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April 20, 2012 at 10:00 AM
Week In The News: Secret Service, Afghan Violence, CEO Pay

A Secret Service prostitution scandal. A Taliban push in Afghanistan. Shareholders say “no” to a big CEO pay package. Our news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

The Space shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, flying over Washington skyline, including the Washington Monument, as seen from a NASA T-38 aircraft, Tuesday, April 17, 2012. Discovery, the longest-serving orbiter will be placed to its new home, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. (AP)

The Space shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, flying over Washington skyline, including the Washington Monument, as seen from a NASA T-38 aircraft, Tuesday, April 17, 2012. Discovery, the longest-serving orbiter will be placed to its new home, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. (AP)

Prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia got their fifteen minutes of fame this week.  Sadly, it was with the U.S. Secret Service, as paying customers, on the eve of the arrival of the President of the United States.  Not good.

In Afghanistan, fierce attacks by the Taliban and rough photos of the 82nd Airborne.  In Ohio, Romney and Obama, nearly nose-to-nose, neck and neck.  The Buffet rule goes down.  Citigroup shareholders say no on CEO pay.  Dick Clark and Levon Helm sign off.

This hour, On Point:  our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

A. B. Stoddard, associate editor and columnist at The Hill.

Yochi Dreazen, senior correspondent for National Journal Group covering military affairs and national security.

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

From Tom’s Reading List

Los Angeles Times “President Hamid Karzai said Thursday that a speeded-up departure of Western troops from his country is the only way to prevent a recurrence of “painful experiences” such as the sight of American soldiers posing with the body parts of dead insurgents.”

CBS News “Officials are still in the early stages of their investigation, but three of the 11 Secret Service members accused of misconduct have already been forced out. One agent was fired, another forced to retire. Both were supervisors. A third officer resigned.”

New York Times “In a stinging rebuke, Citigroup shareholders rebuffed on Tuesday the bank’s $15 million pay package for its chief executive, Vikram S. Pandit, marking the first time that stock owners have united in opposition to outsized compensation at a financial giant.”

 
  • U.S. Vet.

    Video leaked showing live animals shot, mutilated, killed in military training for the Pentagon.
    http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/237052.html

    • Gregg

      I’m not sure you can answer the question but do you know how many of our special forces have been waterboarded as training since Obama promise’s to end the practice we used on 3 people?

      • Terry Tree Tree

        HOW can ANY civillian, or even FORMER vet, KNOW how many of ours have been TRAINED that way, OR how many people were tortured with it?
           Can YOU say, with certainty, that ONLY 3 have been waterboarded?

        • Gregg

          Yes I can, there were only 3.

      • Anonymous

        How is our banning this torture relevant to training soldiers to withstand it in case it is used against them? 

        • Gregg

          I don’t know how they can train for beheadings, waterboarding’s a breeze.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            ‘W’, Cheney, Gregg, Ashcroft, Carl Rove, and the supporters of the waterboarding get waterboarded ten times a day, for hours at a time, for FUN?

          • Gregg

            I prefer to call it a nasal rinse.

  • Yar

    I have a vision of a screenplay for a space shuttle version of Apollo 13.  It starts with a crew stranded in ISS and no way to get them down other than by pulling a shuttle out of the Air and Space museum.  I hope this remains fiction. 

    • Patrik

      I just laughed out loud.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Engines removed, and MANY systems disabled?  Travel time?  Scrounging for crew?  Scrounging nursing homes for ground crew?  Repair time?  Check-out time?
         I TOO hope it remains fiction!    Could make a passable movie?

  • Ed

    Hurray!! This week the Vatican appointed a group of three bishops to redirect the communities of American nuns. There are two leadership groups of American nuns: one is faithful to the Magisterium, the other is rebellious. The focus is on the rebellious group.

    The disobedience by these sisters began after Humanae Vitae in 1968, and has grown since. The report about them indicates that they argue with almost all major Church doctrines. Pope John Paul was going to discipline them in 1979 but was talked out of it, the time was not right. But they were giving scandal to Catholics and mis-representing Catholicism to non-Catholics. Sister Carol Keenan is in this group.

