About a year ago I wrote on the blog that corporations in this country don't pay 28% taxes because they have floors of accounts finding ways to avoid them by loop holes.
I forgot which lunkhead attacked me with that is not true terry, do you just make this stuff up? I am an accountent and I KNOW.
Well now the truth! Ge has 975 employees in their Tax department. What are they doing making sure they pay their fair share? Oh oh No.
They paid ZERO taxes on 14.2 Billion. I guess I am not such an idiot afterall. What say you?
Let me repeat they paid ZERO. What a system. While the now unemployed drywaller, pays his taxes every year, and the Big Boys keep on taking and crying for more tax breaks. SHUT-UP
Friday, March 25, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Change with courage
PENNY (a state employee), "I would like to know why you want to take at least 13% out of state employees' pay for health care. Between what my husband and I make, you're talking about $600 a month out of our money which is gonna cut into our food and our other bills. How do you expect us to live, governor?"
CHRISTIE: How I expect you to live, Penny, is you're gonna have to pick a different health plan that's not nearly as rich as the one you're getting now. That's how.
PENNY: Either that or you're force us to not have any health care.
CHRISTIE: No, I'm not gonna force you to not have any health care. I don't think that means forcing you to go without health care. But what it means is we can no longer afford to pay 90 plus percent of the cost of your health care. Public workers are getting their health insurance paid for out of your property taxes, and state workers are getting their health insurance paid for out of your income taxes. If I'm $67 billion in debt and you don't want me to take any more money out of your paycheck, how am I supposed to pay for it? Am I supposed to just raise taxes? Because if I raise taxes you're gonna pay more taxes, and if your property taxes go up, you're going to pay more taxes. I mean the money's gotta come from somewhere. We can't print it.
Penny, the top 1% of taxpayers in this state pay 41% of the total income tax. So to say that the rich don't pay is just not true. How much do you want them to pay? There comes a point where you cannot have everything that you want. And as much as I would like to be able to say to you, "You know what, Penny, you're right, I don't want you to have to pay another nickel for your health insurance," I can't pay for it, and we already have the highest taxes in America. I gotta tell you the truth, your neighbor who works in the private sector pays a heck of a lot more for his or her health insurance than you do. And on the top of it they're paying the taxes to pay for your health insurance. And so I've got a problem to fix here. We're broke and I gotta fix this problem.
CHRISTIE: How I expect you to live, Penny, is you're gonna have to pick a different health plan that's not nearly as rich as the one you're getting now. That's how.
PENNY: Either that or you're force us to not have any health care.
CHRISTIE: No, I'm not gonna force you to not have any health care. I don't think that means forcing you to go without health care. But what it means is we can no longer afford to pay 90 plus percent of the cost of your health care. Public workers are getting their health insurance paid for out of your property taxes, and state workers are getting their health insurance paid for out of your income taxes. If I'm $67 billion in debt and you don't want me to take any more money out of your paycheck, how am I supposed to pay for it? Am I supposed to just raise taxes? Because if I raise taxes you're gonna pay more taxes, and if your property taxes go up, you're going to pay more taxes. I mean the money's gotta come from somewhere. We can't print it.
Penny, the top 1% of taxpayers in this state pay 41% of the total income tax. So to say that the rich don't pay is just not true. How much do you want them to pay? There comes a point where you cannot have everything that you want. And as much as I would like to be able to say to you, "You know what, Penny, you're right, I don't want you to have to pay another nickel for your health insurance," I can't pay for it, and we already have the highest taxes in America. I gotta tell you the truth, your neighbor who works in the private sector pays a heck of a lot more for his or her health insurance than you do. And on the top of it they're paying the taxes to pay for your health insurance. And so I've got a problem to fix here. We're broke and I gotta fix this problem.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Really, this messed up.
Now remember you Liberal pinheads, you hated old Bushie because he did everything wrong. Just DID NOT consider the consequences, didn't get other nations involved, WAS A COWBOY!
Lots of criticism for President resolve, was stubborn and not smart enough. Mr. Baxter frequently...bitched about N. Korea, how President resolve did not have the "right" plan and now we were all messed up.
OK, but President Bracket, he led, for once, but without thinking and proclaimed that "Gadafy must go", or something like that, (now before you go into hyper denial mode, he said that last week, said that we needed regime change), but because he spoke before he thought (and spoke with Hilary), he did not realize that the "community" of nations would not back regime change, they just wanted to prevent an atrocity.
OK, so it is a good thing to prevent an atrocity, in Libya (but apparently not in Iraq), but...now we are nation building and taking military action and....we need to talk about this...so let's talk and get authorization, so we go to...THE UN! See we always said you Libs wanted to turn our government over to the Trilateral commission! Just joking, but actually not because an underpinning of this is that the left wants a weakened America (heck even Time says we are in decline).
Shouldn't President Bracket have thought through the "Gadafy must go" BEFORE he said it and locked himself into a corner and shouldn't President Golf have at least asked the Congress for authority while he asked the UN?
What a dip.
Lots of criticism for President resolve, was stubborn and not smart enough. Mr. Baxter frequently...bitched about N. Korea, how President resolve did not have the "right" plan and now we were all messed up.
OK, but President Bracket, he led, for once, but without thinking and proclaimed that "Gadafy must go", or something like that, (now before you go into hyper denial mode, he said that last week, said that we needed regime change), but because he spoke before he thought (and spoke with Hilary), he did not realize that the "community" of nations would not back regime change, they just wanted to prevent an atrocity.
OK, so it is a good thing to prevent an atrocity, in Libya (but apparently not in Iraq), but...now we are nation building and taking military action and....we need to talk about this...so let's talk and get authorization, so we go to...THE UN! See we always said you Libs wanted to turn our government over to the Trilateral commission! Just joking, but actually not because an underpinning of this is that the left wants a weakened America (heck even Time says we are in decline).
Shouldn't President Bracket have thought through the "Gadafy must go" BEFORE he said it and locked himself into a corner and shouldn't President Golf have at least asked the Congress for authority while he asked the UN?
What a dip.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Adult? Ghost?
Obama advisers are spinning their excuses for the president's absence (he needs to stay above the fray, he believes in international agreement). Conservatives, for their part, are beginning to argue the "incompetence" line. A combination of all is probably at work, along with an even greater impulse: political safety. Mr. Obama got a taste of falling approval ratings last year. The White House has worked hard to get those numbers back up and wants to keep them there until Mr. Obama has a GOP opponent and can go into campaign mode—where he's at his best.
And so as Moammar Gadhafi has visited a bloodbath on opposition forces, the White House has for weeks spun its wheels at the United Nations, waiting for someone else to go first. The White House has argued intervention might provoke an Arab backlash against the U.S., and it could be it actually believes such crazy talk. Yet it seems equally concerned that any U.S.-led military action in Libya—no matter how minor—will invite comparisons to the dreaded Bush warmongers and prove unpopular. And as Congress lurches from one budget crisis to the next, President Obama leaves negotiations to Vice President Joe Biden. It has been clear for weeks the only way this gets settled is for Mr. Obama and House Speaker John Boehner to find a fiscal 2011 spending-cut number that gets bipartisan support. But Mr. Obama worries that number will be too much for the left, and not enough for the right, and that means . . . controversy.
