The vanishing snows of Kilimanjaro.
Lawrence O’Donnell: Mitt Romney tries to rewrite Mitt Romney:
Congressman Asshat of Iowa:
- Thom takes on Rep. Steve King (R-IA).
- Matt Binder: “Mexican kids are drug mules!”, says asshat Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
- Sam Seder: Is it okay to laugh at asshats like Rep. Steve King?
Sharpton: Sarah Palin’s ‘maverick’ hypocrisy exposed.
Bill Maher with some new rules.
White House: West Wing Week.
This is the 40th time!
Bashir and Eugene Robinson: History shows when Republicans shut down government, they lose.
John Fugelsang: We’re in the golden age of slut-shaming.
Fast Foods Forward and FAUX Fumbles:
- John Oliver: Fast food workers and FAUX News pundits.
- Thom schools Hannity on hamburger costs.
- Lawrence O’Donnell: The case to increase the minimum wage.
- Thom: Can anyone survive on $7.25
Kimmel: This week in Unnecessary Censorship.
ONN: Onion Week in Review.
Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.
Melissa Harris-Perry: New law forces clinics to close in North Carolina.
Jimmy Dore does Bill O’Reilly.
Sharpton: How FAUX, O’Reilly, and fellow right wingers are failing miserably in the racism conversation.
Mental Floss: 79 common mispronunciations.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Helen Thomas’s legacy:
FAUX’s Worst Interview Ever:
- Young Turks: Worst interview ever???
- Michael Brooks: Even FAUX News should be ashamed of this interview.
- Young Turks: FAUX News tries to defend the “worst interview ever”
- Reza Aslan on his now infamous FAUX News interview.
- Here come the Spoofs!
Liberal Viewer: Would NSA spying program prevent 9/11 attacks?.
Thom: How the G.O.P. causes child prostitution.
Sam Seder: DOJ sues Texas over voting laws.
Mark Fiore: Syria’s Royal Easel.
John Fugelsang plays six degrees of Edward Snowden:
Melissa Harris-Perry: Judge grants reprieve for WI health clinics.
Ruse Harstel on his racist homophobic cousin.
Red State Update: Podcast episode 37.
ONN: New Pew poll says nation just wants to be safe, happy, rich, comfortable, entertained at all times.
Young Turks: Rand Paul and Chris Chrstie duke it out!
Inappropriate Mayorial Material:
- Anthony Weiner refuses to quit.
- Young Turks: Weiner aide vs Weiner intern catfight
- Broadway goes Weiner:
- Chris Hayes: FAUX News smears Huma Abedin with baseless claims of terrorism ties.
- Matt Binder: FAUX News attacks Huma Abedin
- John Oliver: Anthony Weiner’s ‘Not Quitting’ ad.
- Stephen defends San Diego Mayor Bob Filner.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Do nothing Congress takes a recess.
Young Turks: The G.O.P. War on Women™ gets expensive.
John Fugelsang: Politicians fiddlin’ while North Carolina burns.
Thom: Conservatives are driving us to suicide.
Lawrence O’Donnell: The Republican disease of dysfunction in washington.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
I am wondering why Wiener does not quit. He dropped to 4th in the polls. Although I don’t trust the poll until the election is over. An example of where polls got it wrong, just north of us. The BC Legislative elections, Canadian Media waa suggesting that the New Democrats were sure thing. By the time the election came around, a Liberal landslide. The only change in Victoria was the Liberals premier loat her seat. So a backbencher had to quit, in the Central Interior, and the Premier, who had represented a district in Vancouver, got nack in.
Last week’s train collision, which left one engineer dead and avout 35 injured, may have been caused by a missed signal. The Swiss Federal Railways have been upgrading their lines to the newer European Train Control System, but this line, in the canton of Vaud, was not a priority.
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles.....-cause.htm
The injured, were in the hands of the Swiss Healthcare system, which is neither Socialized Medicine(like the UK), nor single payer. Basic Health insurance through private companies is mandatory, but it cannot be for profit(they can sell supplemental policies for profit). The current law passed both houses of parliament in 1994, and the Federal Council(the collective presidency), and enough voters signed petitions for the obligatory referendum. That was the only attempt at repeal by the right. This model was the best fit with Swiss values, as they are capitalists, that believe in solidarity.
What a bunch fucking barbarians. If only they had one brain amongst them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B20cige_Fo#at=131
Congressional RETHUG Score Card:
40: Number of eliminate Obamacare bills passed
0: Number of jobs bills passed
Why do RETHUGs hate America?
@ 3
I don’t speak Russian. I know one woman at school who does, but she isn’t here to translate this for me. I wish she was, she’s pretty damn fine. So could you at least give us a hint as to what is going on here?
Now, the Russians I’ve known at work and such seem to really be only good at their job, and staying as drunk as possible. Otherwise, they’re dumb as a sack of roadapples.
If McJobs are not supposed to pay a living wage, but be a starter job to get a well paying job, are there studies that show that those living wage jobs are available? Is there a huge pool of living wage jobs that are going unmet?
Cause if there is not, the republicans are just being cruel.
What does our friend puddles think of the Republican Case for Climate Action?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08.....&_r=0
And yes its in the NY times, but it is written by republicans
@4 To poor republicans, is being jobless and starving to death worth it because they might have abortion banned and gays jailed?
@5 – Gay person was expressing his right to exist. Which the military people objected to and then the military people and the Russian police have to fight amongst themselves. In other words a rather large group of individuals causing a ruckus over one person just expressing his right to exist. You would have thought that they were all fired up over George Zimmerman or something. Getting pretty ridiculous.
The glaciers atop Kilimanjaro’s highest peak, Kibo, are indeed melting, but not because of climate change, he said. They’ve been receding steadily since at least 1880.
“According to our understanding, the Kibo glaciers shrink and will disappear not because of changing climate conditions but because of conditions that are unfavorable in principle: It is simply too dry for these glaciers to exist under normal Holocene conditions,” he emailed.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/201.....rylink=cpy
Lib Sci to accuse me of distortion in
3….
2….
1….
Thom: Conservatives are driving us to suicide.
Hop in, gman. Give you a ride there.
@7 Puddles is more stupid than those Russians.
@11 Pay your debt you good for nothing deadbeat. Oh by the way I chopped down two trees today.
Conservatives, who claim to be a party of responsibility, will not accept responsibly for climate change. Every proof, every example is always the fault of something else. It’s the Holocene fault, it’s the natural climate cycles fault, it’s President Obama fault, it’s a conspiracy of 98% of scientists. It’s never their fault.
