about one who has contempt for the job he's running for. %20everything%20comes%20back%20to%20texas&st=cse&scp=1, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/opinion/sunday/collins-rick-perry-uber-texan.h tml?pagewanted=2&_r=1&sq=to%20Perry,%20everything%20comes%20back%20to%20texas&st =cse&scp=1 . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 695 Registered: Mar-04 | Administration Ignored Warnings on Long-Term Care Plan By Megan McArdle Sep 16 2011, 2:01 PM ET 465 Speaking of ill-considered financial decisions made by politicians intent on their policy priorities, new emails revealed by the AP show that the administration was warned that parts of ObamaCare were a financial disaster--but plowed ahead anyway. For those who don't marinate daily in the minutiae of health care policy, a recap: when ObamaCare was working its way through the Congressional sausage factory, they wanted absolutely every penny of revenue that they could get, in order to maximize the amount of deficit reduction they could claim. The call thus went out to the committees to dust off all of their old revenue raisers and present them for possible inclusion in the bill. As I understand it, that's how we got the idiotic 1099 requirement, which raised a trivial amount of revenue by requiring every business in America to do massive new loads of paperwork. It also seems to be how we got the CLASS Act, a long-term care insurance program that I believe was the brain-child of Ted Kennedy. While the idea was beloved of nursing homes, it was hated by everyone else due to its rich potential for turning into yet another unkillable and unaffordable entitlement. However, from the point of view of someone who is primarily concerned with the Congressional Budget Office's 10-year scoring window, it was great. In the first decade of its existence, the program collects a lot of premiums, but doesn't pay a lot of benefits, so it looks like a fiscal gold mine. It's only in later years, when the beneficiaries start demanding their long-term care, that the problems begin. It seems like it might have been wiser to skip it. But if they had, ObamaCare wouldn't have had much deficit reduction; the last score of CLASS that I'm aware of put the net deficit reduction at $72 billion. CBO's final score of ObamaCare said it would reduce the deficit by $118 billion over the same period. Without CLASS, the deficit reduction would have been less than half the figure they eventually touted. Somehow, $46 billion of deficit reduction on a nearly $1 trillion bill doesn't sound too impressive, does it? More like a rounding error than a serious commitment to fiscal probity. No wonder they were so deaf to the warnings from their own experts. Apparently, the administration was warned about this from the very beginning, but ignored it: Obama's own bipartisan debt commission last year recommended major reforms or repeal of CLASS, as did another independent advisory group. Nursing homes and long-term care providers support the program, while private long-term care insurance companies oppose it. CLASS poses a dilemma for the new congressional supercommittee, since it initially reduces the federal deficit until payouts overwhelm premiums collected. The emails show that the first warning about CLASS came in May 2009, from Richard Foster, head of long range economic forecasts for Medicare. "At first glance this proposal doesn't look workable," Foster wrote in an email to other HHS officials, some of whom were working with Congress to get CLASS into the health care law. Foster said a rough outline of the program would have to enroll more than 230 million people - more than the U.S. workforce - to be financially feasible. But work on CLASS continued, bolstered by a report for AARP that laid out scenarios for implementing the plan. The AARP study also raised financial concerns, although the seniors' lobby supports CLASS. In July, Foster tried again. After reviewing the latest information from Kennedy's office, he wrote HHS officials: "Thirty-six years of (professional) experience lead me to believe that this program would collapse in short order and require significant federal subsidies to continue." Too late. The Obama administration had decided to support CLASS. Documents and emails indicate that Foster was edged out of deliberations. Officials relied on a more favorable analysis from the Congressional Budget Office. In November, Foster went public with his concerns. Congress was well aware, the administration says. By that time, Marton, the HHS aging policy official, was also raising questions internally. Emails he sent other administration officials relayed studies that raised concerns about such issues as premiums and the role of employers, while also recommending fixes. Publicly, the administration maintained it would all work out. A December 2009 presentation for senior officials stressed the end result would be a financially robust program. In private, administration insiders were still spelling out concerns. In January 2010, amid the final drive to pass the health care law through a divided Congress, officials circulated a 10-page list of "technical corrections." One item questioned whether the law gave HHS sufficient authority to redesign the program to keep it afloat, and recommended a "failsafe" clause spelling that out. The administration seems to think that it can fix the program--but the only workable fix appears to be making the thing mandatory rather than optional, which is hardly what they said when they were passing it. And it's not even clear that making it mandatory would work, as my husband noted last spring. The administration has taken something of a beating this week. Not because they're somehow uniquely evil--but because they presented themselves as something different, a technocratic elite above the grubby political posturing and ideological mistakes of earlier administrations. First Solyndra, now this, seem to show that they're very much like everyone else when they're caught up in the throes of ideological excitement--too much in a hurry to dig into promises that are, as journalists like to say, "Too Good to Check". |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16755 Registered: May-04 | . You are incapable of a real thought entering your head all on its own, aren't you, squiddy? Is this the party trying to tell us Obama is "unethical"? Did Rep. John Boehner, the House Republican Minority Leader who is likely to become the next Speaker of the House actually hand out tobacco company checks as bribes to legislators before a US House vote? Yes, he did; and he even admits that he did it; http://m.examiner.com/exCharlotte/pm_65600/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=TWTNWqK P (With link to youtube video of Boehner admitting he did such an unethical act) Maybe it was this party ... Democrats changed House rules in January to disallow the practice of holding votes open to affect the outcome. The new rule came after Republicans routinely held open votes to twist arms, including a 2003 episode on the Medicare prescription drug bill in which Republicans held a vote open for three hours until finally prevailing. "Never once did we in the majority attempt to steal a vote," Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., said Friday; http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2007-08-03-729766154_x.htm Or, this one? Published on Saturday, October 2, 2004 by the Associated Press House Report Shows Arm Twisting for Vote By Larry Margasak WASHINGTON - Arms have always been twisted during close congressional votes on major legislation, but an ethics report rebuking House Majority Leader Tom DeLay added something the public rarely learns: what lawmakers really say to each other. The House ethics committee report even reveals what Republican members didn't say - but were thinking - as they unsuccessfully pleaded with Rep. Nick Smith R-Mich., to support a prescription drug benefit in Medicare. The following are thoughts, comments and remembrances