    Under this discipline, the three Bishops will review the sisters’ prayer life, the speakers who address them, their daily routine and adherence to their vows and constitutions, and about everything they do.

    So long in coming, hurray!!

    • http://www.richardsnotes.org Richard

      Ed: In all seriousness, you might want to watch this segment from the NewsHour last night. While we may differ on who’s right or wrong the discussion sheds useful light on this issue:

      http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/religion/jan-june12/vatican_04-19.html

      • Ehelmrich

        Thanks, I listened to some of their report last night. It’s a question of doctrine and disagreement of doctrine, and Catholic living. PBS and the media can’t really discuss doctrinal disagreements, they look at it in sociological terms, so they miss the point.

        • http://www.richardsnotes.org Richard

          …and your reply to my reply misses PBS’ and my point: that there should be open discussion about this which they facilitated with that segment. The church (and you it seems) think that some topics are “above” discussion. That rigidity was discussed by Fletcher in the segment, I thought brilliantly. You’re right, I do think we can and should talk about religion in sociological terms even if in the end we disagree. If an organized religion can’t help the people it supposedly serves, then what good is it?

        • Terry Tree Tree

          The DOCTRINE of RAPING CHILDREN reigns SUPREME, to the pervert church?

    • Brettearle

      The Pope would be much better off first disciplining the Bishops who looked the other way, in the Child Abuse scandals

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Those Bishops, Cardinals, and the Pope, were Priests one time?
            RAPING children by priests, has been done for decades, or centuries!
            Personally listened to one of the VICTIMS, 35 years ago!  The priests’ (YES plural) THREAT of  ETERNAL DAMNATION, if the boy told, created a VERY TRAUMATIZED person!

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Mis-representing the Child-RAPING church, by being humanitarian, and following the ANNOUNCED tenents of caring for your fellow man, and caring for the least among you?
         Hurray, for the pope for making it plain that RAPING Children, and covering that crime, is FAR more important, than the STATED mission of the church!

    • Anonymous

      Any update on Ratzinger disciplining His Eminence Cardinal Law?

  • AC

    this image makes me sad…like we’re going backwards….

    • Patrik

      We are and it is sad.  Amurricans don’t need no fancy flyin’ muh-chines and science with those thinkin’ types.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Right!  If God had wanted us to fly, he would have us RAPING children, and ‘receiving’ golden tablets of his law, that just as mysteriously disappear, and subjugate women and children to men?

  • Anonymous

    I love this outrage over the Secret Service scandal. Reagan sold surface to air missiles to a Terrorist nation. Bush lied about intelligence to get us into an unfunded war: 4486 dead, over 32000 wounded, many, very very seriously. We became a torture nation officially violating the Geneva convention. The Bill of Rights was assaulted… and they call this a scandal that they are trying to pin on the president!?!  Talk about micromanagement. People are out of work and loosing homes and they have nothing better to do than filibuster the buffet rule and hold a congressional hearings on these stupid, stupid agents.

    • Brettearle

      You are UNDERESTIMATING the propagandistic skills of Right Wing Media, in this country.

      If the Right pounds negative messages home, to the public, day in and day out–until November–the undecided voters won’t EVEN remember the words, `Abu Graib’.

      This is a, `capricious, what-have-you-done-for-me- lately, vote-my-pocketbook, electorate.’

      And when the Right Wing Media gets through with the
      public, this time around, if Democrats don’t learn to fight back, then the Public is going to scapegoat Obama, instead of a recalcitrant Congress and a Republican candidate who is NOT NOW (and never was) part of the 99%.

      • ana

        The Republican Party is bringing the electoral process to a new low in my lifetime.  How does the other party respond without sinking to their level?
        The lies of Romney are despicable, most recently that this President will take away gun rights announced  to a crowd of rabid gun toters?

        Democrats can be just as cruel, but usually refrain from outright lies and hyperbolic fear mongering.