Typical.
Serve And Protect Dep’t
“College filmmakers were using fake guns to shoot a robbery scene at a suburban Los Angeles coffee shop when eight police officers showed up with guns drawn and no idea it was just a movie. … ‘One of the officers made the decision that had the man moved, he would have been killed,’ said Glendora police Capt. Tim Staab. ‘It was just milliseconds from a tragedy.'”
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_new.....uburb?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: America’s cops — everywhere — are too damn trigger-happy.
A federal judge has blocked Wisconsin GOPers’ attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade by other means.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_new.....ctors?lite
Oh you pathetic crybaby.
Like I said yesterday, you have this whole right-wing victimization thing down pat.
So your point is….what, exactly?
Is this the ‘logic’ you’re positing:
Is that it? I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but that is the gist of what you’ve posted in the past, and is indistinguishable from the bullshit spewed by idiots like Inhofe.
“It’s snowing!! Global climate change is not real!!”
So, what was the point of your post about Kilimanjaro? Did I characterize your ‘logic’ correctly? If not, please clarify the point you’re trying to make with the context-less factoid about Kilimanjaro.
“An Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy is facing jail time after being accused of pepper spraying a teen’s pizza without his knowledge during a traffic stop ….
“Juan Tavera … allegedly pulled over a 19-year-old … for a traffic violation … when he noticed a pizza in the back seat and pepper sprayed it without the teen noticing, the release stated.
“The teen returned home to share the pizza with four friends, and all five people became sick …. ”
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/n.....09672.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: There will be a lawsuit. The taxpayers will pay for this prick’s hijinks. The police union will fight any disciplinary action. If he’s fired, he’ll probably get another cop job in a different police department. What’s wrong with this picture?
P.S., I wonder if the driver was black?
CHART ONE: Corporate profits and profit margins are at an all-time high
Remarkably, some people are still saying that the problem with our economy is that companies are suffering from “too much regulation” and “too many taxes.” Maybe little companies are, but big ones certainly aren’t. What they’re suffering from is a myopic obsession with short-term profits at the expense of long-term investment and value creation
CHART TWO: Wages as a percent of the economy are at all-time low.
our profit maximization obsession is actually starving the rest of the economy of revenue growth.
CHART THREE: Fewer Americans are employed than at any time in the past three decades.
Another reason corporations are so profitable is that they don’t employ as many Americans as they used to.
CHART FOUR: The share of our national income that is going to the people who do the work (“labor”) is at an all-time low.
In short, the religion of “maximizing profits” that has developed in America over the past 30 years has created a business culture in which executives dance to the tune of short-term traders and quarterly financial reports, instead of investing aggressively on behalf of employees, customers, and long-term owners.
http://www.businessinsider.com.....low-7-2013
—-
Fascinated. Facts that show why the economy is so sluggish. It won’t change until wages go up. Unions are probably the only thing that will force employers to pay up.
Serial “Won’t pay his debts” Conn to accuse me of distortion in
3…
2…
1… (chortle)
@3 Who? The soldiers or the cops?
@5 The caption says, “02/08/2013 LGBT rally the day of Airborne
St. Petersburg, Palace Square”
In Russia, it’s illegal to be gay. It’s also illegal to protest. So the SWAT police are arresting gays protesting the law against gays.
@10 No doubt that also explains why alpine glaciers everywhere are melting, the Greenland ice cap is melting, the Arctic Ocean is becoming open sea, and the Antarctic Ice Cap is shedding large chunks of its ice shelves.
@20 “CHART ONE: Corporate profits and profit margins are at an all-time high”
True. Shareholders have never had it so good. That’s why I’m pouring every spare dime I have into stocks.
CHART TWO: Wages as a percent of the economy are at all-time low.
True. Workers haven’t had it this bad since slavery. That’s why I don’t work, and think no one else should work, either. Working just doesn’t pay, isn’t rewarded, isn’t respected; so why work?
CHART THREE: Fewer Americans are employed than at any time in the past three decades.
I’m not the only one wising up to how bad a deal being employed is.
CHART FOUR: The share of our national income that is going to the people who do the work (”labor”) is at an all-time low.
True. You’re much better off being a shareholder than an employee. That’s why I sit on my fat rabbit ass in front of a computer screen flipping stocks all day. Productive work is obsolete in America. Everything is made in China now anyway.
@ 20
Those charts indicate that fewer people are necessary to make money.
We need fewer people because technology and efficiency has advanced. The guy who got paid to feed the horses that draw the carriage is out of a job.
It’s no one’s fault. Not Bush’s, not Obama’s.
Expecting to perpetuate 20th century wages and benefits in a 21st century world is fantasy, not a solution.
I suppose you could argue that if all Microsoft and Apple employees go on strike, the pace of replacement of people by machines and computers may slow. Try that angle.
@ 24
So what to you “Conservatives” intend to do to remedy the situation? Get rid of the surplus population? Thats always been your solution in the past.
@ 13
Oh by the way I chopped down two trees today.
Lemme guess: This is gay slang for relieving morning wood of two guys you met anonymously in an alley somewhere on Capitol Hill.
You have a, well, um….vivid…imagination.
In Salt Lake City, the Utah Transit Authority is has announced the date for the opening of the Draper TRAX light rail extension. It will be August16, with regular service beginning on the 18th. With just the Sugar House streetcar left to go, the Front Lines 2015 plan is almost complete.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/p.....r.html.csp
@ 24
So what to (sic) you “Conservatives” intend to do to remedy the situation?
Well, my response would be that more jobs are needed, not just higher wages, as NTfF @ 20 seems to think are required. A segment on NPR delved into this last night.
You cannot force employers @ 20 to increase wages without blowback. Higher wages without a natural stimulus for them will result in fewer employees and more people looking for jobs.
If you want job and wage growth, you need to realize that people at the top – employers, if you will – are already in a position with leverage and you need to provide an incentive, not enforce a higher cost, to get what you want and not have it negatively affect a part of society you want protected.
Those charts described above? Look at the four titles, and ask yourself how many of them favor the employee. None of them. If all the employer needs to do is maintain the status quo, money will continue to flow to the employer, who will continue to replace employees with technology. If you want the employer to expand, then incentivize it, don’t penalize growth and profitability with higher taxation and other penalties.
The employee no longer holds a winning hand and penalizing the employer does not improve the cards the employee holds. That might not be pretty but it is reality.
@ 27
Admit it – apply it to gman, and it doesn’t require so much imagination.
