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To those who’ve been insufferable to all others… Ha, ha. Treat yourselves.. Number 37,449.
(And if anyone wants to know the next fact up the trivial ladder of relevance it is this….)
Number 37,450: The Hittites domesticated asses, horses, cows and raised honey bees.
Because Congress has not yet acted to approve normal borrowing authority after
May 18, the Treasury Department will begin implementing the standard set of extraordinary
measures that enable us, on a temporary basis, to protect the full faith and credit of the United
States by continuing to pay the nation’S bills. These measures are the same ones that have been
used in previous debt limit impasses, and are described in detail in an appendix to this letter.
And so it begins again…. Another debt ceiling crises…. Can we ever get rid of this pestilence which afflicts us?
Hope you’ve gotten out of the market? Remember what happened the last time. And the effect upon the economy which just like this year, had grown amazingly well the first quarter… and then.. Bam!
“You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. …”
Martin Luther King Letter from a Birmingham Jail April 16, 1963….
As gun control, the death penalty, and single sex marriage all rush forward and seem to be gaining more acceptance with every single minute, it seems to point out the death throes of the entire cannon of conservatism… Especially the hateful harsh kind that exists only by brutalizing anyone who tries of offer a better alternative… Believe me … There are plenty of better alternatives.
I was moved by an opinion piece in Sunday’s News Journal… It responded to each Conservative argument against gay marriage one by one. In the end, as each Conservative plank became undone, the only reason left for being against Gay Marriage, was the desire to make gays suffer… Not the most noble of human emotions.
Now today on Al’s show with El Som, Capital Punishment as well was the topic. El came out against the proposed amendment to enforce it if a policeman gets killed. El put up a good argument that as a society of law, you either kill or don’t kill. You can’t do both at the same time… As the arguments progressed, and again, as conservative planks got batted down by logic one by one, keeping the death penalty was supported by only one and only one reason: the desire to make fellow humans suffer!. Oh the fun of torture! Again not one of our most noble emotions.
But that conversation reminded me of another piece in the News Journal, I believe in Saturday’s issue. That interview of someone released from death row because his accuser recanted his testimony…
What was telling, was the prosecutors retort… ” We believe we got the right man. Justice is not being served here but there is little we can do.”
Excuse me? Your whole prosecution pointing to this very unlikely suspect, hinged only on one witness who said he it was him… Now, when that one witness confesses he lied, and is sticking to his story and is preferring to face prison for perjury instead of having an innocent person be executed from his lie, …you, Mr. Prosecutor still say you had the right person? You say that because you can’t admit you were wrong. You never had the right person. To push that line against unmitigating evidence, makes us wonder if you EVER have the right person? You really don’t even care as long as you have a conviction in your cap, one more to hold over your peers. Based on your comment, suddenly our entire justice department can no longer be viewed as impartial. When the prosecution undeniably knows the person is innocent, but prosecutes him anyways, putting him on death row, personally suspecting all the time he is innocent… proves one very important thing. Prosecution framed him. pure and simple.
Perhaps immunity can be granted to this perjurer, freeing him from prison time, in order to cajole him to open up to all of us in society and explain who put on the pressure … Exactly who was it how is the real criminal, those prosecuting innocent people…?
Suddenly the reason police want the death penality is clear. They want to kill. Bounded by society from doing so, pushing one into death row is the next best thing…..
Bottom line, both of these are very basic planks of conservatism. Law and order, and an eye for an eye…
That in Delaware, where we should be immune from bad prosecutors because of our fine justice system. even we have people more concerned with feathers in their caps than whether someone innocent get killed….
Obviously that this is happening now, points us in the direction to where we have to get rid of the death penalty.. . We have all the wrong people on death row….
Conservatives brought us to this mess. Everything they have said, and still say, doesn’t hold water. Gays did not destroy the world… Death penalties did not dry up crime. Registering guns doesn’t cause guns to be collected by the government… Obama care is not bad, but good. You don’t have to invade Iraq to capture Bin Laden.
Why do we still have Republicans anyways. All they do is ruin lives. Everyone’s lives…
It will save his state money. Lots, and lots of money.