of the November 2003 events, as told to ethics committee investigators for their report on attempts to pressure Smith. As DeLay, R-Texas, approached Smith in late November 2003, he was thinking - based on prior conversations - that he would be "stuck"" talking with the Michigan lawmaker for a long time. That might explain why the following conversation lasted only eight seconds. DeLay: "I will personally endorse your son (a candidate for Congress). That's my last offer." There was, in fact, no first offer. DeLay said it was his exit strategy to end the conversation quickly. It was long enough, though, for the House ethics committee on Thursday to criticize DeLay for trying to trade a political endorsement for a vote. The committee also rebuked Rep. Candice Miller , R-Mich., for a heavy handed attempt at persuasion, and Smith himself, for making exaggerated statements about the pressure he received. On Friday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, "This offer of a quid pro quo further taints the Republicans' Medicare prescription drug bill." ; http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1002-23.htm Or, was it this one? House Republicans Act to Protect DeLay By Charles Babington and Helen Dewar Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, November 18, 2004 Emboldened by their election success, House Republicans changed their rules yesterday to allow Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) to keep his post even if a grand jury indicts him, and Senate GOP leaders continued to weigh changing long standing rules governing filibusters to prevent Democrats from blocking President Bush's most conservative judicial nominees. Republicans were less brazen a month ago, when they held a tiny Senate majority and House members were more sensitive to criticisms of ethical lapses on Capitol Hill. But, basking in the Nov. 2 election that gave Bush a second term and expanded the party's House and Senate majorities, Republican leaders are showing a greater willingness to brush past Democratic objections, parliamentary traditions and watchdog groups' denunciations to advance their agenda. House Republicans, in an unrecorded voice vote behind closed doors, changed a 1993 party rule that required leaders who are indicted to step aside. Under the revised rule, an indicted leader can keep his or her post while the Republican Steering Committee - controlled by party leaders - decides whether to recommend any action by all GOP House members. The rule change applies equally to state and federal indictments. Republicans made it clear they will not act if they think their leaders are targeted by grand juries or prosecutors motivated by politics, which is the charge DeLay and his allies repeatedly have leveled at a grand jury based in Austin. The grand jury has indicted three of DeLay's political associates in connection with fundraising activities for a political action committee closely linked to DeLay. Democrats and ethics watchdog groups denounced the House GOP action. "Today, Republicans sold their collective soul to maintain their grip on power," said House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.)). Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said: "Republicans have reached a new low. It is absolutely mind boggling that as their first order of business following the elections, House Republicans have lowered the ethical standards for their leaders." DeLay told reporters yesterday that he does not expect to be indicted but supports the rule change. Without it, he said, Democrats could "have a political hack decide who our leadership is" by engineering a baseless indictment. He said Democrats "announced years ago that they were going to engage in the politics of personal destruction, and had me as a target." DeLay said the charges being investigated in Austin by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, an elected Democrat, "are frivolous" and "have no substance." Earle, who says partisanship plays no role in his investigation, notes that he has prosecuted more Democrats than Republicans during his long career. Republicans said neither DeLay nor Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) addressed the caucus meeting, which lasted several hours. Hastert later called the rule change "a good decision" that resulted in a "fair and equitable" standard. When House Republicans adopted the 1993 rule requiring indicted leaders to step aside, they were highlighting ethical problems dogging prominent Democrats. Meanwhile, in the Senate, where the GOP will hold 55 of the 100 seats in January, Republican leaders have sharpened their talk of changing rules governing the filibuster, a tactic that both parties have used over the years to block proposals that cannot muster 60 votes to shut off debate. Republicans are angry that Democrats have used the filibuster to block 10 of Bush's most conservative judicial nominees. Changes to Senate rules usually require up to 67 votes if they are especially controversial. But there is one approach - called the "nuclear option" because of its explosive potential - that would require only 51 votes. Republicans could employ it at almost any time after the new Congress convenes in January. Under this rarely used procedure, the Senate's presiding officer, presumably Vice President Cheney, would find that a supermajority to end filibusters is unconstitutional for judicial nominees. Democrats would undoubtedly challenge this ruling. But it takes only a simple majority - or 51 votes from the Senate GOP's new 55-vote majority - to sustain a ruling of the chair. Some key Democrats have warned that such an approach would enrage even moderate Democrats who have qualms about judicial filibusters and destroy whatever comity remains. "To implement the nuclear option would make the last Congress look like a bipartisan tea party," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). Some Republicans also have qualms about the proposal, and it is not clear whether it would get a simple majority. Starting with a speech last week to the Federalist Society and continuing through the Sunday talk shows, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said Senate Republicans would no longer tolerate filibusters on judicial nominations. He hinted broadly that the "nuclear option" is under consideration as a last resort. "One way or the other, the filibuster of judicial nominees must end," he said.* But Frist has also talked about trying to reach some kind of accord with Democrats on handling nominations, and some believe that his threats, capitalizing on the Democrats' weakened clout, are aimed at achieving this result. At a news conference yesterday, he reiterated his opposition to judicial filibusters but declined to say if he wanted to provoke a constitutional fight over the issue. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57294-2004Nov17.html This one? Rule changes In 2004, as DeLay was facing an impending indictment in Texas (see below), House Republicans voted to change an internal rule requiring members of the House leadership to step down if indicted. By the beginning of 2005, however, they had rescinded the rule change. See the main Congresspedia article on the DeLay rule change. After retreating from the internal rule change and backing off a plan to eliminate the ability of the House Ethics Committee to issue the kind of chastisements over actions that fell short of breaking the law or House rules (as in DeLay's case), Republicans did push through several changes to the regulations governing the ethics committee at the beginning of the 109th Congress without Democratic support. On January 4, 2005, the House voted 220-195, (220 Republicans voting for it, 194 Democrats and 1 Independent voting against it)), to issue the new ethics rules.