Good Saturday to you, Lib Sci.
@21- All of them – the SWAT team and the Military people that was trying to do something to the gay guy.
@30 – do you have a problem with it? Isn’t this America, where you are free to do what you want? Or would you rather this be Russia? Move to Russia you idiot. Apparently your Patriotism and Values of Freedom are non existent.
@30 – oh, and do you own a gun? If you do, don’t forget to shoot yourself with it, first the wife and the dog and any kids, and then yourself. You can join the ranks of your fellow idiots.
@ 32, 13
With all this talk about trees and patriotism I now realize that it was cherry trees you chopped down, little georgeman.
Thank you for protecting my freedom.
Ebony And Ivory Live Together In Perfect Harmony…
On Friday, Republican Michael Pallamary, a professional land surveyor from the wealthy San Diego neighborhood of La Jolla, and Democrat Stampp Corbin, the gay African-American publisher of the San Diego LGBT Weekly, agreed to team up on a recall effort to force Filner from office.
http://www.reuters.com/article.....BG20130802
@34 – Go Fuck yourself.
@ 36
Good one. You’re on your game today, littlegeorgeman.
@37 – This you and your dad?
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.....hp?ref=fpb
@ 36,38
I see your mother’s rejection of you is starting to make you lash out again. Pity she doesn’t appreciate the patriotism @ 32 of anonymous sex with multiple men in back alleys, littlegeorgeman. Maybe if you made a video to show her it might help.
More than 1,000 people had gathered at 6 a.m. in a nearby parking lot to watch the planned implosion at the plant owned by Pacific Gas and Electric in Bakersfield. After structures on the property came crashing down, a police officer at the scene heard a man screaming for help and saw his leg had been severed, police said.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/.....n/2615005/
On the bright side, the newly cleared flat land will be used for solar panels, wind turbines, and a new light-rail station.
Hey, Illinois, no problem. Nothing to worry about.
Despite rebounding markets, state pension asset levels remain about 9% below their 2007 peaks, according to the report, and changing demographics in the state workforce are part of the problem. In 1992, there were about three “current contributors” – that is, working state employees contributing to the pension funds – for every retiree collecting benefits; by 2012, the report notes, that ratio was 1.7 to 1.
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/e.....n-2011-12/
All those promises made by Dem politicians to state union members are sure to be kept. Don’t you worry at all about
Illinois Credit Rating Downgraded To Nation’s Worst By Moody’s
Citing the state’s ongoing financial problems, Moody’s Investor Service on Friday downgraded Illinois’s credit rating to the lowest of any state in the country.
According to the Associated Press, Moody’s blamed the low rating of “A2” on “weak management practices” and the most recent legislative session which “took no steps to implement lasting solutions” on issues such as an increasingly severe pension funding shortfall.
Further detailing the downgrade, Moody’s said Illinois’s “chronic use of payment deferrals to manage operating fund cash” presented a major challenge to its financial wellbeing.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....93899.html
those recent headlines or the ass-pounding about to be experienced by Detroit municipal retirees.
Just go ahead and elect more Democrats. They’ll help you out of this. Just look and see how much they’re helping Motown right now.
40)Kern County is a Republican bastion, and the most I heard about local rail, is commuter rail, but if built, it won’t be going Bakersfield-Los Angeles anytime soon, the Tehachapi bottleneck, and Union Pacific is opposed to passenger trains on Tehachapi.
@ 42
Joke. It was a joke.
Unrelated but, Railfan, when you bring up all of these rail lines coming online, can you talk a little bit about how one might differ from another? Relative efficiency in miles per unit energy expended, gains in efficiency over whatever they may be replacing, etc? I look at some of the links but I have no way of knowing why there are so many that are apparently different from each other.
Why the opposition to trains in that pass? When I was 16 the pass was shut down overnight due to high winds and I-5 was closed – freezing weather during that Xmas holiday period. I spent the night in a sleeping bag on a pool table in a bar in Mettler.
Well “K”, unlike your DUMMOCRAPT party which marches to the same beat and anyone who DARES to question otherwise is ostracized, black listed, and muzzled, Republicans have discussions over various topics.
SUX to be you!
White female cop kills homeless hispanic man. Somehow Roger SENILE DUMBASS and LUNATIC doesn’t post that!
Puddy knows why… It destroys his limpy arguments on gun violence by certain society segments.
Puddy would like to know why she off’d the guy? Was it cause she didn’t like being called bitch? He prolly learned that language from rap music and it rolled off his tongue!
False Alarm on new date set for Australian Election. One media group, Fairfax, said Sept.7th, but it was not confirmed.
http://fruitsandvotes.com/?p=7061
A few months ago, it was so bad on both the primary and two party prefered votes for Labor, that MPs in marginal seats were packing up their Canberra offices. Since Gillard was ousted, it jas been a rebound, with Labor and the Center-right coalition of the Liberal and National partoes neck and neck on the important two party prefered vote. On best prime minister candidate, a majority of the voters disapprove of the Liberal Partleader.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.....tion,_2013
An explanation of the Two-Party prefered vote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.....erred_vote
Since it’s mostly needed with ranked choice voting, it’s not used much here, just San Francisco and Minneapolis, but could conceivably be used for top-two primary, or at least the Two Candidate prefered metric.
@25 and @29.
You didn’t address the question. What is the conservative solution to surplus workers no longer needed due to automation?
What are they supposed to do for rent and food when they cannot find jobs?
I ask earlier, is there a pool of well paying jobs that is going unfilled by the lazy poor?
…because of course, Roger is supposed to post every account of a cop inappropriately using deadly force. *EYE ROLL*
Really?? A white cop shoots a latino guy for no good reason, and that is somehow counter to opinions that RR has posted about inappropriate police violence?? I think not, bozo.
So you’re OK with people of color being shot dead for being mouthy??
Oh, that’s right, you’re a Second Amendment fetishizing, Stand-Your-Ground Teahaddist shoot-uppity-black-people wannabe.
Rap music is destroying the world!!
You really are desperate to be in the cracker club, aren’t you?
Do you have dreams about lynching people?
The 4 charts had a disturbing truth that conservatives won’t address
If we don’t pay the workers, if we don’t pay a living wage, how do you expect the economy to improve. That’s why the service workers are starting to strike, they don’t have a better job to go to,it isn’t there, so they have make this one work.
Oooops!
http://www.jsonline.com/news/s.....88071.html
Too bad Mr. Klynical “some unions are better than others” Klown isn’t here anymore!