Today he instead leaves for a five-day Latin American tour. On that trip he will not be visiting Colombia or Panama, whose trade deals he's squelched since he took office. Trade deals, after all, don't always sit well with the public (and rarely with unions).
It took until yesterday for Mr. Obama to address Japan's nuclear problem, and only then to clarify that Americans should and should not be worried about radiation, while also knowing that U.S. power plants are and aren't safe. The president had been touting a new love for nuclear energy (to coax Republicans into a "clean-energy" deal), but the White House is now worried Japan is the hydrogen version of the BP oil spill, and thinking the safest short-term policy is incoherence. Entitlement reform? Are you people nuts? Who ever won an election on entitlement reform?
The White House's greater interest right now seems to be throwing little bones to its left. A quip here about the Wisconsin labor dispute, a gun-control op-ed there. A promise to quit defending the Defense Against Marriage Act. Yet even these are tiny bones, designed not to hugely upset the broader public.
And so as Moammar Gadhafi has visited a bloodbath on opposition forces, the White House has for weeks spun its wheels at the United Nations, waiting for someone else to go first. The White House has argued intervention might provoke an Arab backlash against the U.S., and it could be it actually believes such crazy talk. Yet it seems equally concerned that any U.S.-led military action in Libya—no matter how minor—will invite comparisons to the dreaded Bush warmongers and prove unpopular. And as Congress lurches from one budget crisis to the next, President Obama leaves negotiations to Vice President Joe Biden. It has been clear for weeks the only way this gets settled is for Mr. Obama and House Speaker John Boehner to find a fiscal 2011 spending-cut number that gets bipartisan support. But Mr. Obama worries that number will be too much for the left, and not enough for the right, and that means . . . controversy.
Today he instead leaves for a five-day Latin American tour. On that trip he will not be visiting Colombia or Panama, whose trade deals he's squelched since he took office. Trade deals, after all, don't always sit well with the public (and rarely with unions).
It took until yesterday for Mr. Obama to address Japan's nuclear problem, and only then to clarify that Americans should and should not be worried about radiation, while also knowing that U.S. power plants are and aren't safe. The president had been touting a new love for nuclear energy (to coax Republicans into a "clean-energy" deal), but the White House is now worried Japan is the hydrogen version of the BP oil spill, and thinking the safest short-term policy is incoherence. Entitlement reform? Are you people nuts? Who ever won an election on entitlement reform?
The White House's greater interest right now seems to be throwing little bones to its left. A quip here about the Wisconsin labor dispute, a gun-control op-ed there. A promise to quit defending the Defense Against Marriage Act. Yet even these are tiny bones, designed not to hugely upset the broader public.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Are You Smarter Than a Fox News Viewer?
American voters were quizzed on their knowledge of issues and facts raised in the 2010 midterm elections, in a survey by World Public Opinion, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.
Respondents were also asked where they get their news from: Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, newspapers, network TV news, public broadcasting.
The survey found that "substantial levels of misinformation were present in the daily consumers of all news sources." But Fox News viewers were significantly more likely to be misinformed than those who get their news from other sources. And, greater exposure to Fox News increased the degree to which viewers were misinformed.
This is not simply a matter of partisan bias. People who vote Democratic and watched Fox News were also more likely to be misinformed than those who did not watch it – though by a lesser margin than those who vote Republican. Those who got their news from NPR, CNN, or MSNBC were better informed on most – but not all – of the issues in the survey.
We've presented the 11 questions just as the survey asked them. How well informed are you?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1221/Are-you-smarter-than-a-Fox-News-viewer-How-about-a-CNN-viewer-Take-our-quiz-to-find-out/Are-you-smarter-than-a-Fox-News-viewer-How-about-a-CNN-viewer-Take-our-quiz-to-find-out
Respondents were also asked where they get their news from: Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, newspapers, network TV news, public broadcasting.
The survey found that "substantial levels of misinformation were present in the daily consumers of all news sources." But Fox News viewers were significantly more likely to be misinformed than those who get their news from other sources. And, greater exposure to Fox News increased the degree to which viewers were misinformed.
This is not simply a matter of partisan bias. People who vote Democratic and watched Fox News were also more likely to be misinformed than those who did not watch it – though by a lesser margin than those who vote Republican. Those who got their news from NPR, CNN, or MSNBC were better informed on most – but not all – of the issues in the survey.
We've presented the 11 questions just as the survey asked them. How well informed are you?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1221/Are-you-smarter-than-a-Fox-News-viewer-How-about-a-CNN-viewer-Take-our-quiz-to-find-out/Are-you-smarter-than-a-Fox-News-viewer-How-about-a-CNN-viewer-Take-our-quiz-to-find-out
The nation was left reeling yesterday by the revelation that the presidential election of 2008 was a hoax. The shocking announcement came when White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters that Barack Obama has been working in secret with conservative provocateur James O'Keefe since 2007. The long-running hoax is the most elaborate yet in a series of recent sting operations by primarily right-of-center gadflies that have embarrassed organizations including ACORN, Planned Parenthood and National Public Radio.
Those stunts, as well as the prank call to Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin that was captured on tape last month, proved to be sources of personal or institutional embarrassment. Historians warned yesterday that the latest caper may inspire a sense of national shame.
Origins of a hoax
Carney said the scam entailed pulling together demographic, social, cultural and policy characteristics to create the most exaggerated Democratic candidate possible without stepping over the line into caricature.
"By combining empty, touchy-feely slogans like 'hope' and 'change' with far-left-wing policy planks and presenting them in the person of a racial minority from a major Midwest city with an Ivy League background, we thought we might be able to make a good showing in Iowa and New Hampshire, maybe even capture the Democratic nomination," Carney told reporters. "But the entire country? No. We never, ever for even a second imagined the American people would elect someone who had served only half a term in the U.S. Senate to be the leader of the entire free world."
Obama won the presidency with 52.9 percent of the popular vote, defeating Republican nominee John McCain, who received 45.7 percent. "All you guys in the press were so giddy about it," Carney continued, "we couldn't really just announce that the whole thing was a big fat joke, you know? I mean, how would that look?"
Contacted by phone, O'Keefe said he, too, was surprised the hoax had lasted as long as it did.
"I thought people would catch on in the early days, like with the clinging-to-guns stuff," said O'Keefe, referring to an incident at a San Francisco fundraiser in which candidate Obama said small-town Americans "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."
O'Keefe said he also expected the ruse would be unmasked when Obama said that "under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket," and again when Obama claimed, "I've now been in 57 (U.S.) states," with "one left to go."
"We modeled the 57-states gaffe on Dan Quayle's 'potatoe' mistake," said O'Keefe, referring to a 1992 incident at a Trenton, N.J., elementary school in which then-Vice President Dan Quayle added an "e" to "potato." "We figured Obama would become a national laughingstock like Quayle, (but we) underestimated the tendency of the press and the public to forgive mistakes by people they like."