[1] Claiming that the concept of the presumption of innocence was being infringed upon, they voted that a majority of the members of the committee must vote for the conduction of an investigation in order for one to be launched. Because the ethics committee is split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, this change effectively meant that either party could kill an investigation. Previously, if the committee remained deadlocked for forty five days, an investigation was automatically triggered. A second rule change allowed multiple witnesses to be prepared for their testimony by the same lawyer, a move that had been previously discouraged to prevent collaboration between witnesses. A third required the committee to inform the subject of its inquiries that they were being investigated and allow them to contest the official letter that normally gives such notice before it is sent out as part of the public record.[2] House Democrats vigorously protested the new rules and their unilateral imposition. Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.V.), the ranking Democrat on the committee at the time, stated that with the new changes "we might as well not have an ethics committee." [50]; http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=House_Ethics_Committee#The_investigat ion_of_Tom_DeLay.2C_the_Republican_purge_of_the_committee.2C_and_subsequent_rule _changes This one? Claim 3: The OCE is a failure and should be abolished or handcuffed. Reality check: The OCE was created in 2008 to address the fundamental problem that the House ethics committee had become a burial ground for potential ethics violations. This problem culminated with the failure of the ethics committee during 2005 and 2006 to conduct any investigations or take any actions regarding the infamous Jack Abramoff scandals in Congress. The OCE was established to serve as an action forcing mechanism to ensure that the ethics committee considered and addressed serious ethics matters. The new, independent office was given the authority to review potential ethics violations and to send findings of fact to the ethics committee with a recommendation as to whether the committee should investigate or dismiss a matter. Responsibility for finding that ethics violations occurred and for recommending sanctions for violations remained with the ethics committee. The new OCE process clearly has reinvigorated the House ethics enforcement process. The record shows increased review of ethics allegations by the OCE and increased activity on ethics matters by the ethics committee. And it is precisely because the OCE is doing the job envisioned for it that the office has faced attacks from members. The OCE was viewed by House members from the start as a threat to the cozy status quo and to the moribund ethics enforcement process this had produced. As a result it didn't take long for the office to come under internal attack. The House ethics committee has engaged in a running "territorial" battle with OCE, attempting to discredit and undermine the office and the role it is playing. House Republican leaders have continued to challenge the existence of the OCE, which they had opposed in the first place. And a number of CBC members, led by Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), have introduced a House resolution with proposed rules changes that for all practical purposes would put the OCE out of business; http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=7C236A8E-18FE-70B2-A81C3B8BAD116543 The question that begs to be asked is, how in the he11 would a repub know what is unethical? squiddy, take my advice on this, stay away from ethics charges against the Dems. I can do this all year and still not run out of violations perpetrated by repubs. repubs have been sent to Federal prison for their felonious misdeeds. Get that through your rock hard skull. *Washington Post: President Obama has not made significant progress in his plan to infuse federal courts with a new cadre of judges, and liberal activists are beginning to blame his administration for moving too tentatively on what they consider a key priority. During his first nine months in office, Obama has won confirmation in the Democratic controlled Senate for just three of his 23 nominations for federal judgeships, largely because Republicans have used anonymous holds and filibuster threats to slow the proceedings to a crawl http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/16/obama-judicial-appointmen_n_323520.html . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 696 Registered: Mar-04 | Obama Takes Class Warfare To The Next Level With The "Buffet Rule" And A New "Millionaire Tax": Is A Market Selloff Imminent? Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/17/2011 21:03 -0400 In his increasingly desperate attempts to pander to a population that has by now entirely given up on the hope, and barely has any change left, Obama is going for broke (or technically the reverse) by setting the class warfare bar just that little bit higher. This time around, his targets are millionaires, who according to the NYT are about to see their taxes soar. Or not: nobody really knows if the proposed "Buffett Rule", affectionately known for crony communist #1, will impact just millionaires income tax, which incidentally is the same as what everyone else is paying, or, far more importantly, their Investment Income, which is where the bulk of America's wealthy income comes from. Which incidentally makes all the sense in the world: two and a half years after Bernanke has been desperately doing everything in his power to raise the "wealth effect" if only for the richest 1% of the US population, it is, from the government's perspective, time for the taxman to come knocking and demand his share of the capital gains. Yet what is lost in this ridiculous proposal are the unintended consequences, which always follow idiotic decisions arising out of central planning, number one of which would be a market crash as those who have paper gains since the market lows of 2009, scramble to lock in the old capital gains tax rate of 15% instead of holding on to paper profits that could end up being as high as 35% (or more): an event that would cut actual income by over 25% should one wait to cash out! And since 25% is substantially more than anything that Twist and QE3 and 4 could hope to achieve, it is all too conceivable that those holding on to profitable positions will have had enough, and take their profits, likely converting them into physical and non-dilutable assets along the way. As to whether they would subsequently relocate to far more hospitable countries, such as those that don't foment class warfare, and implicitly invite a civil war, that remains yet to be seen. In the meantime, here is how Obama just made sure his already record low rating is about to plumb depths unseen since the time of Jimmy Carter, via the NYT: President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials. With a special joint Congressional committee starting work to reach a bipartisan budget deal by late November, the proposal adds a new and populist feature to Mr. Obama’s effort to raise the political pressure on Republicans to agree to higher revenues from the wealthy in return for Democrats’ support of future cuts from Medicare and Medicaid. Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the â€Buffett Rule,†in a reference to Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained repeatedly that the richest Americans generally pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than do middle-income workers, because investment gains are taxed at a lower rate than wages. Mr. Obama will not specify a rate or other details, and it is unclear how much revenue his plan would raise. But his idea of a millionaires’ minimum tax will be prominent in the broad plan for long-term deficit reduction that he will outline at the White House on Monday. In other words, another typical Obama ploy: let the details be ironed out in the future, but for now we just want to accentuate the class animosity. After all, it is all too obvious that those millionaires, like Buffett, who so desperately want to show their patriotism for America, are in no way aware that the Treasury has this thing called Pay.gov which allows such uber-patriots to whip out their credit cards and pay down America's record debt, in essence voluntarily doing what Obama plans to enforce for everyone else. We are certain that Mr. Buffett will promptly demonstrate to the public his receipt from precisely such a patriotic transaction. As for the proposal, to say that it is doomed would be optimistic: The Obama proposal has little chance of becoming law unless Republican lawmakers bend. But by focusing on the wealthiest Americans, the president is sharpening the contrast between Republicans and Democrats with a theme he can carry into his bid for re-election in 2012. It could also reassure Democrats who have feared that Mr. Obama would agree to changes in programs like Medicare without forcing Republicans to compromise on taxes. The administration wants such a tax to replace the alternative minimum tax, which was created decades ago to make sure the richest taxpayers with plentiful deductions and credits did not avoid income taxes, but which now hits millions of Americans who are considered upper middle class. Mr. Obama has said that many average Americans could see a tax cut if the system is overhauled, since ending many tax breaks would allow for lower rates while raising more revenues from the wealthiest. The millionaires’ tax is among several changes Mr. Obama will propose in urging Congress to overhaul the federal income tax code next year, both to raise revenues for reducing deficits and to make the tax system simpler and fairer, said the administration officials, who agreed to speak in advance of the president’s announcement on the condition of anonymity. The millionaires’ rate would affect only 0.3 percent of taxpayers, they said. That would be fewer than 450,000; 144 million returns were filed for 2010. That's wonderful: in other words it is very few of the people who, mostly through years of hard work, have succeeded in breaking through the vaunted 7 digit net worth figure. But the good news is that Buffett, instead of focusing on his own share of philantropy, believes that it is his centrally planned duty to enforce his strict lack of moral code on everyone else. Too bad the other millionaires do not have the billions necessary to become one with the TBTFs and know that whatever they put their money in, Uncle Sam will never let it blow up. If Obama wants to enact a Buffett Rule, how about instead of addressing taxes, said rule makes it clear that capitalism is coming back to replace the crony communist regime we have all grown to love and enjoy for the past 3 years, and individual failure is once again an option, instead of the socialist risk phenomenon that Buffett, more than any one individual America has grown to symbolize and represent? Furthermore, when the $1MM cutoff fails, which it inevitably will (the rich are rich for a reason: they tend to be, for the most part, quite adept at finding loopholes), and those targeted promptly "offshore" themselves, what will Obama's next "rich" cutoff be: $500,000? $100,000? $25,000? Those on Earned Income Tax Credit? Sooner or later, you know Obama is coming for you. Lastly, and presumably comically, considering that 41.2% of the "middle class" pays no income taxes, we wonder if this is not just a ploy by a wily Buffett, who knows the loophole in the tax code better than anyone, to make sure that nearly half of all millionaires pay... absolutely nothing. Your hero is going to lose.... |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16756 Registered: May-04 | . You read that somewhere I presume. copy/paste, copy/paste ... can't think about reality, brain hurts ... copy/paste, copy/paste ... somewhere? ... must be another irrational, factless screed against Obama! ... double down, double down ... copy/paste ... copy/paste ... double down ... brain hurts ... |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 697 Registered: Mar-04 | Poll: Two-thirds think stimulus was a 'waste' By Michael O'Brien - 10/05/10 07:15 AM ET Over two-thirds of Americans believe that President Obama's signature stimulus bill was a waste, a new poll found Tuesday. Sixty-eight percent of Americans said they think the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was a "waste," compared to just 29 percent who think the money was well-spent, according to an ABC/Washington Post poll released Tuesday morning. The figure suggests that the cornerstone of the Obama administration's agenda to bolster the economy has fallen flat with voters as elections loom in four weeks. The poll also hints that the White House's effort to sell the bill to the public has been far from successful. Republicans have hammered Democrats who supported the stimulus over the last 20 months, accusing them of wasting money while not creating jobs, while Democrats claim that hundreds of thousands more jobs would have been lost had the stimulus not been enacted. The legislation has become such a boondoggle for some Democrats that it remains a potent political weapon against some of their candidates. One veteran lawmaker, Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas), suggested that his support for the stimulus could cost him his reelection this November. Adding to Democrats' woes are Americans' deep, lingering concerns about the economy. Just 9 percent of U.S. adults said they think the economy is excellent or good, compared to a net 90 percent who assert the economy is either not good or poor. Furthermore, less than a third of adults, who will make up this fall's crucial voting base, said they think the economy is getting better. Thirty-one percent said the economy is improving, 37 percent said it's staying the same, and 32 percent said the economy is getting worse. The poll, conducted Sept. 30-Oct. 3, has a 3.5 percent margin of error. Facts... |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16757 Registered: May-04 | . And the analysis isn't biased at all ... 76% of it, however, is ... guess what? ... a lie ... ROTFLMAO!!! Here are some hard (as possible) facts, small child brain ... Washington Post-ABC News Poll Do you approve or disapprove of the way Obama is handling [ITEM]? Do you approve/disapprove strongly or somewhat? 7/17/11 - Summary Table* .....................................................Approve Disapprove ................................ ....................NET NET a. The economy .......................... 39 ................57 b. The federal budget deficit ..... 38 ................60 d. Taxes ..................................... 45 ...............47 e. Creating jobs ........................ 41 ...............52 Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Republicans in Congress are handling [ITEM]? 7/17/11 - Summary Table* . ..............................................Approve ..........Disapprove a. The economy .......................28 ....................67 b. The federal budget deficit ....27 .....................68 c. Creating jobs .......................26 .....................65 d. Taxes ..................................31 .....................65 As you may know, there is a debate in Washington right now about reducing the federal budget deficit and increasing the government's debt limit. Who do you trust more to handle this issue (Obama) or (the Republicans in Congress)? .............................Obama ...................Republicans ........................... NET ........................NET 7/17/11 ............... 48 ...........................39 Who do you think cares more about protecting the economic interests of [ITEM] - (Obama) or (the Republicans in Congress)? 7/17/11 - Summary .......................................................Obama ................Reps a. You and your family 47 .......................37 b. Wall Street financial institutions 26 ......................59 c. Small businesses 48 ......................39 d. Middle class Americans 53 ......................35 e. Large business corporations 24 ......................67 Thinking about the economic challenges facing the country would you say the actions taken by the [ITEM] made things better, made things worse, or had no effect? (IF BETTER or WORSE) Would that be much better/worse or somewhat better/worse? 