@40. I found your joke loathsome. People got really hurt and all you can think of is a joke that people got maimed so we could up solar panels? Did that make you giggle? You do love to make cheep shots, don’t you. Couldn’t find a way tie in unions and young men of color for a trifecta joke of innuendo and hate? Get help.
Well, my response would be that more jobs are needed, not just higher wages, as NTfF @ 20 seems to think are required.
When people had higher wages, they would have disposable income to buy more things, and companies could expand and hire more workers to meet the new demand.
Why do you hate workers so much? You yourself were saying you recently paid your workers more. Why didn’t you just take more profits for yourself?
Does anyone see a sick correlation between Serial “Won’t pay his debts” Conn’s glee in reporting that Wisconsin is not likely to be able to live up to it’s pension obligations and his glee that automation has caused there to be surplus workers and jokes about people getting maimed. He seems to gets happy when he can report misery and suffering to people, through no fault of their own, are screwed.
No, puddles, it does not suck to be me. It is, however, your foolish third person postings and avoidance of actual debate is quite tiresome. The question stands, what do you think of Republican officials stating climate change is not in doubt?
Silly me to expect an intelligent response.
@54
He’s a hack – no integrity, greed-driven, habitually dishonest, petty suburban bourgeoisie radiologist – really, just a sadly pedestrian fool who thinks his interests actually align with those of the Kochs and the Romneys and the Waltons.
He’s a slightly higher echelon house servant than puddybigot, but likewise deluded about his relationship with the ‘massa’.
Unfortunately, we all have to suffer through his endless self-satisfied braying about things he doesn’t understand, or willfully misrepresents.
Once again all can see why it’s so tedious to have any discussion with Libtard SCHMUCKO. Did Puddy even infer that? Libtard SCHMUCKO, just a limp dick looking for some action!
So Fascist Pigsty… where is your voice on GE, Apple & Google… leftist pinhead lead andleftist pinhead goosestepping companies who have over $100 Billion stashed overseas?
Sorry smelly fart, but your argument is useless as always!
Silly you “K”. They speak for themselves while others disagree. At least there is a healthy discussion on my side.
You still don’t get it do you. Do you ever get it “K”? And you wonder why Puddy doesn’t have a cogent discussion with you. You can’t see the other side of any argument. Put fingers in ears. Cover eyes with hands. Scream LALALALALA while others are talking.
Your side smashes and squashes anyone who disagrees with climate change screamers. It’s your way or the highway!
Get out the hockey stick.
Golly Libtard SCHMUCKO those are “your” qualities!
Glad you spotted yourself in action!
Why doesn’t Fascist Pigsty ask that of Obummer? More part time work created under him that for a long time. Even the labor unions hate ObummerCare now! They are worried the 40 hour work week will disappear for ever. Of course the unemployed moron doesn’t care because he don’t work so he cheers ObummerCare. Of course the unions are pining for more Cadillac health plan waivers!
Absolutely because he screams about guns guns guns! Also since it was a white woman killing an hispanic he chose to skip it!
Larry O’Clownell? What are his ratings lately? Oh year toilet water level with the other fools at PMSNBC… Butt, Da Perfessa loves his toilet shows! July 2013 from Mediaite… ““The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” was down -29% [total viewers] and -27%, [29-54] respectively.” Look up your own link. For the Q2 ratings…
Butt there is more here…
Must be some of the masses of HorsesASSes dropped them too. Wow did Mad as a Cow drop like a lead balloon! Puddy wonders if rhpee6033 still admits to watching fourth place!
Win
Place
Show
then…PMSNBC
You really have to love the big mouths (people loved by Roger SENILE DUMBASS and LUNATIC Wabbit) in the Obummer sadministration…
Unnamed sources; approved by Obummer’s gang!
@27 Are you sure he’s imagining it?
@29 Welcome to the brave new world Republicans created with their right-to-work laws, opposition to raising the minimum wage, and massive tax breaks for business and the rich.
Now. Just one question. Who are those wealthy business owners going to sell their goods and services to? Each other?
@64 I’m curious what NSA got when they tapped your phone. Care to enlighten us?
@59 “At least there is a healthy discussion on my side.”
There is? Not that I can see. All I see on your side is a bunch of morons clucking that the climate isn’t changing, or if it is, it’s caused by gamma rays from outer space; they refuse to believe THIS has anything to do with it:
http://tinyurl.com/kbpqhlg
@41 Illinois has one of the most troubled public pension systems in the country. Washington has one of the best.
New York Times just sold the Boston Globe to John W.Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox. Breaking the curse of the Bambino will be easy to compared to what he is getting in to.
http://boston.cbslocal.com/201.....-purchase/
Especially since the NYT sold it at a loss.
@45 Oh, thanx for finding that, puddles. Looks like suicide-by-cop to me.
@45 “Puddy would like to know why she off’d the guy?”
Probably because he refused two commands to get on the ground, continued to approach the officer, and displayed a belligerent attitude toward the officer. In other words, he was tired of living and wanted her to shoot him.
Now if only George Zimmerman had followed police orders …
What we have is two people dead because someone didn’t follow police orders, but only one of them is the person who didn’t follow police orders. That’s what makes these cases different.
@58 where is your voice on GE, Apple & Google…who have over $100 Billion stashed overseas?
You are frothing at the mouth, but comparing apples to oranges. You choose to fain willful ignorance of my argument.
This set of charts covers all companies,. Progressives have been railing against corrupt and unethical corporate practices for decades from apple to chic-a-whatever.
Where is the conservative outrage against corporations?
There is none. Conservatives did nothing.
Progressive have been offering up ideas on how to lessen the problems of corporate greed and wealth equality.
Where are the conservative versions?
There are none. Conservatives did nothing.
@76 The only thing you’ll ever get from conservatives is a rant that unemployed college grads should’ve studied engineering instead of modern dance and people who can’t repay their student loans are immoral deadbeats. You wonder how many of them were made vice presidents of their daddy’s businesses at age 21 and never had to compete in the open market for a job or do real work.
Let’s skip over the argument that all the unemployment in our country is caused by choosing the wrong college major and go directly to the main point of what role education should play in society, to wit, a lot of dance majors have no aptitude for math and aren’t cut out to be engineers and there probably are damn few if any engineers who have any talent for dance. And, of course, it never occurs to these bozos that in a country of 300 million people maybe there’s room for both dancers and engineers.
What it boils down to is some people just don’t want to pay for the wars they start, but conservative culture doesn’t allow them to be against military spending, so they have to pretend all their taxes go for supporting shiftless bums who don’t want to work.
