News that Makes Me Want To Lie In a Ditch
and pant like a dog:
"Opinion" (i.e. corporate propaganda) from the New York Times:
"The nation faces a nasty dual deficit problem: a painful jobs deficit in the near term and an unsustainable budget deficit over the medium and long term. This month, the Senate will be debating an issue with significant implications for both — what to do about the Bush-era tax cuts scheduled to expire at the end of the year. In the face of the dueling deficits, the best approach is a compromise: extend the tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether. Ideally only the middle-class tax cuts would be continued for now. Getting a deal in Congress, though, may require keeping the high-income tax cuts, too. And that would still be worth it."
Let me explain to you what this really means: Despite our nation's desperate economic circumstances, let's give in to the howling and whining of the rich, and give them two more years of their insane free ride, paid by all of the rest of us. Then, in two years, they will start howling all over again, and we will give them another two years. And then...well you get the idea.
The advantage of this plan, is if things are still terrible in two years, they can say we need to "stimulate" the economy more by giving the rich more money to invest in hedge funds, etc, and if things have recovered, they will claim that now that things are better, we can afford to let the rich get even richer.
And now this article in the Washington Post by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes:
"Writing in these pages in early 2008, we put the total cost to the United States of the Iraq war at $3 trillion. This price tag dwarfed previous estimates, including the Bush administration's 2003 projections of a $50 billion to $60 billion war. But today, as the United States ends combat in Iraq, it appears that our $3 trillion estimate (which accounted for both government expenses and the war's broader impact on the U.S. economy) was, if anything, too low. It is hard to believe that we would be embroiled in a bloody conflict in Afghanistan today if we had devoted the resources there that we instead deployed in Iraq. A troop surge in 2003 -- before the warlords and the Taliban reestablished control -- would have been much more effective than a surge in 2010."
Three trillion dollars down a rat hole. But of course we are expected to ignore that waste, while angrily denouncing every penny that Obama tries to spend here at home to rescue the economy. Because Democratic spending is an atrocious misuse of public funds, while Republican warmongering is worth any cost, including the fact that it probably caused us to lose any hope of a decent end to our presence in Afghanistan.
Of course, Joseph Stiglitz is a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, so he is probably just another ignorant left-wing loon, like Paul Krugman, right?
And via TPM, Marty Peretz in the New Republic, with today's dose of race hatred:
"But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse."
Of course, Christian life is so precious to other Christians. I couldn't find any authoritative figures for the number of Muslims killed in violence each year, but the figure seems likely to be pretty close to the 12,600 gun deaths in the United States each year. And let's not forget the fifty million Christians exterminated by other Christians in the 1940's. That was an act of true Christian love. But it's Muslims that don't deserve freedom of religion and speech in this country.
And now a wonderful chart from an article at Slate called "The United States of Inequality."
The whole article is well worth your attention, but this sort of sums it up when you ask which party is more likely to help which end of the income spectrum. By the way, try keeping this in mind when you seriously consider the issue of whether we really need to extend the tax cuts on the rich.
And finally, from the Wall Street Journal:
"KABUL—The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said the planned burning of Qurans on Sept. 11 by a Florida church could put the lives of American troops in danger and damage the war effort.
Gen. David Petraeus said the Taliban would exploit the demonstration for propaganda purposes, drumming up anger toward the U.S. and making it harder for allied troops to carry out their mission of protecting Afghan civilians.
"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort," Gen. Petraeus said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal."
I wonder if the right wingers, who screamed with fury when Democrats questioned Petraeus in any way a couple of years ago, will be listening to him this time, or if they will suddenly decide that he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
Well...depressed, yet? Because there will be more tomorrow, I promise you that.
"Opinion" (i.e. corporate propaganda) from the New York Times:
"The nation faces a nasty dual deficit problem: a painful jobs deficit in the near term and an unsustainable budget deficit over the medium and long term. This month, the Senate will be debating an issue with significant implications for both — what to do about the Bush-era tax cuts scheduled to expire at the end of the year. In the face of the dueling deficits, the best approach is a compromise: extend the tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether. Ideally only the middle-class tax cuts would be continued for now. Getting a deal in Congress, though, may require keeping the high-income tax cuts, too. And that would still be worth it."
Let me explain to you what this really means: Despite our nation's desperate economic circumstances, let's give in to the howling and whining of the rich, and give them two more years of their insane free ride, paid by all of the rest of us. Then, in two years, they will start howling all over again, and we will give them another two years. And then...well you get the idea.
The advantage of this plan, is if things are still terrible in two years, they can say we need to "stimulate" the economy more by giving the rich more money to invest in hedge funds, etc, and if things have recovered, they will claim that now that things are better, we can afford to let the rich get even richer.
And now this article in the Washington Post by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes:
"Writing in these pages in early 2008, we put the total cost to the United States of the Iraq war at $3 trillion. This price tag dwarfed previous estimates, including the Bush administration's 2003 projections of a $50 billion to $60 billion war. But today, as the United States ends combat in Iraq, it appears that our $3 trillion estimate (which accounted for both government expenses and the war's broader impact on the U.S. economy) was, if anything, too low. It is hard to believe that we would be embroiled in a bloody conflict in Afghanistan today if we had devoted the resources there that we instead deployed in Iraq. A troop surge in 2003 -- before the warlords and the Taliban reestablished control -- would have been much more effective than a surge in 2010."
Three trillion dollars down a rat hole. But of course we are expected to ignore that waste, while angrily denouncing every penny that Obama tries to spend here at home to rescue the economy. Because Democratic spending is an atrocious misuse of public funds, while Republican warmongering is worth any cost, including the fact that it probably caused us to lose any hope of a decent end to our presence in Afghanistan.
Of course, Joseph Stiglitz is a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, so he is probably just another ignorant left-wing loon, like Paul Krugman, right?
And via TPM, Marty Peretz in the New Republic, with today's dose of race hatred:
"But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse."
Of course, Christian life is so precious to other Christians. I couldn't find any authoritative figures for the number of Muslims killed in violence each year, but the figure seems likely to be pretty close to the 12,600 gun deaths in the United States each year. And let's not forget the fifty million Christians exterminated by other Christians in the 1940's. That was an act of true Christian love. But it's Muslims that don't deserve freedom of religion and speech in this country.
And now a wonderful chart from an article at Slate called "The United States of Inequality."
The whole article is well worth your attention, but this sort of sums it up when you ask which party is more likely to help which end of the income spectrum. By the way, try keeping this in mind when you seriously consider the issue of whether we really need to extend the tax cuts on the rich.
And finally, from the Wall Street Journal:
"KABUL—The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said the planned burning of Qurans on Sept. 11 by a Florida church could put the lives of American troops in danger and damage the war effort.
Gen. David Petraeus said the Taliban would exploit the demonstration for propaganda purposes, drumming up anger toward the U.S. and making it harder for allied troops to carry out their mission of protecting Afghan civilians.
"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort," Gen. Petraeus said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal."
I wonder if the right wingers, who screamed with fury when Democrats questioned Petraeus in any way a couple of years ago, will be listening to him this time, or if they will suddenly decide that he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
Well...depressed, yet? Because there will be more tomorrow, I promise you that.
Comments
This is saddest part of the modern American conservative.
The Koch brothers, Erik Prince, the Bush family, Dick Armey, Bill Kristol and all the other plutocrats continue to ply the working classes against one another by pointing out how unfair it is that Firemen still have health insurance and modest annual raises after the Republicans made sure private sector jobs make health coverage impossible and stagnated wages...