Costly Questions, Priceless Answers
Would you like to know about our modern political state? Want to know why political action in America is so difficult? Why has talk about "alienation and exploitation" been almost completely extinguished? Do you feel powerless and want to know who's really running the show? Does it seem like you're being "nickeled and dimed" every time you turn around? Does wealth and income inequality really matter? Why doesn't your Congressman return your calls?
Finally, here are some answers on our new FaceBook Site.
Political Kabuki
The Curious Politics of Predatory State Capitalism
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Defy the Corporate State
This perspective may seem extreme to you, but thinking that unfettered freedom of the market is an "ultimate good" seems rather extreme to me.
Rise Up or Die | Perspectives, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com
billmoyers.com
Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges writes that we must either defy the corporate state or accept our extinction as a species.
"The Master of Disaster"
This will really show those "free loaders" that government doesn't work.
Oklahoma GOP Sen. Tom Coburn Will Seek To Offset Tornado Aid
livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com
Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn will seek to offset federal aid to victims of a massive tornado that blasted through Oklahoma City suburbs on Monday with cuts elsewhere in the budget. "That's always been his position [to offset disaster aid]," a spokesman told the Huffington Post Monday night. "...
Find a Quiet Room
Since 1979, the one-percenters have doubled their share of the nation’s collective income from about 10 percent to about 20 percent. And between 2009, when the Great Recession ended, and 2011, the one-percenters saw their average income rise by 11 percent even as the 99-percenters saw theirs fall slightly. Some recovery!
The advantages of superior education highlight the differences among in top 1% and the rest of us. This skills-based gap is the inequality most Americans see in their everyday lives. Conservatives don’t typically like to talk about income inequality. It stirs up uncomfortable questions about economic fairness. (That’s why as a candidate Mitt Romney told a TV interviewer that inequality was best discussed in “quiet rooms.”)
The 1 Percent Are Only Half the Problem
opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
Two types of inequality demand our attention. Liberals and conservatives have to open their ears.
Greek Taxing
Conservatives who have cut funding for the IRS for three decades have done more to make the USA resemble Greece than anyone. The GOP is working to make the income tax the ultimate "liars tax." The US was once renowned for the honesty and integrity of its self-reporting tax system. Now the GOP sees political advantage ridiculing the overwhelmed IRS. Conservatives, calling themselves patriots, will do anything to tear down American institutions to gain power.
Virginia G.O.P Pleases Crowd With Barbs About I.R.S.
www.nytimes.com
At each mention of the government’s targeting of conservative groups, the 8,000 delegates at the state party convention in Richmond roared their approval.
Funny Money Ain't So Funny
And Obama's feeble attempt to regulate it faces complete emasculation by Wall Street lobbyists. Derivatives, consolidated debt obligations, credit default swaps, naked credit default swaps and all the other exotic instruments of "high finance" globally amounts to more than $800 trillion of basically unregulated casino money for the rich to get richer and the rest of us to be swindled. Watch out for the bubbles.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/opinion/derivatives-reform-on-the-ropes.html
www.nytimes.com
Money Rules... All Else Is Just Pretend (Political Kabuki)
Bill Moyers summed it up tonight by showing the extensive ability business has in providing a lucrative revolving door for members of Congress and their staff members. Flood campaigns with lifeblood donations of cash and funnel it anonymously through 501(c)(4)s and "big business" pretty much gets what they want. "Citizens United" opened the gate. Republican or Democrat... it doesn't matter. It's just the R's are more direct. Oh, no quid pro quo you understand. Of course, not.
http://billmoyers.com/segment/sheila-krumholz-and-danielle-brian-on-how-money-rules-washington/
Sheila Krumholz and Danielle Brian on How Money Rules Washington | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com
billmoyers.com
The heads of two independent watchdog groups discuss their efforts to scrutinize special interest money going into political pockets.
Listening to the Planet By the Numbers
Letting Go of Faith In the GOP and Obama Too
350 parts per million of carbon dioxide was estimated to be the point at which man could not have an almost immediate impact on lessoning the effects of climate change on the planet. We have now surpassed 400 parts per million and we are in completely unchartered conditions while the Republicans in the Senate are blocking Obama's nominee to head the EPA and are paralyzed by their uncertainty. It's called being "intellectually challenged."
Climate Warnings, Growing Louder
www.nytimes.com
Given new evidence on carbon pollution, President Obama should get moving on global warming.
Scandal Traction?
After a solid week of bombardment and shrieking conservatives screaming that Obama's scandals (Benghazi, the IRS and the AP phone records) are "worse than Watergate or "Iran-Contra," and ... Obama's approval ratings in the Gallop Poll are up 5%!!!