That justifies using deadly force eh SENILE One? Not shoot in the leg or shoulder just center mass chest hit and that’s it? Puddy bets she got upset over being called a bitch!
Let’s see if Libtard SCHMUCKO will attack Roger SENILE DUMBASS and LUNATIC Wabbit for something he actually wrote. Libtard SCHMUCKO attacked Puddy over something not even conceived by Puddy but easily thought of by the limp penis!
You are a strange one SENILE DUMBASS and LUNATIC Wabbit.
@80 It didn’t say it was justified. I only said that if you want to commit suicide-by-cop that’s how you’d go about it.
@80 (continued) If she shot him in the leg, he could’ve grabbed her gun and shot her in the head. Hey, I’m not defending this “officer-involved shooting” (I believe that’s the current sanitary euphemism for cops blowing away civilians); the review board will decide whether she followed proper procedures or not, and I’m only saying that your suggestion of shooting him in the leg is exactly the kind of stupid comment we expect from a nincompoop like you.
@80 “attacked Puddy”
Feel persecuted much?
To the SENILE DUMBASS and LUNATIC Wabbit@77,
Of course being a libtard means forgiving their college loans due to their poor career choice. That’s the progressive way. Waste money every day because of some personal whim that didn’t work out. Thomas Sowell nails you Roger SENILE DUMBASS and LUNATIC Wabbit!
Thomas Sowell nails you SENILE One…
Why you ask Senile One? Getting to close to home with the truth?
Hmmm, it looks like the Major League Baseball may play the rest of this season with depleted teams after drug suspensions are meted out Monday, with former Mariner Alex Rodriguez due to get the biggest penalty, a 214-game suspension that will keep him off the playing field until 2015.
http://www.sportingnews.com/ml.....d%3D353296
Roger Rabbit Commentary: There sure are a lot of cheaters nowadays.
@85 Just worried about your well-being, that’s all. We don’t want you to do anything to yourself. You’d be hard to replace.
@86 Sociology departments are always on the lookout for Republicans to use as experimental subjects.
@85 “Getting to close to home with the truth?”
Why is it none of you wingnuts can spell “too”?
Well you could have said it in the original post not afterwards when Puddy calls you on it!
@86 I don’t think the proportions favor democrats on purpose, it’s just that a belief in science is kind of pre requisite for the job. It’s no different than an auto mechanic shop not wanting to hire a mechanic that thinks that problems in car engines are caused by evil spirits and prayer will solve the transmission problem.
But we can play the quote game.
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR Korean War Veteran, Professor & National Humanities Medal winner Thomas Sowell is a Tea Bagger? Well that makes you a scumbag!
The reason libtards don’t listen to libtards on the radio: you already have them on the main stream media! It’s just more of the same old shit, every day. That’s why Scare Amerikkka failed! You listen to Dead Schultz?
HO HO HO HO HO!
@91 You haven’t “called” me on squat. You’re nothing but an empty-suit blowhard.
@93 I guess it depends on how you define “libtard” (sic). Your definition seems to include anyone who isn’t a howling-at-the-moon batshit-insane lunatic like you.
Maybe Oral Roberts U. has employment opportunities for “scientists” who believe the Earth is 6,000 years old.
Recently Canadian authorities issued an emergency order prohibiting one man crews on trains with hazardous cargo. Now the FRA has weighed in, issuing an emergency order, prohibiting trains with hazardous cargo from being left unintended.
http://www.bloomberg.com/artic.....c6Q.g.html
95) Good point. I wonder if he would call the party that runs British Columbia that. They are conservative, despite being called the BC Liberals.
@93. I wasn’t clear, I was referring to YOU as a teabagger. I wanted to keep the same syntax as the first quote so it got blurry.
So, that TeaBagger/Neonazi Police Chief in Pennsylvania has declared himself Emperor or something. Fuckin nutcase. If I was Governor of that State, I’d declare an insurrection and send in the National Guard to arrest every single one of those so-called “Constitution Security Force” members and charge them with terrorism.
Ol’ SpittlePuddles oughta go there, he could be their token Negro.
These guys are complete psychopaths.
How much you wanna bet that Chief Kessler’s dad is one of those guys that collected ears in ‘Nam?
@100 That guy is severely nuts, and he’s attracting militia-nut elements all over the country; his “Constitutional Security Force” even has Oregon and Washington state chapters. Whose members are the usual suspects, of course.
Or maybe he’s angling for a million-dollar book deal …
This guy needs to be removed from office. Before he starts checking the political leanings of people who may need his services. This is America, Liberals can speak as well the Constitution does not say only Conservatives have rights. He says he’s an oath keeper, well it is quickly looking like he is violating his, the one where he is to protect and serve the town, the one whose taxpayers, both liberal and conservative pay his salary. Also, I noticed that the mayor he calla an enemy is a woman, and a Republican.
Also in Maine, the DoT hlis looking into options if the Montreal, Maine, and Atlantic railway goes under. Of course, the oil trains are the administration in Augusta’s priority on what needs to keep moving.
http://www.railwayage.com/inde.....affic.html
PoliceOne magazine shared a newspaper article on the Chief. The comments were interesting, a few agree with him, others say he’s lucky IT’S only a 30-Day suspension.
http://www.policeone.com/chief.....ne-videos/
Nope you dope… that’s a moonbat AKA libtard AKA DUMMOCRAPT AKA Roger SENILE DUMBASS and LUNATIC Wabbit!
And Eliot Spitzer, Robert Filner, and Anthony Weiner are not? Warped sense of propriety there!
Typical republican grasping at straws, democrats personal sex screw ups are somehow equivalently bad as republican violent militias. What Filner is doing is wrong, very wrong, but the militias are so so much worse.
It’s only improper to be a violent militia? It’s just in bad taste?
Tell me conservatives, now that you know about Kessler, is it the bigger government’s responsibility to remove him from office?
Good morning, NTfF:
@ 111
Shouldn’t you first determine if the constitution/code of the municipality in which Kessler works already has a mechanism by which he can be removed from office, rather than expecting someone else to gin up a new method? I know that might require you to do some work and maybe even provide a link, but….
@ 54
You confuse Wisconsin with Illinois. Silly error. Wisconsin is run by Republicans, currently, and is 5th in the nation in one measure of growth, I read this week. Illinois, on the other hand, had its debt rating slashed to the lowest of all 50 states.
One is run by Republicans. One is run by Democrats. Coincidence? You decide.