        The right wing Catholic Church instructing it’s people how to vote!!! with fear mongering comparing this  President to Hitler or Stalin?  Putting out an add on YouTube  with images of fire (hell?) falsely depicting erosion of freedom? 

        • William

          Does Romney lie as well, better or worse than Obama?

          • ana

            Quote me one deliberate lie by President Obama that would ever equate to Romney ongoing misrepresentation of the facts.
            Please do not include failed intentions.

          • aj

            ” You Lie ”
            -Congressman Joe Wilson

          • Still Here

            he was right!

          • Gregg

            So true, Obama  said Obamacare would not cover illegals but it does. Wilson caught more grief for calling him on the lie than Obama did for lying.

          • Anonymous

            Yah, Wilson received over $! million in his  campaign
            chest the next day!

          • William

            Obama said under Obama care if you like your insurance you can keep it. That was a lie. Obama said Republicans are trying to take away birth control. Obama said the rich do not pay their fair share in taxes.

          • ana

            Actually, those statements have some basis in reality as opposed to “President Obama will take away your gun rights”  a blatent lie,  or  President Obama has made the economy worse despite gains, though modest.  or “the worst President in the history of the country”  or  “doesn’t understand the United States”

          • Brettearle

            Ana,

            you have exposed William’s propaganda; indeed, his claims are largely wrong; or otherwise, not fully close to the truth.

            For the most part, you can keep your insurance;
            Some, from
            the Right, DO want to outlaw abortion; and Bush’s tax cuts prove that the rich do NOT pay their fair share…. 

          • Gregg

            The rich ended up paying more of the bill after the tax cuts because 6 million of the poorest saw their tax liability disappear.

          • William

            You mean the Obama tax cuts since he took over the Bush tax cuts.

          • Still Here

            Obama lies.

          • Gregg

            No lobbyist

            The Supreme court overturned 100 years of Jurist prudence

            My church is just like any other Christian church

            Obamacare debates on C-Span

            Bills on the internet for 5 days before a vote.

            I can go all day (that one’s me and not a lie)

          • Gregg

            Here’s 7 in under 2 minutes.

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UErR7i2onW0

          • Brettearle

            Romney spends so much time criticizing Obama that he doesn’t know whether he’s lying or not–because he doesn’t spend any time figuring out what he stands for.

            At this point, the only thing that Romney stands for, when he’s on the Tube, is that he is against the President’s policies, no matter what.

            That’s what I call real discourse.

            In fact, it’s nothing more, nor less, than fertilizer. 

          • William

            So I take it Obama lies more.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            You would take it that way, regardless of the truth?

          • William

            You need to take off your blinders.

        • Brettearle

          First off, Ana, if you take the moral high ground (by being gentlemanly), in the political wars, YOU WILL OFTEN LOSE.

          If you don’t fight fire with fire, you will lose.

          That’s how Democrats lose.

          The whole idea of NOT “lowering ourselves to their level”, is the very position that DOOMS US TO FAILURE.

          If you want to win, you can’t think of how the sausge is made–otherwise you’re lookin’ ar Mitt, very likely, for EIGHT YEARS.

          NICE GUYS FINISH LAST–whether we like it or not.

          Mario Cuomo, where are you, when WE NEED YOU.

          • ana

            Sad, but true.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        UNFORTUNATELY, you’re probably right!  Abu Grehb is NOTHING compared to a closed gypsum plant!

        • denis

          don’t forget the plant closed during GW’s term

          • denis

            sorry – that is W’s admin in 2008

      • Anonymous

        Has Senator Vitter commented yet?  He is the expert.

        • JGC

          Could Senator Vitter be appointed to the subcommittee investigating the Secret Service prostitution scandal?  Oh please, oh please, oh please…

      • Anonymous

        It is not that Romney is not “part” of the 99%; he has no comprehension of how the 99% lives and no empathy for anyone outside his family and maybe his church.

  • Anonymous

    GLOCK VOBISCUM?