Worldwide deceit
Victims of the fabrication stretch around the globe. "President" Obama has held numerous meetings with foreign heads of state, among them Chinese President Hu Jintao, leaders of NATO and the G8, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee also was taken in, awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2009 — only months after he had taken office and just weeks before he announced an escalation of the war in Afghanistan.
Reaction from abroad yesterday was swift.
"I'm not surprised," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "Well, that explains everything, doesn't it?" said British Prime Minister David Cameron. "I mean, really now."
A prank gone too far
As the 2008 campaign wore on, O'Keefe said, insiders grew worried Obama might actually win. They began dropping hints that the candidate was just a parody. They had him complain about the price of arugula to Iowa farmers. When that didn't work, Obama went bowling, scored a 37, and then joked that the almost impossibly poor performance "was like the Special Olympics or something." "A few right-wing bloggers made a big deal out of it," O'Keefe said. "Nobody else seemed to notice."
The hint-dropping campaign intensified after Obama took office. Justin Whittemore, a former White House staffer who was part of the elaborate plot, said advisers began copying policy positions straight from The New York Times and the liberal Center for American Progress in an increasingly transparent attempt to provoke suspicion.
"We've tried everything," O'Keefe said. "Nationalizing health care, the stimulus, a $4 trillion budget, insane levels of debt, even high-speed rail. No matter how ridiculous a proposal we come up with, people take it seriously."
Asked why he is pulling the plug now, O'Keefe replied that the good of the country was at stake. "Things have gotten way out of hand," he said. "People are talking about a second term now. It's just gone way too far — even for me."
Those stunts, as well as the prank call to Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin that was captured on tape last month, proved to be sources of personal or institutional embarrassment. Historians warned yesterday that the latest caper may inspire a sense of national shame.
Origins of a hoax
Carney said the scam entailed pulling together demographic, social, cultural and policy characteristics to create the most exaggerated Democratic candidate possible without stepping over the line into caricature.
"By combining empty, touchy-feely slogans like 'hope' and 'change' with far-left-wing policy planks and presenting them in the person of a racial minority from a major Midwest city with an Ivy League background, we thought we might be able to make a good showing in Iowa and New Hampshire, maybe even capture the Democratic nomination," Carney told reporters. "But the entire country? No. We never, ever for even a second imagined the American people would elect someone who had served only half a term in the U.S. Senate to be the leader of the entire free world."
Obama won the presidency with 52.9 percent of the popular vote, defeating Republican nominee John McCain, who received 45.7 percent. "All you guys in the press were so giddy about it," Carney continued, "we couldn't really just announce that the whole thing was a big fat joke, you know? I mean, how would that look?"
Contacted by phone, O'Keefe said he, too, was surprised the hoax had lasted as long as it did.
"I thought people would catch on in the early days, like with the clinging-to-guns stuff," said O'Keefe, referring to an incident at a San Francisco fundraiser in which candidate Obama said small-town Americans "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."
O'Keefe said he also expected the ruse would be unmasked when Obama said that "under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket," and again when Obama claimed, "I've now been in 57 (U.S.) states," with "one left to go."
"We modeled the 57-states gaffe on Dan Quayle's 'potatoe' mistake," said O'Keefe, referring to a 1992 incident at a Trenton, N.J., elementary school in which then-Vice President Dan Quayle added an "e" to "potato." "We figured Obama would become a national laughingstock like Quayle, (but we) underestimated the tendency of the press and the public to forgive mistakes by people they like."
Worldwide deceit
Victims of the fabrication stretch around the globe. "President" Obama has held numerous meetings with foreign heads of state, among them Chinese President Hu Jintao, leaders of NATO and the G8, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee also was taken in, awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2009 — only months after he had taken office and just weeks before he announced an escalation of the war in Afghanistan.
Reaction from abroad yesterday was swift.
"I'm not surprised," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "Well, that explains everything, doesn't it?" said British Prime Minister David Cameron. "I mean, really now."
A prank gone too far
As the 2008 campaign wore on, O'Keefe said, insiders grew worried Obama might actually win. They began dropping hints that the candidate was just a parody. They had him complain about the price of arugula to Iowa farmers. When that didn't work, Obama went bowling, scored a 37, and then joked that the almost impossibly poor performance "was like the Special Olympics or something." "A few right-wing bloggers made a big deal out of it," O'Keefe said. "Nobody else seemed to notice."
The hint-dropping campaign intensified after Obama took office. Justin Whittemore, a former White House staffer who was part of the elaborate plot, said advisers began copying policy positions straight from The New York Times and the liberal Center for American Progress in an increasingly transparent attempt to provoke suspicion.
"We've tried everything," O'Keefe said. "Nationalizing health care, the stimulus, a $4 trillion budget, insane levels of debt, even high-speed rail. No matter how ridiculous a proposal we come up with, people take it seriously."
Asked why he is pulling the plug now, O'Keefe replied that the good of the country was at stake. "Things have gotten way out of hand," he said. "People are talking about a second term now. It's just gone way too far — even for me."
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Obama is a Lightweight When it comes to Leader of the Free World
President Obama’s Trivial Pursuits
The Middle East is afire with rebellion, Japan is imploding from an earthquake, and the battle of the budget is on in the United States, but none of this seems to be deterring President Obama from a heavy schedule of childish distractions.
The newly installed tandem of White House Chief of Staff William Daley and Senior Adviser David Plouffe were supposed to impart a new sense of discipline and purpose to the White House. Instead, they are permitting him to showcase himself as a poorly focused leader who has his priorities backward.
This morning, as Japan’s nuclear crisis enters a potentially catastrophic phase, we are told that Obama is videotaping his NCAA tournament picks and that we’ll be able to tune into ESPN Wednesday to find out who he likes.
Saturday, he made his 61st outing to the golf course as president, and got back to the White House with just enough time for a quick shower before heading out to party with Washington’s elite journalists at the annual Gridiron Dinner.
Obama Friday took time out to honor the 2009-10 Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks. Thursday was a White House conference on bullying – not a bad idea perhaps, but not quite Leader of the Free World stuff either.
Obama appeared a little sleepy as he weighed in against the bullies, perhaps because he’d spent the night before partying with lawmakers as they took in a Chicago Bulls vs. Charlotte Bobcats game.
Meanwhile, the president has been studying for weeks whether to establish a No Fly Zone over Libya, delaying action while the point becomes increasingly moot as Qaddafi begins to defeat and slaughter his opponents. And lawmakers from both Parties are wondering why he seems to be AWOL in the deficit reduction debate.
The Libya indecision follows an inconsistent response to the protests that ousted former Egyptian President Mubarak and seemed to catch the White House off guard. The perfunctory response from the White House Monday to Saudi Arabia’s dispatch of troops to Bahrain suggested the administration wasn’t prepared for that one either.
But the fun stuff won’t end anytime soon. On Thursday, the Taoiseach of Ireland will be in town to help the president celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. And then Friday it’s off to Brazil for the start of a three-country Latin American tour.