Cite for part 2 of @ 112:
The leading index projects the six-month growth in the coincidence index. The latest coincidence index for June had Wisconsin ranked 5th in the nation, 1st in the Midwest, and exceeding the national growth rate. This was only the sixth time since 1980 Wisconsin has ranked in the top five based on this measure.
http://walker.wi.gov/Default.a.....874f1dc65e
Yes, I am aware that Google has lots of other examples of Wisconsin not faring so well. The point is that Wisconsin is faring far better than blue Illinois.
Noted left-wing rag being passed around more times than a ten dollar hooker:
Earlier today, IAC/InterActive reached a deal to sell Newsweek, which has been publishing since January as a digital-only version of the old magazine, to the owners of the International Business Times.
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/.....siness-tim
My, how far the mighty have fallen.
Maybe it’s the Curse of the Obamabino @70.
I can’t recall…..
Where was the first speech on foreign soil given by our noted Nobel Peace Prize winner?
Wasn’t it, um, Cairo?
Sissi’s comments are a measure of just how thoroughly the Obama administration has alienated both sides in a profoundly polarized and unsettled Egypt, all while trying to remain neutral. Morsi’s supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood regularly accuse the United States of acquiescing to a military coup.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....=rss_world
You ain’t the only one with a knife in your back, Hosni:
Israel shocked by Obama’s “betrayal” of Mubarak
http://www.reuters.com/article.....3720110131
Buncha people in the Czech Republic and in Poland feel the same way.
Why Russia Turned Against The Gays
http://www.buzzfeed.com/miriam.....t-the-gays
I suspect it’s because whatever the KGB is nowadays has started reading this blog and is convinced that most of them are like gman.
Maybe this year the State Department will elect to close some embassies on the anniversary of 9/11.
http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com.....atter?lite
Ambassador Stevens could not be reached for comment.
Do what I say, not what I do:
BOND LOSSES AT FEDERAL RESERVE TOP $192 BILLION
“Our estimate shows that the spike in bond yields since the first quarter of this year has caused a mark-to-market loss of $192 billion on the Fed’s holding assets, equivalent to approximately all of the unrealized gains that the Fed had accumulated since it began to implement quantitative easing in late 2008. Although in keeping with their own accounting principles the Fed does not record mark-to-market losses, a continued increase in bond yields would incur actual losses should the central bank decide to sell assets.”
http://www.etfguide.com/commen.....2-Billion/
What really got AIG in trouble (other than over-promising insurance of financial products) during the financial meltdown was the requirement that they mark-to-market their holdings, which plummeted in current value so quickly that they ended up with insufficient leverage to remain afloat.
It’s also that temporary insane devaluation of hard assets (remember GE at below $6 per share?) that allowed people smart enough to have money on the sidelines during that bloodbath to step in and pick up screaming bargains.
—
AIG now well in the black, loans by the US government fully paid off, government made a tidy profit on the rescue, and AIG just announced its first regular dividend since 2008.
@118 Serial RENEGER,
You really don’t understand that you have not the slightest idea about the topics you opine. In my day we called it diarrhea of the mouth.
“What really got AIG in trouble…”
This topic is really simple enough that even a simpleton like you could figure it out, but off you go down some trail you’ve decided makes your point.
As a known and admitted RENEGER, what should AIG’s “assets” been “marked” to in September 2008 which would enable them to be liquid and pay their obligations?
If not “marked-to-market”, what then?
And then back to the ridiculous quoted point “a continued increase in bond yields would incur actual losses should the central bank decide to sell assets.“,
1) under what circumstances should a Central Bank decide to sell its assets at a loss?
2) under what circumstances should a Central Bank, whose currency is the world’s reserve currency decide to sell its assets at a loss?
No, what really got AIG in trouble, is the fact that they had people sitting on their Board of Directors, who were also sitting on the Boards of Bank of America, Washington Mutual, Goldman Sachs, Shearson Lehman, Enron, Dynegy, Koch Industries and the NYSE. They were manipulating bond ratings and deliberately overstating the values of the assets of those companies and so many others, for the explicit purpose of gaming the system for themselves and the Politicians they control. They were fixing prices, and colluding with each other to shift the debt created to non-real companies based in foreign Countries that would then magically disappear into thin air.
They were lying through their teeth about the bond ratings they were putting out, and the result was a nearly $60 Trillion theft from the world’s economy.
It was very deliberate.
Did our goto klownservative loony tune for laughs around here come by last night for this little blue hate pill fix?
He did! He did!
Has anyone died with your “worries” over this chief? Nope you dope. Anyone been mentally abused? Nope you dope. Anyone physically abused? Nope you dope.
Have women been abused and used by those three. ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY!
Nuff SAID Sucka!
If YLB were a legislator:
Rep. Ellison: ‘There’s Plenty of Money, It’s Just The Government Doesn’t Have It’
– See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/articl.....5jwcG.dpuf
HA’s unemployed moron still tracking Puddy. Glad to see another week of Puddy PWN’ING this moron!
Come along leetle doggie! .
Hey Ellison… Go after Google, Apple and GE to start… Over $100 Billion right there!
Those three love libtards!
An Armed Society Is A Polite Society Dep’t
“Gerardo Franchini was reportedly dining at Louis’ Family Restaurant … with his wife and two young daughters Saturday morning when he got into an argument with another man in the restaurant … [who] then left the restaurant but returned 10 to 15 minutes later … and fired six or seven shots, the Sun-Times reported. Franchini … was taken to Presence Saint Joseph Medical Center where he was pronounced dead ….”
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news.....78781.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Doesn’t seem polite to me. The civility aspect of ubiquitous guns needs more work.
CNN has agreed to a request from an Obama administration official not to publish or broadcast additional details because of the sensitivity of the information.
– Breaking News right now.
Yup, just like with NYT and the Bush administration regarding SWIFT.
Oh, wait…
“Congress was briefed,” Mr. Bush said, in his first public comments on the program. “And what we did was fully authorized under the law. And the disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We’re at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America.”
The New York Times, followed by other news organizations, began publishing accounts of the program on Thursday evening. In his remarks, during a brief photo opportunity in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Mr. Bush did not single out The Times by name, but his irritation was clear.
“If you want to figure out what the terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money,” the president said, growing animated and leaning forward for emphasis as he spoke. “And that’s exactly what we’re doing. And the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....00563.html
Even Democrats Lee Hamilton and Tom Kean, both members of the 9/11 commission, implored the NYT not to publish.