    Newt Gingrich wants a worldwide treaty declaring gun ownership to be a universal human right. No, really: 

    The right to bear arms comes from our creator, not our government,” Gingrich said. The NRA “has been too timid” in promoting its agenda beyond American borders. The Bill of Rights was not written only for Americans, he said. “It is a universal document.”“A Gingrich presidency will submit to the UN a treaty that extends the right to bear arms as a human right to every person on the planet.” Every world citizen, he said, “deserves the right to defend themselves from those who exploit, imprison, or kill them.” For his latest big idea, Gingrich earned a standing ovation from the crowd of roughly 5,000.“We don’t need to go across the planet trying to impose American values, but we do need to go across the planet spreading human values,” Gingrich said. “The Second Amendment is a right for all mankind.”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R07gcUhKKGc&feature=player_embedded 

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Newt, with his LOUSY HISTORY, is out-Newting himself?

  • Brettearle

    GSA, Secret Service, Solyndra, the atrocities and the apparent immoral behavior of US troops in Central Asia…..

    How do we, as Democrats (those of you who are Democrats), offset the barrage of Right Wing Attacks that will rain down on the Obama Administration, for these incidents?

    Kerry never knew how to effectively fight back, against the Swift Boat gauntlet–and much of that was Myth.

    But more aspects, of these above matters, have validity, than did the Swift Boat imbroglio.

    If we allow the “Right Wing Attack Machine” to frame the debate, in the campaign, then the President could have more of an uphill battle.

    Can we conjure up some effective ideas–or do we let history repeat itself?

    Sometimes, when I talk to people in Media, all I hear, from them, is, “just don’t listen to it.”

    That sort of advice comes from the voices of failure and resignation.

    I say that we, as Democrats DO NOT KNOW HOW TO FIGHT BACK.

    You can ignore me, because you might want to live in denial and blame, me, the messenger, for being excessively negative.

    Go ahead and do that, if you want to.  But you might do so at our own peril.

    Those who do not learn from History are doomed to repeat it.  

    • William

      Democrats went crazy over the Abu Ghraib prison incidents. The MSM would not let it go. Under Obama we had several illegal killings by GI’s from Ft. Lewis, Secret Service buying hookers with their per diem checks, GSA gone wild in Vegas, various green companies getting huge loans and then going bankrupt, taking GM away from the shareholders and giving it to the UAW, leading Obama advisor saying woman that stay at home should keep their mouths shut. Add it all up and we have an out of control administration.

      • Brettearle

        Your comment is a biased, bizarre sweeping statement that ignores subtleties, nuances, and the full documented analysis of the entire term in office.

        • William

          Actually, these are all facts. It is only fair that the MSM give the Obama administration the same treatment they gave Bush over Abu Ghraib.

          • ana

            Oh , but they are!  Your ‘Only fairness”  is such an  adolescent whine.
            This President has been reviled and lied about, obstructed,  wished ill will, misrepresented  and humiliated,
            had his citizenship maligned, called a Nazi, a Communist –just for starters.
            Still, it is not enough for William.

          • Brettearle

            Keep up the good work, Ana!

            Well said!

            PS 

            Don’t forget the pathetic malignment, with the labels, “Black Nationalist” and “Socialist”! 

          • William

            There is nothing wrong with being a progressive, socialist, liberal. If that is what you belive in so be it.

          • William

            No, not really. The MSM obsessed over the prison incident and blamed Bush and Cheney non-stop. Obama has yet to be blamed for anything.

          • Anonymous

            War atrocities seem to always occur, but they can be minimized by ensuring that at the company level, officers strictly monitor the troops actions and keep reminding the them what they are fighting for and how letting go control over themselves will return on them big time. But the Abu Ghraib fiasco was also a consequence of the poor structuring of the prison and the use of torture in an ineffectual attempt to gain intelligence.

            Thus the Bush/Cheney administration deserved blame more than in most cases of individuals “going off the reservtion.”

          • William

            Really? Compare the MSM coverage of Obama to the coverage of Bush. Has then been a movie showing Obama being killed liked we saw one done about Bush being killed?

          • Anonymous

            In effigy?