7/17/11 - Summary Table ...............................................Better ..................Worse Obama administration ...........29 ........................37 Bush administration ..............16 ........................57 Has the leadership of the Republican Party been too willing or not willing enough to compromise with Obama on the budget deficit? ........................................Too willing ..........Not willing enough .........................................14 ......................77 Overall, what do you think is the best way to reduce the federal budget deficit - (by cutting federal spending), (by increasing taxes), or by a combination of both? ......................Cutting federal spending ......32 ......................Increasing taxes ...................4 ......................Combination of both .............62 In order to reduce the national debt, would you support or oppose? Cutting spending on Medicaid ...Support - 26 ... Oppose - 72 Raising taxes on Americans with incomes over 250-thousand dollars a year ... Support - 72 ... Oppose 27 Raising Medicare premiums for wealthier retirees ... Support - 61 ... Oppose - 36 Raising taxes on people who manage financial investments known as hedge funds ... Support - 64 ... Oppose - 24 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postabcpoll_071711.html?wpis rc=nl_fix This is now a fairly old poll - taken before the debt ceiling debate came to a conclusion. Since that time everyone has managed to receive lower scores with the repubs being hurt more by their inaction than either Obama or the Dems' actions. Clearly, the public is, and has been, on the side of Obama in this debate as the repubs are viewed as nothing more than being in the pocket of big business and the top 2%. These are hard facts, squiddy. Read all the spin you'd like from the dunder headed wingnuts who can't tell the drone troops they are loosing the war. The facts are the facts and the repubs are not looking very good to all but the diehard base who, like you, spend their time finding someone who has something negative to say about Obama. The NYT/CBS poll I linked to earlier is more recent yet shows the same trends in public opinion against the repub positions. Rather than post more garbage that is biased and coming from BS wingnuts who are there to make you feel like you should continue to bang your tiny litttle pinhead against the wall of hard facts, you might have simply read that poll. The conclusions to be found in the NYT/CBS poll do not support what you have posted above. The numbers might be similar in a few cases but the logical conclusions - such as actually reporting the repub's woes rather than focussing solely on what Obama must overcome - are far different when viewed through a non-partisan lens. Of course, you wouldn't know what a non-partisan lens is any more than you would know a hard fact when it smacks you in the forelock. You don't belong here. squiddy. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16758 Registered: May-04 | . Here's another take on the NYT/CBS poll taken last week ... As the economy faces the risk of another recession, and the 2012 campaign looms, President Obama has been groping for a response to the biggest crisis of his career. All he has to do is listen to the voters. The Times and CBS News released a new poll on Friday, and once again we were impressed that Americans are a lot smarter than Republican leaders think, more willing to sacrifice for the national good than Democratic leaders give them credit for, and more eager to see the president get tough than Mr. Obama and his conflict averse team realize. So long as the politicians keep reinforcing their misconceptions â€" and listening only to themselves â€" the country has little chance of getting what the voters want most: jobs and a growing economy. Despite what the Republicans loudly proclaim, Americans do not buy into economic theories that were disproved 25 years ago. What the new poll and others show is that most do not see the deficit and "big government" as the main problem, and they do not buy the endless calls for slashing spending and reckless deregulation. A solid majority said creating jobs should be the highest priority for the government now and that payroll taxes should be cut to help with that. A whopping 8 in 10 think building bridges, roads and schools is important, which means - gasp - spending money. Many Democrats are so gun shy that they don't dare even to talk about raising taxes on the rich. But 71 percent of those polled said any plan to reduce the budget deficit should include both spending cuts and tax increases. And Americans understand that there are choices to be made; 56 percent said the wealthier should pay higher taxes to reduce the federal deficit. It bears repeating that this is all entirely rational, and what the Republicans and some Democrats are proposing is absurd. The country has tried reckless deregulation and overly deep tax and spending cuts before. It brought more than one recession in the last century; caused the near collapse of the financial system and another recession in this one; and helped pile up the current deficit. Mr. Obama has been making many of those points for months. But he has been doing it with speeches that, while eloquent, are often too long and nuanced, and then lack the kind of relentless repetition that is needed to drown out catchy but false Republican talking points. He has wasted far too much time trying to puzzle out how he can shave policies down far enough to get the Republicans to cooperate. The answer has long been clear: He can't. Since he was elected, the Republicans have openly said they would not work with him, and a year ago, Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, said explicitly that the Republicans' goal was simply to deny Mr. Obama a second term. The new Times poll showed that Americans do not believe bipartisanship is achievable. Six in 10 Democrats want the president to challenge Republicans more. He should not worry about voters thinking he is being mean. What he should worry about is that he is not showing them that he is fighting all out for their interests. Mr. Obama has done more for the country than many voters realize. The stimulus program so demonized by Republicans was too small, but it saved the economy from a complete collapse. Mr. Obama’s maligned decision to bail out the car companies saved large numbers of jobs. The huge benefits of his health care reform, which Republicans have vowed to repeal, will become clearer to Americans in the years ahead. That is not enough. The president has done far too little for far too long to help struggling homeowners, and he must do more to put Americans back to work. That is why it is so important and welcome that he has finally begun to take on Congress. His speech to the joint session outlining a significant jobs program was followed by the sound demand that it be paid for with tax revenue increases. The question is whether he will now fight hard for that program. To get there, he does not need the entire G.O.P. caucus, just a few members, but he also needs to show more strength in leading his own less than courageous caucus. And, win or lose, he needs to stay out of the bargaining backroom and keep making his case to the public. There is so much noise out there that we are not sure most voters know how much they agree with the president. It is up to Mr. Obama to show them. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/opinion/sunday/leadership-crisis.html?