No dice. It was a chance to Blame Bush.
Maybe CNN learned the lesson. Or maybe they want to keep Tapper, since everything else they touch seems to implode.
@122 “Anyone been mentally abused? Nope you dope.”
You think his supporters showing up with guns and preventing townspeople who want to complain from entering the town council meeting isn’t mental abuse? That looks like prosecutable intimidation and assault to me. Half of his followers should be in jail. But who’s going to put them there? The police chief?
@122 Your solicitous concern for exploited women is heartwarming, puddles. Maybe you’ll also give us a list of Republican sexual predators? Or are you a one-legged pony?
A hacker who identified two rapists and gave their names to police could get 10 times as much prison time as the rapists.
http://www.sfgate.com/technolo.....587226.php
Roger Rabbit Commentary: The Obama Administration is proving to be very unfriendly to hackers and leakers — it’s pursuing them relentlessly, treating them like spies, and throwing the legal book at them. Meanwhile, government spying on law-abiding citizens is pervasive under this administration.
That fiend would sooner amputate his most prized appendage. Here’s a good one:
http://www.democraticundergrou.....15;1709387
@131 “That fiend would sooner amputate his most prized appendage.”
haha That’s why I asked him this question, I want to see what a dickless Puddy looks like! =:-D<
Professor Robert Thurman has an interesting take on the Norquist traitors pledge that incoming GOP legislators have been more or less required to sign as a pre-qualification for their unopposed candidacy as Republicans. Those who refused to sign the pledge to Grover Norquist were then opposed by the National GOP in the primaries by people who did sign it.
Basically the Oath of Office states in no uncertain terms:
So, the fact that they are swearing apparent allegiance to the US Constitution, and have signed that Pledge while in fact indeed having mental reservation and purposes of evasion demonstrates their open treason to the Constitution, and therefore the people of the United States.
I like this guy. Smart man.
So, that being said, do we start actually enforcing 220+ year old law, or do we merely start chopping off heads?
@133 Off with their heads! We can give ’em a fair trial later, when it’s convenient.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11.....rials.html
The Graham Trucking boat just won the Albet Lee Cup. The Oh Boy Oberto came in second. I love how Metro is handling the traffic mitigation. The buses are on a loop to Columbia City Station.
After breaking a pledge not to negotiate in the media earlier this week, BART, and the Unions are not talking to the press. They are still at the table.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.c.....id-strike/
Also this week, a baby was born at a DC Metro station, L’EnFant Station to be exact. I like the response from WMATA on whether the kid needed a fare. The response, was children under 4 ride free.
http://m.washingtonpost.com/lo.....story.html
redundant
@138 literary license
BART strike part II averted 7 days. While Governor Brown has said he wouldn’t impose a 60 day cooling off period, at the 11th hour(literally) has imposed a 7 day cooling off period while a Board of Investigators looks into the situation.
http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/.....anned.html
In the order, Brown named a board of investigators for a seven-day inquiry into the contract dispute that threatened to shut down, beginning Monday, one of the region’s major train lines.
Brown’s order comes under a law that allows the state’s intervention if a strike will significantly disrupt public transportation services and endanger public health.
“For the sake of the people of the Bay Area, I urge — in the strongest terms possible — the parties to meet quickly and as long as necessary to get this dispute resolved,” Brown said in the order.
Bay Area Rapid Transit managers and union leaders had returned to the bargaining table Sunday in hopes of heading off a strike that would have created traffic nightmares for San Francisco area commuters for the second time in a month.
Representatives from BART management and the agency’s two largest employee unions negotiated for about 14 hours Saturday and resumed bargaining Sunday morning as a midnight deadline loomed. Brown’s order came at around 10:30 p.m. Sunday.
Big differences remain on key issues including wages, pensions, worker safety and health care costs, but the parties expressed some optimism that an agreement could be reached to avert a strike planned for Monday.
“The parties made some important but incremental moves yesterday, and I hope to get to a deal,” Josie Mooney, chief negotiator for the Service Employees International Union 1021, said Sunday before heading into negotiations. “If the parties work very hard, then it’s certainly possible in the amount of time we have left.”
“There was definitely movement from both sides,” BART chief negotiator Thomas Hock said as he left negotiations late Saturday night. “Hopefully, if we keep moving, we will get to a proposal that both sides can agree to.”
Of course BART management said that they asked for the cooling off period. Unions asked for a longer one 30 days ago. By the way, the GM used to run SDOT , until 2009.
http://www.bart.gov/news/artic.....30804.aspx
Pension Nonsense
Because Detroit is financially in over its head, conservatives are seizing on that to argue, with breathtaking dishonesty, that all public pensions must be cut — or abrogated altogether.
Their argument: Public pension systems are broke, therefore states and municipalities have no choice but to renege on the pensions that were promised to public workers.
The reality: Some state and municipal pension systems are underfunded, but many are not:
“Many state and local governments have set aside enough money to comfortably make good on promised retirement benefits. Seventeen states have funded more than 80 percent of their projected pension liability, a level that’s generally seen as financially sound.”
Close to home, Washington’s public pension system is more than 100% funded, and is consistently ranked in the top tier of sound, well-run public pension systems.
Continuing,
“Most of the rest have been scrambling to make up investment losses inflicted by the 2008 market collapse and the shortfalls in sales, property and incomes taxes produced by the Great Recession. But even as the economy and housing markets have recovered, most states are still falling behind in closing their pension funding gaps. In the last year, 34 states have seen their pension funds stretched further as they’ve failed to make the full contributions needed to meet the projected cost of retirement promises. Much like a family that fails to save regularly to build a retirement nest egg, shortchanging those contributions increases the risk that the fund eventually will go broke.”
Even in many places with pension funding shortfalls, the problem is not lack of means, but unwillingness of legislators to spend tax revenues they have on pensions they owe.
“Nine states – Hawaii, Alaska, Kansas, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Louisiana, Connecticut, Kentucky and Illinois – have now set aside less than 60 percent of what they need. Illinois has saved just 43 cents to cover every dollar of what it needs to pay 350,000 retirees and 500,000 current plan participants who are counting on a pension check.”
Illinois is a favorite whipping boy of conservatives who argue public retirees should be thrown off a cliff, like the woman in the now-famous Democratic campaign ad about Medicare, based on logic that goes something like this: Illinois (the state whose pension system is in the worst shape) is in bad shape, therefore state and municipal governments everywhere should renege on their moral and legal pension obligations.