Oddly, he’ll be missing Carnival, which went down last week.
there will be no significant leak, there will be no "bomb"
The following is from IBD, and for those of a scientific mind, reinforces the importance of understanding science and speaking truthfully.
To be clear, their were 1000 cases of Leukemia in the area around Chernobyl, 2 resulting in fatalities. There were no effects from three mile island. There is no risk of the release of a large amount of radiation. This is all just alarmist environmental rhetoric.
**************
Nuclear Future: Quake-damaged reactors have spawned disaster-movie-scale scenarios. But once again the hype may exceed the reality, and the danger from nukes may be dwarfed by the dangers of doing without.
Consider that the earthquake that devastated Japan moved the main island eight feet and shifted our entire planet on its axis by four inches. The energy released by the quake, now measured at 9.0 on the Richter scale, is equivalent to about 336 megatons of TNT. The death toll is in the thousands and may rise into the tens of thousands in a nation that resembles the devastated Japan of 1945.
The quake was bad enough, yet most of the media's focus is on the crippled Japanese nuclear power plants, where no one has been killed, radiation leakage has been minimal and no breach of the containment buildings has yet been reported.
We do not minimize the danger that remains. We simply want to put it in context as the media breathlessly ponder another Chernobyl.
Ironically, the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine, caused by a combination of Russian incompetence and shoddy technology, will be upon us in a few weeks. Yet Japan's personnel and technology have functioned quite well, considering this natural disaster of planetary magnitude.
The Chernobyl plant had no containment structure and was of a design that used graphite instead of water to moderate neutron radiation. The graphite caught fire and burned for four days. With a containment structure, the fire would have been snuffed out and radiation would not have escaped.
Despite the second hydrogen gas explosion in three days at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant's Unit 3 in Okumamachi and exposed fuel rods at another reactor, Japanese authorities are using seawater to cool down the reactors. Failing that, sand and cement may be poured in to entomb the reactor core.
According to Ron Ballinger, professor of nuclear science at MIT, radiation spiked at about 100 millirems at Fukushima No. 3 before the first explosion. By comparison, you get about 35 millirems on a trans-Atlantic flight. A resident of mile-high Denver gets about 50 millirems a year.
After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese had as much reason to loathe nuclear power as anybody. Yet they built their reactors because they and their economy needed the energy. And, as proved over and over, wealthier societies are healthier societies. Nuclear power has increased Japan's standard of living and lowered its fossil-fuel pollution.
Japan is the world's third-largest nuclear power user. Its has 53 reactors that provide 34.5% of its electricity, and there were plans to increase that to 50% by 2030.
The U.S. hasn't built a new plant since 1979, yet nuclear power safely provides about 20% of our electricity, replacing huge amounts of those greenhouse gases environmentalists love to hate.
Experts have spent three decades trying to find any harmful effects from steam released at Three Mile Island in 1979 and have come up empty. Yet the incident doomed the U.S. nuclear power industry,and the Japanese quake may doom its renaissance.
Entire villages have been swept away by the quake, yet we have the likes of Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. — who tried to kill our economy with his cap-and-trade bill — making the most of this tragedy. Markey is warning of "another Chernobyl" and saying that "the same thing could happen here." Both statements are nonsense.
Markey wants to halt all nuclear plans and suspend the license of the only reactor we've been building — a Tennessee Valley authority plant at Watts Bar. Proposals for 20 other reactors to be built over the next two decades are at various points in the regulatory pipeline. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday that we should "put the brakes on right now until we understand the ramifications of what's happened in Japan."
We've had the brakes on for 30 years, Joe, depriving our nation and economy of job-creating and, yes, environmentally friendly energy independence. Despite a once-in-a-century event in Japan, it's time to put our foot on the accelerator and realize, as someone once put it, that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
To be clear, their were 1000 cases of Leukemia in the area around Chernobyl, 2 resulting in fatalities. There were no effects from three mile island. There is no risk of the release of a large amount of radiation. This is all just alarmist environmental rhetoric.
**************
Nuclear Future: Quake-damaged reactors have spawned disaster-movie-scale scenarios. But once again the hype may exceed the reality, and the danger from nukes may be dwarfed by the dangers of doing without.
Consider that the earthquake that devastated Japan moved the main island eight feet and shifted our entire planet on its axis by four inches. The energy released by the quake, now measured at 9.0 on the Richter scale, is equivalent to about 336 megatons of TNT. The death toll is in the thousands and may rise into the tens of thousands in a nation that resembles the devastated Japan of 1945.
The quake was bad enough, yet most of the media's focus is on the crippled Japanese nuclear power plants, where no one has been killed, radiation leakage has been minimal and no breach of the containment buildings has yet been reported.
We do not minimize the danger that remains. We simply want to put it in context as the media breathlessly ponder another Chernobyl.
Ironically, the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine, caused by a combination of Russian incompetence and shoddy technology, will be upon us in a few weeks. Yet Japan's personnel and technology have functioned quite well, considering this natural disaster of planetary magnitude.
The Chernobyl plant had no containment structure and was of a design that used graphite instead of water to moderate neutron radiation. The graphite caught fire and burned for four days. With a containment structure, the fire would have been snuffed out and radiation would not have escaped.
Despite the second hydrogen gas explosion in three days at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant's Unit 3 in Okumamachi and exposed fuel rods at another reactor, Japanese authorities are using seawater to cool down the reactors. Failing that, sand and cement may be poured in to entomb the reactor core.
According to Ron Ballinger, professor of nuclear science at MIT, radiation spiked at about 100 millirems at Fukushima No. 3 before the first explosion. By comparison, you get about 35 millirems on a trans-Atlantic flight. A resident of mile-high Denver gets about 50 millirems a year.
After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese had as much reason to loathe nuclear power as anybody. Yet they built their reactors because they and their economy needed the energy. And, as proved over and over, wealthier societies are healthier societies. Nuclear power has increased Japan's standard of living and lowered its fossil-fuel pollution.
Japan is the world's third-largest nuclear power user. Its has 53 reactors that provide 34.5% of its electricity, and there were plans to increase that to 50% by 2030.
The U.S. hasn't built a new plant since 1979, yet nuclear power safely provides about 20% of our electricity, replacing huge amounts of those greenhouse gases environmentalists love to hate.
Experts have spent three decades trying to find any harmful effects from steam released at Three Mile Island in 1979 and have come up empty. Yet the incident doomed the U.S. nuclear power industry,and the Japanese quake may doom its renaissance.
Entire villages have been swept away by the quake, yet we have the likes of Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. — who tried to kill our economy with his cap-and-trade bill — making the most of this tragedy. Markey is warning of "another Chernobyl" and saying that "the same thing could happen here." Both statements are nonsense.
Markey wants to halt all nuclear plans and suspend the license of the only reactor we've been building — a Tennessee Valley authority plant at Watts Bar. Proposals for 20 other reactors to be built over the next two decades are at various points in the regulatory pipeline. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday that we should "put the brakes on right now until we understand the ramifications of what's happened in Japan."