  • Terry Tree Tree

    Pat Head Summitt, NCAA Basketball coach, with one of highest graduation rate, and WINNINGEST coach, will receive Medal  of Freedom!   Way to go, Lady Vol!

  • Terry Tree Tree

    The head of the Roman Child-Raping church, that doesn’t know how to be a man, is sending a man to dictate to Nuns how to be women?  I doubt they know how to be women, either!

    • William

      You really hate the Catholic religion.. I don’t think a day goes by that you don’t run off the rails with some slam at the Catholic religion.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Catholics keep making news, with their GROSS HYPOCRICY, and trying to COVER it up!
           ‘Religion’?  RAPING Children is YOUR ‘religion’?
            Compounding the misery and torture of the VICTIMS is YOUR ‘religion’?
           Ignoring the CRIMES of ‘religious leaders’, is YOUR ‘religion’?
           Abusing Children is YOUR ‘religion’?
           What ‘moral high-ground’ can such a ‘religion’ claim?
           WHO would give a cent to follow Child-RAPERS, and Child-ABUSERS?
           WHAT  does that say about the followers of such a ‘religion’?

        • William

          So there are no other religions with the same problems?

          • Terry Tree Tree

            I’ll start on them,  AFTER Catholics clean up their ‘religion’.
               Will I live to be 400 years old?

          • William

            Your hate will eventually consume you.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            What else would you expect from one that tries to help deflect news from Child-RAPING priests?

          • Terry Tree Tree

            ANOTHER DEFLECTION ATTEMPT??

          • Terry Tree Tree

            THAT is the Catholic defense?  Some othe religion might do it too?
               WHAT is respectable about ANY ‘religion’, that does DESPICABLE things?   WHY do you defend them, by trying to deflect the questions?
               YOU a Child-RAPING priest?

      • Alan in NH

        I actually think TTT is making a distinction between the Catholic Hierarchy and the Catholic Religion, a distinction that is worth making, especially in light of recent and much older history. One can reasonably make a distinction between religious belief with its sincere believers on the one hand and a small group of powerful and sometimes corrupt leaders on the other.

        • William

          I often wonder where the Catholic Church went wrong these past 50 years or so. A friend of mine said it goes back to the early 1960′s when the “old guard” died off and the new more liberal guard took over. I think there might be something to that.

          • Anonymous

            More likely it was the believers in the old way not being able on their own to push back against the reformers of the ’60s and picking allies in their efforts who were not worthy.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            ANOTHER deflection attempt?  These problems go WAY back farther than 50 years!
               WHY can’t Catholics fix their church?  THEY claim that homosexuality is an ‘abomination’.  RAPING boys is a homosexual act!
               WHAT is the problem?
               RAPING girls is a horrible crime, too!
               ALL Catholic clergy are ‘claimed’ to be celibate!
              RAPING CHILDREN???
               There’s NOT a word disgusting enough to describe THAT!

  • Terry Tree Tree

    Gas drillers, with LOTS of un-drilled leases, WHINE, and will DEMAND subsidies, because they lowered their own prices?  So, the pollution, and possible other damages of Fracking, were UN-NECESSARY?

  • Anonymous

    LET’S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN!

    Romney Visits Factory Closed Under Bush, Blames Obama

    The Ohio factory closed in June 2008, seven months before Obama took office and during an 18-month recession that didn’t officially end until June 2009. Ohio’s economy has been improving for more than a year, adding 91,100 jobs from December 2010 through February 2012, the fourth highest in the U.S. during that time, data show.

    Since Obama took office in January 2009, unemployment has fallen in Ohio from 8.6 percent to 7.6 percent February.

    Ohio ranked seventh among all states in its economic recovery in the fourth quarter of 2011 compared with the previous year, according to the Bloomberg Economic Evaluation of States.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-18/obama-says-election-offers-clear-choice-on-nation-s-priorities.html

    • Anonymous

      Thanks to Obama, Romney can’t have a photo op in front of all of the GM plants that would have closed if they had gone bankrupt as Romney had advocated.