The intellectually dishonest conservative political push to tear up the pension obligations to retired public workers — which are legally enforceable contract rights and moral obligations as well — is based on a rational that goes something like this:
“If we were talking about doing this to people with Social Security there would be rioting in the street,” said Ryan. “But because it’s public servants on pensions it seems to be okay to do this.”
In other words: “We hate public workers, so screw ’em!”
But is it really necessary to screw teachers, cops, firefighters, social workers, etc.? No, of course not, the conservative argument for doing so is built on lies and hyperbole:
“Most cities and states with funding gaps still have time to fix the problem. Of the roughly 20,000 municipalities in the country, only a handful have completely run out of cash and been forced to seek shelter in bankruptcy court. What’s less clear is whether those states and cities have the political will to make the necessary, unpopular decisions, according to Jean-Pierre Aubry, assistant director of State and Local Research at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.”
In this context, “political will” and “unpopular decisions” translates into English as follows: Intransigent Republican obstructionists who hate workers of all stripes, and have an especially intense hatred for public workers simply because they hate government, refuse to appropriate any money to public pension systems and will do everything they possible can to drive them into the ground, no way no how, simply because they hate public workers and want to screw ’em.
“Even the ones that are really up against it have somewhere around 10 to 15 years of a window to turn things around,” he said.
Which brings us back to Illinois:
“That political challenge is playing out in Illinois, where a $95 billion pension fund gap has deadlocked the state legislature over reform proposals for two years.”
Read: Republican legislators in Illinois refuse to spend one dime on keeping that state’s moral and legal obligations to public pensioners, and based on that refusal, Republicans all over America are arguing that all public pension promises must be broken and reneged upon.
We don’t have a public pension problem in America. We have a Republican problem in America. That problem can be readily solved by voting every Republican, everywhere, out of every public office.
http://www.nbcnews.com/busines.....6C10825512
Pension Nonsense
Because Detroit is financially in over its head, conservatives are seizing on that to argue, with breathtaking dishonesty, that all public pensions must be cut — or abrogated altogether.
Their argument: Public pension systems are broke, therefore states and municipalities have no choice but to renege on the pensions that were promised to public workers.
The reality: Some state and municipal pension systems are underfunded, but many are not:
“Many state and local governments have set aside enough money to comfortably make good on promised retirement benefits. Seventeen states have funded more than 80 percent of their projected pension liability, a level that’s generally seen as financially sound.”
Close to home, Washington’s public pension system is more than 100% funded, and is consistently ranked in the top tier of sound, well-run public pension systems.
Continuing,
“Most of the rest have been scrambling to make up investment losses inflicted by the 2008 market collapse and the shortfalls in sales, property and incomes taxes produced by the Great Recession. But even as the economy and housing markets have recovered, most states are still falling behind in closing their pension funding gaps. In the last year, 34 states have seen their pension funds stretched further as they’ve failed to make the full contributions needed to meet the projected cost of retirement promises. Much like a family that fails to save regularly to build a retirement nest egg, shortchanging those contributions increases the risk that the fund eventually will go broke.”
Even in many places with pension funding shortfalls, the problem is not lack of means, but unwillingness of legislators to spend tax revenues they have on pensions they owe.
“Nine states – Hawaii, Alaska, Kansas, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Louisiana, Connecticut, Kentucky and Illinois – have now set aside less than 60 percent of what they need. Illinois has saved just 43 cents to cover every dollar of what it needs to pay 350,000 retirees and 500,000 current plan participants who are counting on a pension check.”
Illinois is a favorite whipping boy of conservatives who argue public retirees should be thrown off a cliff, like the woman in the now-famous Democratic campaign ad about Medicare, based on logic that goes something like this: Illinois (the state whose pension system is in the worst shape) is in bad shape, therefore state and municipal governments everywhere should renege on their moral and legal pension obligations.
The intellectually dishonest conservative political push to tear up the pension obligations to retired public workers — which are legally enforceable contract rights and moral obligations as well — is based on a rational that goes something like this:
“If we were talking about doing this to people with Social Security there would be rioting in the street,” said Ryan. “But because it’s public servants on pensions it seems to be okay to do this.”
In other words: “We hate public workers, so screw ’em!”
But is it really necessary to screw teachers, cops, firefighters, social workers, etc.? No, of course not, the conservative argument for doing so is built on lies and hyperbole:
“Most cities and states with funding gaps still have time to fix the problem. Of the roughly 20,000 municipalities in the country, only a handful have completely run out of cash and been forced to seek shelter in bankruptcy court. What’s less clear is whether those states and cities have the political will to make the necessary, unpopular decisions, according to Jean-Pierre Aubry, assistant director of State and Local Research at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.”
In this context, “political will” and “unpopular decisions” translates into English as follows: Intransigent Republican obstructionists who hate workers of all stripes, and have an especially intense hatred for public workers simply because they hate government, refuse to appropriate any money to public pension systems and will do everything they possible can to drive them into the ground, no way no how, simply because they hate public workers and want to screw ’em.
“Even the ones that are really up against it have somewhere around 10 to 15 years of a window to turn things around,” he said.
Which brings us back to Illinois:
“That political challenge is playing out in Illinois, where a $95 billion pension fund gap has deadlocked the state legislature over reform proposals for two years.”
Read: Republican legislators in Illinois refuse to spend one dime on keeping that state’s moral and legal obligations to public pensioners, and based on that refusal, Republicans all over America are arguing that all public pension promises must be broken and reneged upon.
We don’t have a public pension problem in America. We have a Republican problem in America. That problem can be readily solved by voting every Republican, everywhere, out of every public office.
http://www.nbcnews.com/busines.....6C10825512
Yet Another Domestic Spying Scandal
“WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) – A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.
“Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin – not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.
“The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to ‘recreate’ the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant’s Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don’t know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence – information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....06207.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Why would the DEA cover up the fact it’s systematically using illegal wiretaps and other Fourth Amendment-violating searches to nab drug suspects? Um, because it could jeopardize prosecutions? Ya think?! At this point, everyone in the country incarcerated for drug crimes ought to be filing habeas corpus petitions.
Banks filing millions of fraudulent and perjured foreclosure documents with courts. Government agencies spying on citizens and lying about it. Republicans trying to tear up union contracts and abrogate contractually-binding pension obligations. Do you get a feeling law and order is breaking down in America? I certainly do. We’re drifting toward anarchy and government is leading the charge. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, as Republicans have been largely in charge of government for most of the last 30 years. This is what they did with the power that voters entrusted to them: They’re dismantling our society and way of life.