We've had the brakes on for 30 years, Joe, depriving our nation and economy of job-creating and, yes, environmentally friendly energy independence. Despite a once-in-a-century event in Japan, it's time to put our foot on the accelerator and realize, as someone once put it, that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Monday, March 14, 2011
UPDATE: Fox News officially announced on Monday afternoon that former Democratic Senator Evan Bayh is becoming a contributor to the network.Michael Clemente, the network's senior vice president for news, announced the move in a statement. He said that “Senator Bayh’s decades of experience in the political arena and his participation in key decisions in Washington will lend a valuable point of view to the entire Fox News lineup.”
“I’m pleased to offer analysis of public policy and politics to the millions of Americans who get their news from Fox,” Bayh said in the statement.
I Know Someone More Stupid Than EJ
We are broke
You can practically break a search engine if you start looking around the Internet for those words. They're used repeatedly with reference to our local, state and federal governments, almost always to make a case for slashing programs -- and, lately, to go after public-employee unions. The phrase is designed to create a sense of crisis that justifies rapid and radical actions before citizens have a chance to debate the consequences.
but E.J., you dumb ass, we are going broke, we are spending a LOT more than we are taking in, we have been for a while, things are going to get worse and we can't even eliminate Cowboy Poetry.
ATTEMPTS TO CUT COWBOY POETRY AND NPR ARE NOT SERIOUS EFFORTS TO CUT SPENDING. THE SAVINGS ARE INFINITESIMAL. THEY ARE CYNICAL POLITICAL GESTURES FOR THE DIMMER BULBS OF THE BASE.
Just one problem: We're not broke. Yes, nearly all levels of government face fiscal problems because of the economic downturn. But there is no crisis. There are many different paths open to fixing public budgets. And we will come up with wiser and more sustainable solutions if we approach fiscal problems calmly, realizing that we're still a very rich country, and that the wealthiest among us are doing exceptionally well.
Gotta slam the rich don't you E.J., just can't wait to take a poke. Ummm...so folks are not really broke until they are out on the street? How long to you think we can spend 40% more than we take in until we become broke. You really think that folks who don't want to wait until your little "game" runs its course are wrong? Really?
OUR CURRENT 40% REVENUE SHORTAGE IS EXACTLY WHAT BUSH HANDED OBAMA, ALONG WITH A COLLAPSING ECONOMY. WE NEED TO RAISE REVENUES - WE JUST NEED TO BE CAREFUL DOING IT. I WANT TO BE OUT OF THE WOODS BEFORE WE BRING REVENUES BACK TO CLINTONESQUE LEVELS.
Consider two of the most prominent we're-brokers, House Speaker John Boehner and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. "We're broke, broke going on bankrupt," Boehner said in a Feb. 28 Nashville speech. For Boehner, this "fact" justifies the $61 billion in domestic spending cuts House Republicans passed (cuts that would have a negligible impact on the long-term deficit). Boehner's GOP colleagues want reductions in Head Start, student loans and scores of other programs voters like, and the only way to sell them is to cry catastrophe.
Walker, of course, used the "we're broke" rationale to justify his attack on public-worker collective bargaining rights. Yet the state's supposedly "broke" status did not stop him from approving tax cuts before he began his war on unions and proposed all manner of budget cuts, including deep reductions in aid to public schools.
You mean those tax cuts used to attract businesses? Really E.J.? You are that...much of a...E.J., you just can't tell the truth.
YOU HATE THIS ARGUMENT DOC, SO YOU WANT TO CALL EJ A LIAR? THAT REFLECTS VERY POORLY ON YOU. EJ'S ARGUMENT IS HONEST AND LEGITIMATE. YOU JUST DON'T AGREE WITH IT.
In both cases, the fiscal issues are just an excuse for ideologically driven policies to levy lower taxes on well-off people and business while reducing government programs. Yet only occasionally do journalists step back to ask: Are these guys telling the truth?
Right, the goal is to hurt the poor and help rich people. Honestly don't your children ever read what you write? Have you no soul? We can't just want individual rights and fiscal sanity?
THE GOAL IS NOT TO HURT THE POOR. THE POOR ARE SIMPLY NOT A CONSIDERATION. THE GOP WANTS LOWER TAXES, DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES. IF THAT MEANS HUGE DEFICITS AND IMPOVERISHED KIDS, "SO BE IT", AS BOEHNER MIGHT SAY.
The admirable website PolitiFact.com examined Walker's claim in detail and concluded flatly it was "false."
"Experts agree the state faces financial challenges in the form of deficits," PolitiFact wrote. "But they also agree the state isn't broke. Employees and bills are being paid. Services are continuing to be performed. Revenue continues to roll in. A variety of tools -- taxes, layoffs, spending cuts, debt shifting -- is available to make ends meet. Walker has promised not to increase taxes. That takes one tool off the table."
GM continued to do all that "business" stuff also, and E.J., they were pretty much busted, wouldn't you say? And the whole anti-union thing? E.J. if you took time to read this blog or perhaps the thousand of other available opinion, government unions need to be be busted, they don't make sense, their workers have no "boss" and no financial incentive to limit benefits, in fact just the opposite. And that's the whole point.
THIS COMING FROM A MAN THAT ONCE TRIED TO START A UNION FOR THE POOR AND DISPOSSESSED - DOCTORS!!!
Bloomberg News looked at Boehner's statement and declared simply: "It's wrong." As the agency's David J. Lynch wrote: "The U.S. today is able to borrow at historically low interest rates, paying 0.68 percent on a two-year note that it had to offer at 5.1 percent before the financial crisis began in 2007. Financial products that pay off if Uncle Sam defaults aren't attracting unusual investor demand. And tax revenue as a percentage of the economy is at a 60-year low, meaning if the government needs to raise cash and can summon the political will, it could do so." Precisely. A phony metaphor is being used to hijack the nation's political conversation and skew public policies to benefit better-off Americans and hurt most others.
There you go again with the rich pot shot stuff. Hey E.J., how did the borrow low and hedge your bets work out for Wall Street in 2008, so now you want us to go ahead and go broke, just at a low interest rate? So what happens, Mr. E.J., you dumb shit, after 2 years interest rates skyrocket?
WHY WEREN'T THE REPUBLICANS ASKING THESE QUESTIONS AS THEY CREATED THE MASSIVE DEFICITS? WE NEED MORE REVENUE...
We have an 8.9 percent unemployment rate, yet further measures to spur job creation are off the table. We're broke, you see. We have a $15 trillion economy, yet we pretend to be an impoverished nation with no room for public investments in our future or efforts to ease the pain of a deep recession on those Americans who didn't profit from it or cause it in the first place.
As Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., pointed out in a little-noticed but powerful speech on the economy last December, "during the past 20 years, 56 percent of all income growth went to the top 1 percent of households. Even more unbelievably, a third of all income growth went to just the top one-tenth of 1 percent." Some people are definitely not broke, yet we can't even think about raising their taxes.
Al Franken, Senator, now there is a scary thought, anyway, you did threaten to raise taxes on the rich, they hid, they sat on their hands, they were pissed at being blamed for being successful and Holy Crap the POTUS said..let's not raise their taxes, we need them to create jobs.