_r=1&nl= todaysheadlines&emc=tha211&pagewanted=print The facts are the facts, squiddy. Read something that doesn't simply reinforce your own hate for Obama prejudices for once. Learn how to actually perceive reality. Get out of your small minded "I hate Obama" bubble and you'll see the public is still behind Obama while the repubs - the "let 'em die" party - is scaring the he11 out of most of them. And too many still remember what a repub run government looks like and what it results in. Hard (as possible) facts Otherwise, you don't belong here. . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 698 Registered: Mar-04 | As President, Obama Acts as Shop Steward in Chief By Michael Barone Barack Obama has been at pains to convince voters that he cares about jobs. It seems to be a hard sell. But he certainly can demonstrate that he cares about certain jobs -- the 7 percent of private-sector jobs and 36 percent of public-sector jobs held by union members. During his two years and nine months as president, he has worked time and again to increase the number of unionized jobs. As for nonunion jobs, who wants them? Some pro-union moves have a certain ritual quality. Democratic presidents on taking office seek to strengthen federal employee unions, just as Republican presidents on taking office seek to weaken them. Other steps are more important. Fully one-third of the $820 billion stimulus package passed almost entirely with Democratic votes in 2009 was aid to state and local governments. This was intended to keep state and local public employee union members -- much more numerous than federal employees -- on the job and to keep taxpayer-funded union dues pouring into public employee union treasuries. It was just last year that, for the first time in history, public employees came to account for a majority of union members. This is a vivid contrast from the peak union membership years of the 1950s, when more than one-third of private-sector workers but almost no government workers were union members. Which is not to say that the Obama administration has not looked after the interests of private-sector unions. In arranging the Chrysler bankruptcy, the Obama White House muscled aside the secured creditors who ordinarily have priority in bankruptcy proceedings in favor of United Auto Workers members and retirees. That's an episode that I labeled "gangster government." Former Obama economics aide Lawrence Summers protested that his White House colleague Ron Bloom had made similar arrangements before. But in those cases, Bloom was working for the unions, not for a supposedly neutral government. The 2009 stimulus package also contained Davis-Bacon law provisions requiring that construction workers be paid "prevailing wages," which under the bureaucratic formula turn out to be union wages. That means the public pays a premium for government construction. It also means that Labor Department bureaucrats must calculate "prevailing wage" rates for as many as 3,141 counties. That takes time, and it's one reason there were not nearly so many shovel-ready projects as presidential rhetoric led some, including the president, to think. In the meantime, the administration has gone to great pains to promote union representation in private-sector companies even where there's no indication employees want it. It appointed pro-union stalwarts to the board supervising airline industry unionization elections. That board changed longstanding rules on what counts as a majority in an attempt to get unions approved at mostly non-union Delta after it absorbed mostly unionized Northwest. The problem is that the employees kept voting against unionization anyway. Then there's the Boeing case. Obama has called for doubling American exports over the next five years. But when America's No. 1 exporter, Boeing, built a $1 billion Dreamliner plant in South Carolina, Obama's appointee as general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board brought a case to force it to shut down. The theory is that Boeing needs to build the airliner in pro-union Washington state rather than in South Carolina, whose right-to-work law bars requiring employees to join unions. Maximizing union membership evidently comes first, before all other goals. The Obama White House won't comment on the Boeing case, just as Obama himself had no comment when Teamsters President Jim Hoffa, introducing him at a Labor Day rally in Detroit, said of tea party backers, "Let's take these sons of b!tches out." The president's eloquent and apparently heartfelt pleas for civility voiced after the Tucson shootings apparently don't apply to union leaders. Obama's partiality to unions is apparently rooted in a conviction that we would be better off if every employee were represented by a union. The marketplace says otherwise. Private-sector unionism has produced the General Motors and Chrysler bankruptcies, while states with strong public-sector unions, according to a Harvard study, have to pay higher interest rates to borrow money. But unions do have one positive characteristic from Obama's point of view: They funnel taxpayers' or consumers' money to the Democratic Party -- $400 million in 2008. So they get one payoff after another in return. It is about jobs crazy woman, well some jobs more than other jobs. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16759 Registered: May-04 | . Let's take two items from the above article and ask few questions that IMO are very difficult for any repub to answer .. What "jobs bill(s)" have the repubs offered since taking office eight months ago? While pledging - to the person - to repeal the Affordable Health Care Bill, the repubs have offerred what plan(s) as their alternative thinking when it comes to reduce the cost of health insurance and health care? What provisions have been made in those plans for the now 50 million uninsured Americans? What about the elderly? Even the majority of the tea partiers expect government run Social Security and Medicare to be there for them despite their protests that Obama keep his "government hands" off those two programs. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16760 Registered: May-04 | . OK, you've given up on facts again when the BS you post is so easily shot down as just another load of slow and low flying crap. And you're back to 76% of what you read and post consisting of flat out lies. You are consistently stupid, that's for certain, squiddy. But I'm still waiting for yout to - as you promised - "call me out". Since you have proven yourself to be absolutely incapable of finding a fact when it is right in front of you in bolded, enlarged font with the occasional underlining as a guidepost, just how do you ever think you're going to accomplish that?} Question ... The repub party has - when not growing government's size 45%, increasing deficits and long term debt more than any other President before him and while also increasing spending by ten fold and simultaneously weakening the US against its foes both in terms of security and finances during the eight years of George W's administration - preached the evils of "big Government". Perry is on record as saying he will make Washington as "inconsequential" to your life as possible should he be annointed. The question then becomes a simple one. In the coming week, can you explain how Washington or "big Government" has been "consequential" in your life? Put more plainly for those of you who are not so quick on the uptick - that's you, squiddy, how has government affected your day to day life in the coming week? . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 699 Registered: Mar-04 | Rick Perry win not win the Republican nomination. This election will be about what Barry has done and what he has not been able to do.. Simple enough for you to understand right ? Obama's Hope and Lies By Jeffrey Folks One thing about the Obama White House: you can't fault them for a lack of optimism. Obama has been operating on little more than "hope" for three years now, with rosy predictions of economic improvement just around the corner. Back in June 2010, the president kicked off "recovery summer" with "groundbreakings and events across the country." When that recovery failed to materialize, he insisted that we were just going through a "soft patch." We're still in that soft patch, which is starting seem more like an endless swamp. No problem. When rosy predictions fail, one can always resort to lies. The monthly jobs report issued by the Department of Labor has not provided much cause for hope lately. Following weak reports in June and July, the August report showed an increase of precisely zero. That report, the first time a jobs report had shown zero improvement since 1945, grabbed the media coverage. But at the same time it was issued, the June and July numbers were revised downward by 58,000. Month after month, it seems, Obama's Labor Department has come up with rosy numbers that have to be adjusted downward. If that trend continues, we'll be up to full employment in no time, but no one will actually be working. Maybe they've been playing too much fantasy football, or basketball, at the White House these days to know the difference. Obama is particularly fond of the kind of large numbers that impress small minds, "millionaires and billionaires" being a prime example. Aside from the fact that millionaires and billionaires are two very different classes of individuals -- there are plenty of millionaire retirees who are getting by on municipal bonds that currently yield 2.40% a year -- the president seems to have no conception of how capital creation is related to jobs. Every dollar that government confiscates from millionaires and billionaires is one fewer dollar invested in businesses that create jobs. Obama shows no more understanding of how this works than does his buddy, James Hoffa, Jr., head of the Teamsters Union. Appearing with Hoffa at a Labor Day rally in Detroit, Obama appeared to second Hoffa's "declaration of war" against the Tea Party. In a CNN appearance the same weekend, Hoffa questioned the patriotism of businesses that have held back on investing their capital in the face of new regulation and taxation. It is a charge that Obama's supporters have been kicking around for months. If only businesses would put all their reserve capital to work, millions of new jobs would be created. Of course, part of the reason they do not is prudence in the face of a deteriorating economy. Another is that excessive regulation has foreclosed business opportunities. Drilling has been all but banned in the Gulf of Mexico, in Alaska, and on federal lands elsewhere. Construction of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina has been threatened by Obama's National Labor Relations Board. Businesses face uncertainty over increased taxes associated with ObamaCare and possible expiration of the Bush tax cuts. Meanwhile, Dodd-Frank has forced financial firms to maintain higher capital ratios even as it has reduced their profitability by sharply limiting fees and charges. But if only they would forget about taxes and regulation and shovel some of that money out to union workers, the economic numbers would look a lot better. It's almost as if businesses were withholding that money until they have some assurance of making a profit. How unpatriotic can you get? When it comes to rosy predictions, Obama's promise of 5 million green jobs was about as far-fetched as Al Gore's claim to have invented the internet. According to Energy Department figures, the administration has spent $17.2 billion in loan guarantees to create 3,545 jobs, a cost of nearly $5 million per job. And as the bankruptcy of Solyndra, Evergreen Solar, and other green energy firms demonstrates, many of those jobs are likely to be short-lived. Still, DOE sees the glass as a lot more than half-full. After news of the Solyndra bankruptcy broke, an Energy Department spokesman insisted that the loan guarantee program was "helping America win the clean energy race." Attempting to excuse its apparent loss of $500 million in loan guarantees to Solyndra, DOE's Deputy Secretary Poneman claimed that Solyndra was the victim of a "perfect storm." Despite repeated warning signs, including warnings from inside the department, DOE pressed ahead with loan guarantees to the failed solar panel maker. Half a billion dollars of taxpayer money has been squandered, and still Obama's Energy Department insists that "now is not the time to stop investing" in companies like Solyndra. That combination of hope and lies is endemic within the Obama White House. At the beginning of the year, following his thrashing in the 2010 elections, Obama claimed to have seen the light on government regulation -- going so far as to issue an executive order to departments requiring them to eliminate needless regulation. Yet not a single regulation of any significance was reversed. In fact, hundreds of new regulations continue to be published each week in regard to health care, financial services, energy, and other areas. When business leaders pressured the president to reverse costly greenhouse-gas standards for industrial boilers, the EPA resisted and finally agreed only to delay regulation for one year. But the fact that implementation has been postponed from 2014 to 2015 does nothing to lessen the job-killing effects of the ruling. Businesses large and small will immediately factor in the burden of this regulation and reduce their spending on jobs accordingly. Desperate to show that regulation has been reduced, the White House Office of Management and Budget issued a report showing that Americans were having to spend less time filling out government forms. That might sound like a step forward, but most of the "improvement" resulted from reduced estimates of how long it takes to fill out those forms. In other words, if you want to reduce the burden of regulation, why not just reduce your estimates of how burdensome government regulations are? Incredible as it may seem, Labor Department forms that took 183 million hours to complete in 2009 take only 141 million hours today, a 23% reduction in compliance time. The best part of it was that for the most part there was no actual reduction in the amount of time it took to complete the paperwork. All it took was a new estimate of the time it needed to do it and that burdensome regulation disappeared. Next thing you know, the IRS will issue a report showing that the top bracket of 35% has shrunk to just over a third of income. If this all sounds a lot like Alice in Wonderland, it's because we have the mad hatter in charge. Alice in Wonderland is, after all, a tale in which a number things appear larger (or smaller) than they really are, so perhaps the Obama administration is simply exercising creative license as it issues economic reports. The last few years have been a mad tea party, just like the one in Lewis Carroll's book. Hopefully, a real tea party will put an end to that next year. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16762 Registered: May-04 | . repub view: "â€Class warfare may make for really good politics, but it makes for rotten economics,†said Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan in an appearance on â€Fox News Sundayâ€. â€It adds further instability to our system, more uncertainty, and it punishes job creation.†Bumper sticker view: "They only call it 'class warfare' when we fight back" .