Saturday, April 30, 2011

As We Send Our Wishes and Our donations to Tornado Victims...

Somehow the GOP will manage to blame President Obama for not getting Federal aid to the tornado stricken areas fast enough. They will not want us to remember that under law FEMA aid must first be requested by the Republican Governors of those states and that Republicans have a standing resolution to slash FEMA's budget by half. Let's remember who the bad guys are, shall we?

Why? Disaster Capitalism. If the Federal Government is restrained from helping its citizens, disaster profiteers stand to make billions while still leaving the people with destroyed lives and little hope of being made whole. Think about those toxic trailers that were sold to the Feds that were never occupied and the money never recovered.

 Unfathomable as it is to decent people, there are always vultures who prey on those with the least ability to fend for themselves. It is the role of government to protect good citizens from bad citizens. This is the one quality of government "Of, By and For the People" the Republicans most diligently work to destroy. 

Friday, April 29, 2011

Thought for the Day

''I find it strange that Sarah Palin would be shopping a reality show considering the fact that she hasn't shown much interest in reality.'' —Jimmy Kimmel

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Karl Rove: Obama Jedi Mind Tricks Make Republicans Say Stupid Things

“The president himself has hoped Republicans would continue to talk about it, thereby damaging their own credibility,” said Republican strategist Karl Rove.

Our Choice

Al Gore

Monday, April 25, 2011

Juanita...What She Said!

I am not sure that being “civil” and compromising is going to win back this country to the middle class who has done the labor, fought the wars, paid the taxes and made this country great. 
If we do not insist on having Roosevelt’s courage to “welcome the hatred” of the organized mob, then I fear we will be swallowed by them. 
America was not built on civility.  It was built on courage, dammit.


Read it!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Two Thirds of the National Debt Racked up by Just Three Presidents...Republican Presidents

Let's also note that John Boehner and Mitch McConnel voted to raise the National Debt ceiling five times under George W. Bush....Four Trillion Dollars worth.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Now THAT'S What We want to Hear Obama Talking About

"When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, he's just being America's accountant ... This is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill--but wasn't paid for
," ...Barack Obama

more

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Who Should Pay the Bill?

I've added a link to The Campaign for America's Future over in the right hand column. I like those folks because they have strategy in addition to rants. You come here for a good rant now and then but then what? To get things done you have to actually get some things done. Getting things done is all about having an effective strategy. My president and yours needs a strategy transplant. He just threw out the first figure in a negotiation and defined the left hand pole from which negotiations will start. Why does he continue to be incredibly thoughtful and rational when dealing with a bunch of crazy ideologists?

Is Obama capable of getting the message that if you want a piece of the earth you have to pound the table and demand the sun, the moon, and the stars?

What President Obama has presented is a very fair middle ground, center right, budget proposal that keeps intact America's promise to its people. He won't get it because he doesn't get it.

Remember that while Republicans are screaming about cutting the deficit they created, over 67% of Americans don't think the deficit is out first priority...

"It's the economy, stoopid!"

Richard Escow tells us how Obama should have gone about this and what we have to do now.

Where's the extreme position from which the Democrats can be "bargained down" so that they, too, can only get 20% more than they asked for when the negotiations began? If they're not going to do it, we have to do it for them.

Here's a start: First increase Social Security retirement benefits by 15%, across the board, by lifting the payroll tax cap and imposing a financial transactions tax. Second, increase income taxes on a sliding scale that goes up to 60% for the highest earners in the country. (It's been as high as 90% during periods of our greatest prosperity.) Third, add $500 billion to our stimulus spending over the next two years, and keep adding it until unemployment is down to 4%. Fourth, immediately add a public option, "Medicare For All" plan that's voluntarily available to Americans of all age brackets.

Odd that Eskow's version of the "extreme position" from which bargaining should start sounds like a pretty good end point to me. The big thing here is to justify taxing high levels of income at a progressively higher rate. That's easy. The middle class didn't cause our deficits it was corporations and rich people. They need to pay the bill.

Cheers,

Steve

Friday, April 8, 2011

Quote of the Day...I Want Ta Ta's in the Room

Juanita wonders if it bothers anybody else that Harry Reid, John Boehner, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden are sitting in a room negotiating over women’s reproductive health? “Where the hell are the ta-tas in that room? I want at least one set of tatas in that room,” she demands.

Send me in, Coach!

“If my country calls me, I’ll go in there and represent women."

Yeah, Baby!

The Congressional Progressive Caucus Proposes a Balanced Budget...Only Fair!

The CPC proposal:

• Eliminates the deficits and creates a surplus by 2021
• Puts America back to work with a “Make it in America” jobs program
• Protects the social safety net
• Ends the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Is FAIR (Fixing America’s Inequality Responsibly)

What the proposal accomplishes:

• Primary budget balance by 2014.
• Budget surplus by 2021.
• Reduces public debt as a share of GDP to 64.4% by 2021, down 16.9 percentage points from
a baseline fully adjusted for both the doc fix and the AMT patch.
• Reduces deficits by $5.7 trillion over 2012-21
• Both outlays and revenue equal 22.3% of GDP by 2021


http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=70§iontree=5,70