      • Gregg

        GM did go bankrupt after we bailed them out. 1300 workers were laid off when they stopped production of the failed Volt.

        • Alan in NH

          Maybe, but there IS a Detroit automobile industry today that appears to be recovering, and parts manufacturers that can continue to supply it because of the bailout, and an uncountable number of jobs that were saved because the auto industry was not allowed to fold on some ideological basis.

          • Gregg

            Ford did fine, the bailout only prolonged GM’s misery. 

          • Anonymous

            Ford will tell you any and EVERY day that they would NOT have been fine if GM and Chrysler had gone to Chapter 7 (not the Chapter 11 that the bailout allowed) and had been broken down and spat out in pieces, taking months or more.

            Ford happened to have better management which had secured some $20 billion in financing in late 2007 or early 2008, which it was able to use to survive, but only because its suppliers were able to survive contingent on the continued operation of GM and Chrysler.

            How many times do you have to be told these well known things? Actually I guess you live in that fantasy world of Republican lies where the truth is kept hidden.

            This type of behavior is that of a TROLL.

          • Gregg

            Look cranky, I just disagree and think it would have been better in the long run for America and everyone involved if we had let the market sort it out. Failing companies need to fail.

          • Still Here

            American filed for bankruptcy and they’re still flying.  It’s just a reorganization, no biggy.

          • Anonymous

            Yes, a Chapter 11 Reorganization, which GM and Chrysler went through thanks to the money from the bailout, rather than having to go through a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy where the companies are broken up into pieces that are then sold off to bid, but with the operation stopped and the suppliers thrown into bankruptcy also.

        • denis

          old news – the volt is back on track

        • Anonymous

          The “bailout provided the transition money that carried GM through the bankruptcy, as is normally required to get through one. But the normal source, an investment bank, was not available because of the drought of lending due to the financial crisis. If Romney was honest, he would agree, but he has a lot of incentive to lie.

          The production of the Volt was put on hold due to a slowdown in sales after widespread false publicity over claims of fire danger which are no more than with ANY car. It is definitely NOT a failed design as I called you on it the last time you brought it up.

          TROLL!

          • Gregg

            No, it was billed as a way to save them from bankruptcy not as a transition. The average income of Volt owners is $170K. They’re yuppie toys to make people feel good. Taxpayers actually pay  people $7500 each to buy them. And still nobody does. It’s not because they spontaneously combust and got a bad rap, it’s because it’s a bad design, a bad business model and a bad investment. 

    • Pete

      Given that Obama has been blaming everything that has gone wrong during his watch on Bush, it seems like poetic justice.

    • William

      Ohio has a Republican government that is pro-jobs so that state is on the right track.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Meaning $MILLIONS for CEOs, but minimum wage, or LESS for workers, that make the product, or provide the service?

        • William

          It’s up to the individual to determine their own worth. If they don’t be skills to the marketplace that matter, then natually, they will be paid less. It is like demanding a new unknown actor be paid the same as a big name, successful actor.

      • Gregg

        So is Wisconsin, Virginia, New Jersey and Indiana. I wonder what the common denominator is?

  • Terry Tree Tree

    Romney celebrates the continuation of the closing of a gypsum plant?  Closed during the ‘W’ Bush administration, to allow for the China gypsum drywall, that made people sick, and caused house deterioation?  Was the plant a victim of Bain Capital?

  • Mike in PA

    You take what you need…And you leave the rest…But they should never…Have taken the very best

    RIP LEVON!!!!!!!!  A true American treasure

  • Terry Tree Tree

    Oil companies WHINING about NOT monopolizing ALL the land with leases, are WHINING that they won’t have the Skilled Labor to drill the leases they have?

  • aj

    Half the shrimp caught in the Gulf have been eyeless following Deepwater Horizon oil spill. But its all good because our hideous media is taking millions of blood dollars to run an BP-sponsored public relations ad-campaign to tell you, “Nothing to see here”.

    P.S. The tons of chemical dispersant that Obama allowed to be dumped into the water is not decomposing like it is supposed to.

    • Brettearle

      Which independent marine watchdog groups, if any, are monitoring this prolonged crisis?