} |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16763 Registered: May-04 | . PoliGraph: Obama jobs bill claim mostly true Posted at 2:32 PM on September 16, 2011 by Catharine Richert (1 Comments) Filed under: PoliGraph President Barack Obama unveiled his plan to grow jobs earlier this month, and he said it's getting great reviews from economists. "When you look at what independent economists are saying about the American Jobs Act... uniformly what they are saying is this buys us insurance against a double dip recession, and it almost certainly helps the economy grow and will put more people back to work," he said in an interview with NBC News's Brian Williams. Uniform approval? No. Lots of compliments with a few important caveats? Yes. The Evidence Among other things, Obama's job plan would extend and expand the Social Security payroll tax cut: give businesses a $4,000 tax break for hiring the long term unemployed; extend unemployment benefits; and increase spending on public works projects. Many economists say they like Obama's plan, and that the plan would help stave off a second recession and create jobs. For instance, Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody's Analytics and former economic adviser to Sen. John McCain, called it a "laudable effort" that would "go a long way toward stabilizing confidence, forestalling another recession, and jump starting a self sustaining economic expansion." He estimates that Obama's plan would add nearly 2 million jobs to the workforce, reduce the unemployment rate by a percentage point, and boost economic growth by 2 percentage points next year. An estimate by another firm called Macroeconomic Advisers was similarly optimistic, saying the plan would boost GDP by total of 1.3 percent and create roughly 1.3 million jobs by the end of 2012. Still, even economists who support the plan have some qualms. Some expressed concern that it doesn't deal with mortgage debt, which many economists say is the root of the nation's financial woes. Others question whether consumers will spend the extra cash they get from the payroll tax cut. And if they do, some suggest that the money will end up creating jobs overseas because the nation imports a lot of goods. Of course, the plan has critics, too. James Sherk of the conservative leaning Heritage Foundation wrote that unemployment benefits should not be extended because they do little to boost the economy. And Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland's business school, wondered in an op-ed how the plan's $447 billion price tag fits into the long term goal of dealing with the deficit. The Verdict Obama exaggerated a bit by saying that, uniformly, economists say his plan will work; some take serious issue with the proposal. Still, many have mostly good things to say about the strategy, and at least two estimates support the underlying goal of Obama's plan, which is to grow jobs and boost the economy. For his first PoliGraph test, Obama's claim leans toward accurate. SOURCES NBC News, Obama: Jobs plan is insurance against a 'recession', Sept. 12, 2011 The White House, Fact Sheet and Overview, Sept. 8, 2011 The Los Angeles Times, Economists give Obama's jobs plan mixed reviews, By Don Lee and Jim Puzzanghera, Sept. 8, 2011 The Washington Post, Obama jobs plan: Economists give good reviews but say more needed on mortgage debt, by Zachary A. Goldfarb, Sept. 9, 2011 USA Today, Many economists say Obama jobs plan will help, by Paul Wiseman National Public Radio, Economists weigh effectiveness of Obama jobs plan, by Marilyn Geewax, Sept. 9, 2011 Moody's Analytics, An analysis of Obama's jobs plan, by Mark Zandi, Sept. 9, 2011 Macroeconomic Advisers, American Jobs Act: A Significant Boost to GDP and Employment, Sept. 8, 2011 UPI, Will Obama put Americans' jobs ahead of his own?, by Peter Morici, Sept. 16, 2011 The Heritage Foundation, Extended UI Payments Do Not Benefit the Economy, by James Sherk, Sept. 8, 2011 http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/polinaut/archive/20 11/09/poligraph_obama.shtml "James Sherk of the conservative leaning Heritage Foundation wrote that unemployment benefits should not be extended because they do little to boost the economy." A flat out, 100% lie which can be refuted by anyone who actually cares about telling the truth. Obviously, the Heritage Foundation isn't interested in facts or the truth. . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 700 Registered: Mar-04 | Yes, only those who you cite and support are interested in the "truth". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aufAtuTwKlE&feature=player_embedded |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 701 Registered: Mar-04 | 13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and 'frozen.'... "...any target can always say, 'Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?' When your 'freeze the target,' you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments.... Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the 'others' come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target...' "One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other." |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16764 Registered: May-04 | . Yes, only those who you cite and support are interested in the "truth". Well, let's just put it this away, 76% of everything they say can't be proven to be a flat out lie. 13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it ... Some far right wingnut must have told you that actually means anything. I suppose it does to those mindless drone workers who lack the ability to think for themself. Those who cannot make the distinction between the truth and 76% lies. But it's rather pathetic to watch the people against whom tactics have always been waged try to take on those same strategies. Sort of like watching the top 0.1% of 1% try to eat fast food, it just dribbles out around the corners of their mouth and makes you sick ... then it makes you laugh out loud ... then it makes you throw up in your mouth sick again . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 702 Registered: Mar-04 | Liberals vow to challenge Obama in Democratic primaries President Obamas smooth path to the Democratic nomination may have gotten rockier Monday, after a group of liberal leaders, including former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, announced plans to challenge the incumbent in primaries next year. The group said the goal is to offer up a handful of candidates from various fields and areas where the president either has failed to stake out a progressive position or where he has drifted toward the corporatist right. Without debates by challengers inside the Democratic Partys presidential primaries, the liberal/majoritarian agenda will be muted and ignored Mr. Nader said in a news release. The one-man Democratic primaries will be dull, repetitive, and draining of both voter enthusiasm and real bright lines between the two parties that excite voters. In search of candidates, Mr. Nader and the others sent out a letter, endorsed by 45 distinguished leaders to elected officials, civic leaders, academics and members of the progressive community who specialize among other things in labor, poverty, military and foreign policy. The list, they said, also includes progressive Democrats who have held national and state office and have fought for progressive reforms. We need to put strong Democratic pressure on President Obama in the name of poor and working people, said Cornel West, author and professor at Princeton University who has been highly critical of Mr. Obamas tenure since helping him get elected in 2008. His administration has tilted too much toward Wall Street, we need policies that empower Main Street. Mr. Nader and Mr. West are joined by Christ Townsend, of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, and Brent Blackwelder, president emeritus of Friends of the Earth. Wonderful, I am overjoyed... The far left is so bizarre that they are attacking Barry... © Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 703 Registered: Mar-04 | "Sort of like watching the top 0.1% of 1% try to eat fast food, it just dribbles out around the corners of their mouth and makes you sick ... then it makes you laugh out loud ... then it makes you throw up in your mouth sick again " You have developed quite the imagination haven't you ! |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16765 Registered: May-04 | . A very strange thing to say when it's coming from someone totally detached from reality. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 704 Registered: Mar-04 | "A very strange thing to say when it's coming from someone totally detached from reality." Reality as you see it or reality as it is ? I cannot identify with the former and I embrace the latter. |