Conservatives cry “Foul” and vow to unseat him in the next election….
Did you get that? The Tea Party is going to unseat the previous Tea Party candidate because he is saving his state lots and lots of money……
Conservatives are nothing but a pathetic jokes anymore. Ok, that last statement is not entirely true. I’m in contact with a lot of people who are awesome but just happen to have conservative leanings who don’t feel the same way as the extreme radical fringe of their party does…..
So let me rephrase that….
Conservatives “who aren’t silent”,…. are nothing but a pathetic jokes anymore…
Today in order to capitalize upon the fact that the fourth quarter economy sank (even though it was because of the downward pressure due to the threat of sequestration forced upon Congress by the Tea Party), they wheeled out Arthur Laughter Laffer to make a dire predictions….
He is on their short list of who-to-call-when-we(FOX News)-NEED-a-dire-prediction…..
Because….. He is well known for making “dire predictions”..
“Economist Arthur Laffer told his clients on July 26, 1982, that (Ronald Reagan’s) Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which raised taxes by about one percent of GDP, “will stifle economic recovery,” “retard economic growth,” and undercut “the economy’s ability to enter into a period of expansion.” On August 20, 1982, he told his clients that TEFRA, Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, “will tend to lengthen and deepen the recession.”
Instead, ….. No one could have been more wrong…
On August 20, 1993, Laffer told his clients, “Clinton’s tax bill will do about as much damage to the U.S. economy as could feasibly be done in the current political environment.” He said that interest rates would rise and the stock market would fall.
Once again, it would be hard to find a forecast that was more completely wrong….
And now! Today,… well, there he goes again….
“You have the whole output of the economy shrinking. Not just expanding more slowly, it`s absolutely shrinking,” (lol, see by how little, below)… Laffer told Fox News’ Eric Bolling…
“That’s catastrophic,” the former adviser to President Ronald Reagan added. (Did anyone else catch the stupendous irony of that? Oh, Wow. You can’t make stuff like that up).
“You can explain some of that by sequestration, and defense spending was down lot and all that. But you still have a rotten economy. And it’s still too bad. We know how to fix it, by the way, a low rate flat tax, spending restraint, sound money, free trade.” (See George Bush’s Economic Record.) Laffer was responding to reports Wednesday that the U.S. economy contracted 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2012…
Yes. Laffer was responding to reports Wednesday that the U.S. economy contracted 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2012. Quote: “You have the whole output of the economy shrinking. Not just expanding more slowly, it`s absolutely shrinking,”
Recalling his years as one of Reagan’s top economic advisers, Laffer said Reagan actually cut the highest tax rates (From 70%-50%; they are 35% now) He said “we made a mistake” by phasing in the cuts, which he said caused the 1981-82 recession. But he said the economy took off in 1983* when the cuts (and 1%GDP tax increase) went into full effect. *
“This place just went like a rocket ship,” he said. “I think we had 7.5 percent growth in 1983 and 5.5 growth in 1984, just this boom that lasted for years and years.”* (*lol)
(Conversational excerpts provided by Newsmax)
After the election of 2012 showed, Conservatives are not the power they thought they were. In fact, had no conservatives interfered with the Republican side of the race, the outcome could have been a Republican victory. Romney lost because he had to pretend he was a conservative to gain the nomination. His prime role after acquiring the nomination, was keeping the radical wing of his party from defecting.
If there was not a conservative litmus test to which the Republican Party had to pass, Obama would have had to run on his record on the economy with no help from Santorum, no help from Rick Perry, no help from Grover Norquist, no help from Michelle Bachmann, no help from Karl Rove, no help from Sheldon Adelson, no help from Todd Akins, no help from Mourdoch, no help from Rush Limbaugh, no help from Fox News….. and no help Rep. Issa.
It could have been a much tighter race if the conservative element THAT REALLY PISSES 60 PERCENT OF AMERICA OFF TO THE MAX, was not there….
Republicans are waking up. No hated conservative will be chairing a committee in the House this session. They will be chaired by those who voted for the Debt Ceiling Compromise two summers ago.