      • aj

        Not sure. I’m referencing a recent report on the effects of the 2Million gallons of Correxit dumped with Obama’s OK. Not only is it not degrading, but it penetrates human skin and prevents natural microbes from breaking down oil naturally.

        Today is the 2year anniversary of Deepwater Horizon disaster where 11 workers were killed due to Halliburton and BP’s inherently evil behavior.

        5Million barrels of oil were spilled, largest maritime oil spill in U.S. history. BP settled the largest class-action suit for $7.8Billion, but is allowed to continue to do business(as is Halliburton) in the on U.S. territory, instead of having their corporate charter revoked and in effect killing their so-called ‘corporate personhood’.

        P.S. Other crabs and fish have been reported having no claws and other deformities.

        • Brettearle

          Thanks…

    • Gregg

      Thank you President Obama for exempting BP from the National Environmental Policy Act. Obama was the biggest recipient of BP’s campaign donations. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence but it’s sad to think how easily this all could have been prevented.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Thank George ‘W’ Bush, for the intentionally LAX regulation, and oversight of the oil industry, that lead to the DISASTER?

        • Gregg

          Nope, Obama exempted them from oversite and even gave them an award. Money talks and Obama got plenty from BP. Face reality.

  • Terry Tree Tree

    MORE CEOs, that have POOR performance, DEMAND pay RAISES?

    • William

      Should we apply the same arguments against actors for taking huge payouts when their movies flop?

      • Anonymous

        Did actors ruin the economy? 

        • William

          No the government did.

          • Still Here

            As usual.

      • Patrik

        We can make an educated choice whether or not to go see such a bad movie.  Can’t control what a CEO does behind closed doors within a company.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        ‘Conservative’ mis-direction?  Actors, unless ALSO producer, DON’T make the decisions about the movie, that makes it a flop!
           ‘Conservative’ mis-direction, like Vatican IGNORING Child-RAPING , to chastise Nuns, for being compassionate?

        • William

          But if the movie fails why should an actor walk away with millions? It’s unfair to the people that paid to watch the movie and the shareholders of the movie companies. This is no different than overpaying a CEO of a failing company.

          • aj

            I agree, especially since the actresses in the minor roles who are just as much members in the Screen Actors Guild Union are vastly underpaid.

            It’s all about the “Stars.”

            Did Audrey Hepburn make $20Million for ‘Breakfast @ Tiffany’s?

          • aj

            Fine! No wants to talk to me, I’ll answer my own damn question!

            The answer is No! Not even close.

            And Holly Golightly changed the course of history as we know it. Now these overpaid clowns command $20Million for a flop.

            P.S. Screw you too!

          • Terry Tree Tree

            A CEO made the decision to pay the Star, and got how much for those decisions?

          • Still Here

            And Obama made a decision to let the SS hire tutes and got how much?

          • Terry Tree Tree

            You’re going to SILLY extremes?  Bye.

          • William

            And a board of directors hired and paid the CEO on expected outcomes. I hear this outcry on CEO pay, but actors are doing much better and are never held accountable.

      • Alan in NH

        Over time, and generally speaking, if an actor’s movies continually flop, the actor (or actress) tends to find less favor with movie investors, and major roles decrease. But the CEOs seem to keep going regardless of performance. To what audience do they answer?

      • Anonymous

        First off actors are paid for their work, they do not get payouts. They have contracts. So do the CEO’s but there is a difference. An actor will lose work if they make to many flops. It would seem that CEO’s  get away with failing and still are rewarded for it. Then they go on to doing it all over again.
        Unless they get caught doing something illegal.

        • aj

          Your argument is unconvincing. James Earl Jones was reported saying he’s suprised there is no Occupy Hollywood due to the unequal pay between so-called ‘stars’ and other Screen Actors Guild Union members in minor roles who are kept starving.

          The 1%, Washington D.C., Wall Street, the Media, AND Hollywood need to be taught a lesson. Any suggestions?