Political scandals are just not what they used to be... AND IT'S ALL OBAMA'S FAULT!! Obama should apologize to the Republican Party and at least take a pee behind a bush in the Rose Garden. Come on, Barry! No brown paper bags filled with cash? No incriminating e-mails? No recording tapes out of the Oval Office containing invectives and beeped over explicatives or lengthy erasures? No proof of Presidential involvement at all? No thug-like creatures working out of a basement office. AND NO SEX!! Can't you even come close to producing a reasonably outrageous scandal??? Get with it, for God's sake! We're defending freedom here!
Week of May 12th, 2013
Yes, Yes. Unleash the crazy!! It's as fun as watching dominos fall.
Republicans Shouldn’t Let the Facts Speak for Themselves
Daily IntelligencerUnleash the crazy!
Vile and Reprehensible
There's roughly 35 to 40% of the American voting population that label themselves as "conservative." 20 to 25% describe themselves as "very conservative." Now, I don't mind at all that there are those who hold political views much different than mine. That's always been true about almost everything that I think is right. It's just when they turn to evangelizing their point of view, it gets my attention. For instance, a fb acquaintance liked a video and recommended it to all "Americans."
Take a look and see what you think:
http://redflagnews.com/headlines/share-this-to-anyone-who-doesnt-understand-what-all-the-fuss-about-benghazi-is
I was going to watch it again and highlight some statements but I didn't want to begin the day with such vitriol and hatred. Together with that and having almost nothing factual in it, the video settles comfortably with repetitious ad hominem attacks. But I guess Judge Jeanine is a Fox News sensation.
The questions that bother me are, "How can such otherwise loving and sincere individuals, that care for their spouse, kids and pets, believe in and push this crap?" "Have they no sense of humanity and decency in these things?" "And why in the world do they want others to feel the vile and reprehensible way they do?" "Don't they realize that they can hold opinions and express themselves about politicians and policies without all the repugnancy?"
Nope. Guess not.
Europe’s Economics Chief Tries to Peel Off ‘Mr. Austerity’ Label
This is a profile of Olli Rhen, the EU commissioner for economic and monetary affairs. He has become a lightning rod in recent months for swelling anger across Europe against the harsh belt-tightening policies generally known as austerity. But in an interview, Mr. Rehn, 51, described himself as a “doctrinaire agnostic in terms of economic policy” who has read and found much of value in the writings of the British economist John Maynard Keynes, whose name is synonymous with the idea of economic stimulus in times of crisis. He was also a follower of the controversy over an influential 2010 economic research paper that purported to show that a level of a nation's debt at 90% was a tipping point for bad times to follow. That paper by Rogoff and Reinhart, was a pillar of right wing economic austerity policy and has been totally discredited.
Olli Rehn Tries to Shed ‘Austerity’ Label
www.nytimes.com
Olli Rehn, the European Union’s top economist and a focus of anger across Europe against harsh belt-tightening policies, says he is not a doctrinaire adherent to austerity measures.
Aforementioned "malicious exploitation" of American predatory state capitalism... the dirtiest residue from the dirtiest oil on earth. Courtesy of the Koch brothers.
Mountain of Petroleum Coke From Oil Sands Rises in Detroit
www.nytimes.com
Refining Canada’s petroleum-soaked oil sands produces petroleum coke, and the question of what to do with it has found at least one answer in Detroit, where a large coke pile covers an entire city block.
Too Late to Be Nice
Well, here is the most significant unreported scandal this week in Washington, DC. Want some idea how low the Republican "scumbags" in the US House of Representative have fallen? This tells it all. Almost ten weeks ago the administration released pertinent e-mails showing how the material that Susan Rice gave on national TV after the attack on Benghazi was compiled. The GOP had developed as their principal scenario that the administration was covering-up that it was a "terrorist attack" (for whatever purpose). But the e-mails clearly showed that the story was a collaborative effort between the Dept. of State and the CIA. The GOP knew this for ten weeks but fabricated from "whole cloth" an outrageous scandal. But that isn't the worst of it. Conservative operatives in the House fabricated "direct quotes" from the e-mails and peddled them to unsuspecting ABC News. What the Republicans produced purported to show exactly the scandal the GOP was alleging.,, that the administration was intentionally lying. After Obama released the e-mails to the public, the misrepresentations were shown to be totally on the side of the GOP. House conservatives... lowest of the low.
Conservative Heritage Foundation Asks GOP to Stop Governing and Stick with Hyper-Political Partisanship
"We urge you to avoid bringing any legislation to the House floor that could expose or highlight any major schisms within the (Republican) conference..."
No more need be said about motivation...