OUR TAXES ARE THE LOWEST IN THE WESTERN INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD. THE RICH DIDN'T "SIT ON THEIR HANDS" AFTER CLINTON SIGNIFICANTLY RAISED TAXES. YOU REMEMBER CLINTON - THE LAST PRESIDENT TO ENJOY SURPLUSES - AFTER RAISING TAXES! (REPEATED FOR EMPHASIS)
E.J., you should read this blog more, we told you all this stuff was going to happen, now it is and you just can't handle it.
IF YOU ARE SO DAMN PRESCIENT, WHY DID YOU VOTE FOR GEORGE W BUSH - TWICE!?
posted by jim g. at 10:45 pm 1 comments
You can practically break a search engine if you start looking around the Internet for those words. They're used repeatedly with reference to our local, state and federal governments, almost always to make a case for slashing programs -- and, lately, to go after public-employee unions. The phrase is designed to create a sense of crisis that justifies rapid and radical actions before citizens have a chance to debate the consequences.
but E.J., you dumb ass, we are going broke, we are spending a LOT more than we are taking in, we have been for a while, things are going to get worse and we can't even eliminate Cowboy Poetry.
ATTEMPTS TO CUT COWBOY POETRY AND NPR ARE NOT SERIOUS EFFORTS TO CUT SPENDING. THE SAVINGS ARE INFINITESIMAL. THEY ARE CYNICAL POLITICAL GESTURES FOR THE DIMMER BULBS OF THE BASE.
Just one problem: We're not broke. Yes, nearly all levels of government face fiscal problems because of the economic downturn. But there is no crisis. There are many different paths open to fixing public budgets. And we will come up with wiser and more sustainable solutions if we approach fiscal problems calmly, realizing that we're still a very rich country, and that the wealthiest among us are doing exceptionally well.
Gotta slam the rich don't you E.J., just can't wait to take a poke. Ummm...so folks are not really broke until they are out on the street? How long to you think we can spend 40% more than we take in until we become broke. You really think that folks who don't want to wait until your little "game" runs its course are wrong? Really?
OUR CURRENT 40% REVENUE SHORTAGE IS EXACTLY WHAT BUSH HANDED OBAMA, ALONG WITH A COLLAPSING ECONOMY. WE NEED TO RAISE REVENUES - WE JUST NEED TO BE CAREFUL DOING IT. I WANT TO BE OUT OF THE WOODS BEFORE WE BRING REVENUES BACK TO CLINTONESQUE LEVELS.
Consider two of the most prominent we're-brokers, House Speaker John Boehner and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. "We're broke, broke going on bankrupt," Boehner said in a Feb. 28 Nashville speech. For Boehner, this "fact" justifies the $61 billion in domestic spending cuts House Republicans passed (cuts that would have a negligible impact on the long-term deficit). Boehner's GOP colleagues want reductions in Head Start, student loans and scores of other programs voters like, and the only way to sell them is to cry catastrophe.
Walker, of course, used the "we're broke" rationale to justify his attack on public-worker collective bargaining rights. Yet the state's supposedly "broke" status did not stop him from approving tax cuts before he began his war on unions and proposed all manner of budget cuts, including deep reductions in aid to public schools.
You mean those tax cuts used to attract businesses? Really E.J.? You are that...much of a...E.J., you just can't tell the truth.
YOU HATE THIS ARGUMENT DOC, SO YOU WANT TO CALL EJ A LIAR? THAT REFLECTS VERY POORLY ON YOU. EJ'S ARGUMENT IS HONEST AND LEGITIMATE. YOU JUST DON'T AGREE WITH IT.
In both cases, the fiscal issues are just an excuse for ideologically driven policies to levy lower taxes on well-off people and business while reducing government programs. Yet only occasionally do journalists step back to ask: Are these guys telling the truth?
Right, the goal is to hurt the poor and help rich people. Honestly don't your children ever read what you write? Have you no soul? We can't just want individual rights and fiscal sanity?
THE GOAL IS NOT TO HURT THE POOR. THE POOR ARE SIMPLY NOT A CONSIDERATION. THE GOP WANTS LOWER TAXES, DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES. IF THAT MEANS HUGE DEFICITS AND IMPOVERISHED KIDS, "SO BE IT", AS BOEHNER MIGHT SAY.
The admirable website PolitiFact.com examined Walker's claim in detail and concluded flatly it was "false."
"Experts agree the state faces financial challenges in the form of deficits," PolitiFact wrote. "But they also agree the state isn't broke. Employees and bills are being paid. Services are continuing to be performed. Revenue continues to roll in. A variety of tools -- taxes, layoffs, spending cuts, debt shifting -- is available to make ends meet. Walker has promised not to increase taxes. That takes one tool off the table."
GM continued to do all that "business" stuff also, and E.J., they were pretty much busted, wouldn't you say? And the whole anti-union thing? E.J. if you took time to read this blog or perhaps the thousand of other available opinion, government unions need to be be busted, they don't make sense, their workers have no "boss" and no financial incentive to limit benefits, in fact just the opposite. And that's the whole point.
THIS COMING FROM A MAN THAT ONCE TRIED TO START A UNION FOR THE POOR AND DISPOSSESSED - DOCTORS!!!
Bloomberg News looked at Boehner's statement and declared simply: "It's wrong." As the agency's David J. Lynch wrote: "The U.S. today is able to borrow at historically low interest rates, paying 0.68 percent on a two-year note that it had to offer at 5.1 percent before the financial crisis began in 2007. Financial products that pay off if Uncle Sam defaults aren't attracting unusual investor demand. And tax revenue as a percentage of the economy is at a 60-year low, meaning if the government needs to raise cash and can summon the political will, it could do so." Precisely. A phony metaphor is being used to hijack the nation's political conversation and skew public policies to benefit better-off Americans and hurt most others.
There you go again with the rich pot shot stuff. Hey E.J., how did the borrow low and hedge your bets work out for Wall Street in 2008, so now you want us to go ahead and go broke, just at a low interest rate? So what happens, Mr. E.J., you dumb shit, after 2 years interest rates skyrocket?
WHY WEREN'T THE REPUBLICANS ASKING THESE QUESTIONS AS THEY CREATED THE MASSIVE DEFICITS? WE NEED MORE REVENUE...
We have an 8.9 percent unemployment rate, yet further measures to spur job creation are off the table. We're broke, you see. We have a $15 trillion economy, yet we pretend to be an impoverished nation with no room for public investments in our future or efforts to ease the pain of a deep recession on those Americans who didn't profit from it or cause it in the first place.
As Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., pointed out in a little-noticed but powerful speech on the economy last December, "during the past 20 years, 56 percent of all income growth went to the top 1 percent of households. Even more unbelievably, a third of all income growth went to just the top one-tenth of 1 percent." Some people are definitely not broke, yet we can't even think about raising their taxes.
Al Franken, Senator, now there is a scary thought, anyway, you did threaten to raise taxes on the rich, they hid, they sat on their hands, they were pissed at being blamed for being successful and Holy Crap the POTUS said..let's not raise their taxes, we need them to create jobs.