After spending a billion dollars, these PACS were able to get fewer Republicans to the polls than John McCain……“Freedomworks, Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth, Heritage Action for America, Madison Project, Concerned Women of America, Susan B. Anthony, Gun Owners of America, etc. etc. etc, all who tap the spigot of wealthy sociopaths like the Koch Brothers, have nothing to show for all the rich people’s money they wasted….
They try to take credit for the Republican House, but very little of their money was spent there. Gerrymandering is responsible for returning the Republican House. Even then, strong conservatives in conservative districts still faced tough fights against Democratic challengers. Michelle Bachmann once the darling of Delaware’s trop-conservative David Anderson, after being behind, won by just hundreds of votes…..
Grover Norquist is facing the unthinkable. Republicans are calling him absolutely crazy like Hitler.
Republicans everywhere are waking up that walking into the public arena still covered in manure, makes others support the other party….
They are dusting off the moderate Republicans immigration reform, to go after Hispanic votes. Just a few short months earlier, they lambasted not deporting little Mexican boys as girls, as a sign of unprincipled conservative weakness. RINO your were called if you had compassion for children.
Paul Ryan, after lambasting Obama for removing $756 billion from Medicare even though he did the same in his Republican budget, has now offered up a new budget: missing $756 billion from Medicare……
Who appears to be moving forward? Moderates. People who put people first, and ideology second. They don’t believe in wasting money, but they are far from regular Tea Party stock who feel that any government program that does not directly give themselves a handout, is a waste of money.
Chris Christie: vilified for meeting with Obama after Hurricane Sandy, has a spread of approval ratings almost as wide as his girth.
John Boehner, despite the public face, is working with the President to isolate those radical Republican communists who want to destroy America’s government, and is quietly organizing a plan to put America back on the road to prosperity.
Eric Cantor after the election, is uncharacteristically amenabile.
Bobby Jindle who is moderate, is held in high regard.
Not one person has heard from Rick Santorum. (Is he too in Betty Ford?) Or is he “really” hiking the Appalachian Trail?
Fox News and Murdoch are pummeled at everything they say… Even Ann Coulter is saying we have to pass Obama’s tax increases. As well as William Kristol.
The big Republican donors all recognize that raising taxes is far cheaper to their bottom lines, than having the market retract over an artificial debt ceiling crises that again, never has to be….
Against this backdrop the Senate lost conservative Jim DeMint R-SC who felt the Heritage Foundation was not Conservative enough, so he gave up his Senate seat.
As wew watch Conservatives are turning into dust. As we watch we see an ineffective, uncompromising, and inept group of bitter old codgers, none of who have accomplished any good in their endeavors…. playing “nearer my God to Thee” as conservatism takes its long overdue dive to the ocean floor…..
If the Republicans can become the moderate party that “doesn’t waste money”…. they may have a shot… If they do anything conservative… They will lose much, much, much, much, much worse… the next time around…
America absolutely hates everything they stand for… $1 billion in advertising for nothing,…. says so.
$1.6 Trillion was put on the table and the Republicans nixed it. They probably did it for the wrong reasons. Because truth is, that amount should be raised. $1.6 Trillion in new revenue is too low!
First when one sees a figure like this, one must understand that this figure is spread over 10 years. (The nice part of choosing ten years as the time frame, is that it makes the math easier for most American’s to understand.) Therefore we are talking about acquiring a measly $160 billion per year. That may seem like a lot to someone who won that much in a powerball drawing, but, in the global economy, that is a drop in the bucket.
Here are some facts to put this much into perspective…
$160 Billion is the amount Federal Revenue dropped when the Bush Tax Cuts were inaugurated. It is also the amount of these , revenue increases from 2004-2005, 2005-2006. 2006-2007…… So such gains obviously don’t dent the economy.
2003-2004; this amount was was the sum of three supplemental bills for the Iraq War that passed Congress. Republicans had no problem borrowing $160 billion then.
2005-2006: same thing, supplemental bills passed to fund Iraq War. $204 Billion, borrowed.
2007 Supplemental bills passed totaling $170 Billion.
2008 Proposed budget for Mideast wars $190 billion.
2009 Proposed budget for Mideast wars: $130 billion.
2011 Proposed budget for Mideast wars: $160 billion.
One can see that we’ve indulged ourselves of thie $160 billion for ten years… All we are doing is simply taking the same amount of time to quietly pay it back.