OUR TAXES ARE THE LOWEST IN THE WESTERN INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD. THE RICH DIDN'T "SIT ON THEIR HANDS" AFTER CLINTON SIGNIFICANTLY RAISED TAXES. YOU REMEMBER CLINTON - THE LAST PRESIDENT TO ENJOY SURPLUSES - AFTER RAISING TAXES! (REPEATED FOR EMPHASIS)
E.J., you should read this blog more, we told you all this stuff was going to happen, now it is and you just can't handle it.
IF YOU ARE SO DAMN PRESCIENT, WHY DID YOU VOTE FOR GEORGE W BUSH - TWICE!?
posted by jim g. at 10:45 pm 1 comments
Sunday, March 13, 2011
E.J is almost a stupid as Paul
We are broke
You can practically break a search engine if you start looking around the Internet for those words. They're used repeatedly with reference to our local, state and federal governments, almost always to make a case for slashing programs -- and, lately, to go after public-employee unions. The phrase is designed to create a sense of crisis that justifies rapid and radical actions before citizens have a chance to debate the consequences.
but E.J., you dumb ass, we are going broke, we are spending a LOT more than we are taking in, we have been for a while, things are going to get worse and we can't even eliminate Cowboy Poetry.
Just one problem: We're not broke. Yes, nearly all levels of government face fiscal problems because of the economic downturn. But there is no crisis. There are many different paths open to fixing public budgets. And we will come up with wiser and more sustainable solutions if we approach fiscal problems calmly, realizing that we're still a very rich country, and that the wealthiest among us are doing exceptionally well.
Gotta slam the rich don't you E.J., just can't wait to take a poke. Ummm...so folks are not really broke until they are out on the street? How long to you think we can spend 40% more than we take in until we become broke. You really think that folks who don't want to wait until your little "game" runs its course are wrong? Really?
Consider two of the most prominent we're-brokers, House Speaker John Boehner and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. "We're broke, broke going on bankrupt," Boehner said in a Feb. 28 Nashville speech. For Boehner, this "fact" justifies the $61 billion in domestic spending cuts House Republicans passed (cuts that would have a negligible impact on the long-term deficit). Boehner's GOP colleagues want reductions in Head Start, student loans and scores of other programs voters like, and the only way to sell them is to cry catastrophe.
Walker, of course, used the "we're broke" rationale to justify his attack on public-worker collective bargaining rights. Yet the state's supposedly "broke" status did not stop him from approving tax cuts before he began his war on unions and proposed all manner of budget cuts, including deep reductions in aid to public schools.
You mean those tax cuts used to attract businesses? Really E.J.? You are that...much of a...E.J., you just can't tell the truth.
In both cases, the fiscal issues are just an excuse for ideologically driven policies to levy lower taxes on well-off people and business while reducing government programs. Yet only occasionally do journalists step back to ask: Are these guys telling the truth?
Right, the goal is to hurt the poor and help rich people. Honestly don't your children ever read what you write? Have you no soul? We can't just want individual rights and fiscal sanity?
The admirable website PolitiFact.com examined Walker's claim in detail and concluded flatly it was "false."
"Experts agree the state faces financial challenges in the form of deficits," PolitiFact wrote. "But they also agree the state isn't broke. Employees and bills are being paid. Services are continuing to be performed. Revenue continues to roll in. A variety of tools -- taxes, layoffs, spending cuts, debt shifting -- is available to make ends meet. Walker has promised not to increase taxes. That takes one tool off the table."
GM continued to do all that "business" stuff also, and E.J., they were pretty much busted, wouldn't you say? And the whole anti-union thing? E.J. if you took time to read this blog or perhaps the thousand of other available opinion, government unions need to be be busted, they don't make sense, their workers have no "boss" and no financial incentive to limit benefits, in fact just the opposite.
And that's the whole point.
Bloomberg News looked at Boehner's statement and declared simply: "It's wrong." As the agency's David J. Lynch wrote: "The U.S. today is able to borrow at historically low interest rates, paying 0.68 percent on a two-year note that it had to offer at 5.1 percent before the financial crisis began in 2007. Financial products that pay off if Uncle Sam defaults aren't attracting unusual investor demand. And tax revenue as a percentage of the economy is at a 60-year low, meaning if the government needs to raise cash and can summon the political will, it could do so." Precisely. A phony metaphor is being used to hijack the nation's political conversation and skew public policies to benefit better-off Americans and hurt most others.
There you go again with the rich pot shot stuff. Hey E.J., how did the borrow low and hedge your bets work out for Wall Street in 2008, so now you want us to go ahead and go broke, just at a low interest rate? So what happens, Mr. E.J., you dumb shit, after 2 years interest rates skyrocket?
We have an 8.9 percent unemployment rate, yet further measures to spur job creation are off the table. We're broke, you see. We have a $15 trillion economy, yet we pretend to be an impoverished nation with no room for public investments in our future or efforts to ease the pain of a deep recession on those Americans who didn't profit from it or cause it in the first place.
As Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., pointed out in a little-noticed but powerful speech on the economy last December, "during the past 20 years, 56 percent of all income growth went to the top 1 percent of households. Even more unbelievably, a third of all income growth went to just the top one-tenth of 1 percent." Some people are definitely not broke, yet we can't even think about raising their taxes.
Al Franken, Senator, now there is a scary thought, anyway, you did threaten to raise taxes on the rich, they hid, they sat on their hands, they were pissed at being blamed for being successful and Holy Crap the POTUS said..let's not raise their taxes, we need them to create jobs.
E.J., you should read this blog more, we told you all this stuff was going to happen, now it is and you just can't handle it.
You can practically break a search engine if you start looking around the Internet for those words. They're used repeatedly with reference to our local, state and federal governments, almost always to make a case for slashing programs -- and, lately, to go after public-employee unions. The phrase is designed to create a sense of crisis that justifies rapid and radical actions before citizens have a chance to debate the consequences.
but E.J., you dumb ass, we are going broke, we are spending a LOT more than we are taking in, we have been for a while, things are going to get worse and we can't even eliminate Cowboy Poetry.
Just one problem: We're not broke. Yes, nearly all levels of government face fiscal problems because of the economic downturn. But there is no crisis. There are many different paths open to fixing public budgets. And we will come up with wiser and more sustainable solutions if we approach fiscal problems calmly, realizing that we're still a very rich country, and that the wealthiest among us are doing exceptionally well.
Gotta slam the rich don't you E.J., just can't wait to take a poke. Ummm...so folks are not really broke until they are out on the street? How long to you think we can spend 40% more than we take in until we become broke. You really think that folks who don't want to wait until your little "game" runs its course are wrong? Really?
Consider two of the most prominent we're-brokers, House Speaker John Boehner and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. "We're broke, broke going on bankrupt," Boehner said in a Feb. 28 Nashville speech. For Boehner, this "fact" justifies the $61 billion in domestic spending cuts House Republicans passed (cuts that would have a negligible impact on the long-term deficit). Boehner's GOP colleagues want reductions in Head Start, student loans and scores of other programs voters like, and the only way to sell them is to cry catastrophe.