It won’t hurt anybody.
How does this stack up to our GDP? Current estimates rank our GDP at number one with $17 Trillion dollars… So how much does $160 billion dollars suck out as a percentage of our GDP? That is the surest method to determine if any economic effect derives from those top earners paying more.
$160 Billion divided by $17 trillion … equals a percentage of…. 9 tenths of a single percent… That would be the equivalent of a sealing and coating charge of $282 added to your $30,000 brand new vehicle you bought… Does that little bit, cause YOU NOT TO switch out your clunker for a fine set of wheels? Don’t expect the wealthy to feel the hit either.
Remember again, we are not taking this from poor people. We are taking it only from those who have so much money, they loose hair follicles trying to figure where to invest it… Furthermore, each of those billionaires, will most likely make double that amount in new profits as the economy takes off and profits soar. Simply put, arguing over this paltry amount is silly. The only reason it is getting done at all, is because they (Republicans) think you are too dumb to know better…..
That is the only reason it is in the news today at all. Let’s try to make that number bigger. We know that the effect of siphoning 160 Billion a year is minimal, let us see how that affects only the wealthy?
The top 1% owns 40% of the wealth… 1/40. Total net worth of America was $55 Trillion in 2009. That was a sharp reduction from the all time high in 2007 at $66 Trillion. But at $55 trillion the amount of that being owned by the top 1% as we saw at the rate of 40%….. is…. $21.6 trillion. (the 99% own the other $34 Trillion)… So as a yearly assessment off their wealth, this $160 billion is one third of one penny on the dollar… In layman’s terms that mean one penny on every $3 dollars earned…. That is not going to kill anybody….
Granted, when you own $21 Trillion, writing a check for an extra $160 billion dollars is a shock, but to pay only a penny increase on every three dollars earned? Wow, if only the rest of us could be so lucky….
This is why we should not wait. We can make greater improvement and set our financial house in order by tripling that amount, quadrupling that amount, quintupling that amount…. or even times it by a power of ten….
When someone has a surplus of money they can never spend, 3 cents on every additional dollar owned is nothing. Especially, when the lower 80% is being asked to pay ten cents more of every dollar to their pensions, their insurance funds, and bank fees, just so those at the top can make even MORE money…..
Our nation’s economy can even afford a $10 trillion tax hike, (3 cents on the dollar)and do so with all the burden coming from only the top 1% of wealth holders… This tiny amount is nothing to them…
For Republicans to gnash their teeth over our President’s paltry $1.6 Trillion revenue jump, is demeaning, cowardly, and actually makes them look like silly, pompous old men, when a $10 Trillion tax increase is so easily doable.
And if anyone were to ever believe them, and back down from the $160 billion a year, their simply saying such,… may cause irreparable damage to our country…
Courtesy of Washington Post
More than three percent of the electorate told exit pollers they were more liberal in 2012 than they were in 2008.
Currently liberals are at their highest ranking since Roosevelt in 1936. Whereas Conservatives showed little gain, Liberals climbed at the fastest rate on the chart.
Things to ponder.
Having a president called a liberal who is doing a marvelous job, cuts down on the pejorativeness of the word Liberal. Speculation is: people are no longer afraid to say they are, because Obama’s performance backs them up.
Second, having conservatives constantly embarrass themselves and the nation, every 24 hours making us look pathetically bad, would make one squeamish to tell a stranger, that they were conservative. I mean, people have pride.
Also, conservatives are dying every day, and liberals are being born. Without winning converts, that trend would continue.
But interestingly, over the past four years, people have decided they don’t mind being called a liberal… it also shows conservatives, that no matter how they process their message, even if they make the South Carolina beauty queen their official spokesperson, they lose. Conservatism is dead, unless it continues in a capacity that moderates will say, “oh, you said you’d keep out of women’s lives? keep taxes high on the wealthy? sure we’ll get back on board”. i can’t see Republicans going that far, meaning that Democrats and moderates will rule, “as far as the eye can see”….”
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