Walker, of course, used the "we're broke" rationale to justify his attack on public-worker collective bargaining rights. Yet the state's supposedly "broke" status did not stop him from approving tax cuts before he began his war on unions and proposed all manner of budget cuts, including deep reductions in aid to public schools.
You mean those tax cuts used to attract businesses? Really E.J.? You are that...much of a...E.J., you just can't tell the truth.
In both cases, the fiscal issues are just an excuse for ideologically driven policies to levy lower taxes on well-off people and business while reducing government programs. Yet only occasionally do journalists step back to ask: Are these guys telling the truth?
Right, the goal is to hurt the poor and help rich people. Honestly don't your children ever read what you write? Have you no soul? We can't just want individual rights and fiscal sanity?
The admirable website PolitiFact.com examined Walker's claim in detail and concluded flatly it was "false."
"Experts agree the state faces financial challenges in the form of deficits," PolitiFact wrote. "But they also agree the state isn't broke. Employees and bills are being paid. Services are continuing to be performed. Revenue continues to roll in. A variety of tools -- taxes, layoffs, spending cuts, debt shifting -- is available to make ends meet. Walker has promised not to increase taxes. That takes one tool off the table."
GM continued to do all that "business" stuff also, and E.J., they were pretty much busted, wouldn't you say? And the whole anti-union thing? E.J. if you took time to read this blog or perhaps the thousand of other available opinion, government unions need to be be busted, they don't make sense, their workers have no "boss" and no financial incentive to limit benefits, in fact just the opposite.
And that's the whole point.
Bloomberg News looked at Boehner's statement and declared simply: "It's wrong." As the agency's David J. Lynch wrote: "The U.S. today is able to borrow at historically low interest rates, paying 0.68 percent on a two-year note that it had to offer at 5.1 percent before the financial crisis began in 2007. Financial products that pay off if Uncle Sam defaults aren't attracting unusual investor demand. And tax revenue as a percentage of the economy is at a 60-year low, meaning if the government needs to raise cash and can summon the political will, it could do so." Precisely. A phony metaphor is being used to hijack the nation's political conversation and skew public policies to benefit better-off Americans and hurt most others.
There you go again with the rich pot shot stuff. Hey E.J., how did the borrow low and hedge your bets work out for Wall Street in 2008, so now you want us to go ahead and go broke, just at a low interest rate? So what happens, Mr. E.J., you dumb shit, after 2 years interest rates skyrocket?
We have an 8.9 percent unemployment rate, yet further measures to spur job creation are off the table. We're broke, you see. We have a $15 trillion economy, yet we pretend to be an impoverished nation with no room for public investments in our future or efforts to ease the pain of a deep recession on those Americans who didn't profit from it or cause it in the first place.
As Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., pointed out in a little-noticed but powerful speech on the economy last December, "during the past 20 years, 56 percent of all income growth went to the top 1 percent of households. Even more unbelievably, a third of all income growth went to just the top one-tenth of 1 percent." Some people are definitely not broke, yet we can't even think about raising their taxes.
Al Franken, Senator, now there is a scary thought, anyway, you did threaten to raise taxes on the rich, they hid, they sat on their hands, they were pissed at being blamed for being successful and Holy Crap the POTUS said..let's not raise their taxes, we need them to create jobs.
E.J., you should read this blog more, we told you all this stuff was going to happen, now it is and you just can't handle it.
game, set, match
All the babble offered by the Liberals, especially Baxter is summed in the following. The more I think about it the angrier I get.
Their circular illogic consists of...well those Tea Partiers want to cut spending but not anything that benefits them, despite overwhelming evidence otherwise and well discretionary spending/earmarks are just a small amount of the budget, ignoring the fact that it a decent place to start and corrupting and well your are proposing draconian cuts, ignoring the fact THAT THEY ARE NOT!
So we have a movement for fiscal sanity called the TEA party, which is widely ridiculed by the left wanting less spending, the movement, widely supported in concept MIGHT struggle regarding entitlements, however there is clear consensus to QUIT WAISTING MONEY.
And the lefts response? Honestly he said this, it is quite beyond belief, we are going broke, we have raised our national debt to unsustainable levels even excluding what will be our next crisis.
"The mean-spirited bill, HR 1 ... eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts," Reid said. "These programs create jobs. The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist."
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? We can't do without cowboy poetry?
Their circular illogic consists of...well those Tea Partiers want to cut spending but not anything that benefits them, despite overwhelming evidence otherwise and well discretionary spending/earmarks are just a small amount of the budget, ignoring the fact that it a decent place to start and corrupting and well your are proposing draconian cuts, ignoring the fact THAT THEY ARE NOT!
So we have a movement for fiscal sanity called the TEA party, which is widely ridiculed by the left wanting less spending, the movement, widely supported in concept MIGHT struggle regarding entitlements, however there is clear consensus to QUIT WAISTING MONEY.
And the lefts response? Honestly he said this, it is quite beyond belief, we are going broke, we have raised our national debt to unsustainable levels even excluding what will be our next crisis.
"The mean-spirited bill, HR 1 ... eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts," Reid said. "These programs create jobs. The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist."
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? We can't do without cowboy poetry?
John Hulsman
I just watched a very impressive individual on C-Span. A former official with CATO and the Heritage Foundation, John Hulsman calls himself an "Eisenhower Republican" and offers very compelling insight on the problems of the day. I think everyone on this board would enjoy it.
http://www.broadbandc-span.org/Events/Policy-Thinker-John-Hulsman/10737420059-1/
http://www.broadbandc-span.org/Events/Policy-Thinker-John-Hulsman/10737420059-1/
Friday, March 11, 2011
Time to sit back and maybe think a little
An editorial from a Michigan newspaper that kind of covers it all......
Hey Terry!
Right wing...that's what you say, right? You really mean...prejudiced right? Against blacks, the poor, women. You and yours infer...you mean old white guys, you are just out for yourselves, walking on the backs of the multiple suffering groups. And those corporations! They are worse right? Also run by mean white guys.
So, how is that going in light of the antisemitic comments by the NPR spokesman, talking about Jews controlling the press?
Terry, we are running MONTHLY deficits greater than most previous years totals. The Majority leader calls draconian trying to limit Cowboy Poetry. How do you think that kind of nonsense would be handled if proposed in one of those evil corporations?
Lastly, the Cowboy Poetry escapade perfectly illustrates why government workers cannot be allowed to collectively bargain. There is no incentive for fiscal restraint on the management side, you see that now right?
This stuff has finally pissed you off and your Conservative now right?
So, how is that going in light of the antisemitic comments by the NPR spokesman, talking about Jews controlling the press?
Terry, we are running MONTHLY deficits greater than most previous years totals. The Majority leader calls draconian trying to limit Cowboy Poetry. How do you think that kind of nonsense would be handled if proposed in one of those evil corporations?
Lastly, the Cowboy Poetry escapade perfectly illustrates why government workers cannot be allowed to collectively bargain. There is no incentive for fiscal restraint on the management side, you see that now right?
This stuff has finally pissed you off and your Conservative now right?
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