          • aj

            James Earl Jones was Darth Vader, in case you didn’t know who he was.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            David Prouse, when the mask was off!

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Wouldn’t that be a ‘shocker’, if James Earl Jones had been revealed, when the mask was removed?
               Luke ‘Barack Obama’, Skywalker?

          • aj

            I though he was Spok no?Different Galaxy maybe.

            Cheers Terry!

          • notafeminista

            Actually he was just Darth’s voice. 

          • Anonymous

            I know who James Earl Jones is.
            I’ve seen in him countless movies before Star Wars.
            However I don’t see how my argument is not convincing, this is about contracts. If CEO’s were not given these ludicrous contracts there would be no issue in this regard.
            As to the pay scale of say Jack Nicholson and an extra, well again this is an issue for the  Screen Actors Guild Union members to work on.
            I think the likes of Jack Nicholson is paid absurd amounts of money, but then again he’s Jack Nicholson.

          • notafeminista

            Dang…just makes ya crazy don’t it.

        • William

          A person that becomes a CEO usually has a long hisory of pretty good performance. We should just apply the same logic to actors when a movie flops and they are still walking away with millions. It’s not fair..that is what Obama is trying to remake America into “a fair economic outcome despite your own failings”. So, a bad movie, actors should be held accountable just like CEO’s.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        HUGE ATTEMPT AT MIS-DIRECTION!  The ‘CEOs’ of movies, are CEOs and Producers!  THEY make the decisions of whom to hire, and how much to pay them for the job!
           If the actor does the job they were hired for, they earned their pay, regardless of how the movie does at the boxoffice!
           How SILLY your comparision is!

    • Still Here

      Only in the public service do you always get pay raises indpendent of performance.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        SEVERAL CEOs have received BONE-USes, and pay raises, for POOR performance!
           Rick Waggoner, former CEO of GM, received $20 MILLION Dollar BONE-US, for BANKRUPTING GM!  In addition to his $28 MILLION in pay!
           Bankrupting the company that you are hired to LEAD, is GREAT PERFORMANCE?  Worth a BONE-US?

      • notafeminista

        Unfortunate there is no “applaud” feature.

  • Gregg

    The brilliant Ann Coulter has a great suggestion if one accepts Trayvon was stalked and murdered in cold blood. “If that were true, every black person in America should get a gun and join the National Rifle Association…” I agree. MLK Jr. was rejected when he tried to get a gun permit after threats because he was black.

    http://www.anncoulter.com/

    • Anonymous

      I didn’t know there was another Ann Coulter.  The brilliant one is never in the news.

      • Michiganjf

        He’s speaking relatively, from a personal perspective, perhaps?

        • notafeminista

          As are we all, no?

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Thanks for pointing this out!
         SOOO many revelations and comments possible!

    • Anonymous

      Ann Coulter and the word brilliant somehow do not seem to me to go together.

      Some of Coulter’ words of wisdom:
      October 2, 2007 she stated, “If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d
      never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s … a personal
      fantasy of mine … (because) women are voting so stupidly.”

      This one about Jews is a real humdinger: October 8, 2007, she commented, “It would be better if we were all
      Christians. (That’s why) we just want Jews to be perfected … ”

      Ann Coulter recently said, “Our blacks are so much better than their blacks,” and “we have very impressive blacks.”
      There are many more in this OPED piece link:

      http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2011/11/10/stupid-shit-ann-coulter/

      • Gregg

        Yadda yadda yadda, I love Ann coulter. Do you have a comment on the substance of her idea? Tell me why black victims should not be armed and stand their ground in the face of an oppressive racist country.

      • notafeminista

        Well…Canada had troops in Vietnam.  Combat troops per se? No.  But they did.  Granted, Wikepedia is only as accurate as it is.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_and_the_Vietnam_War

    • Alan in NH

      I’m eagerly looking forward to the gunfights in the produce isles, the government office corridors, the schoolyards, the malls. Bring it on. Let everyone’s hallucination of needing to stand one’s ground be backed by artillery. Life will certainly be more exciting. Where was your last shootout?

      • aj

        “Let everyone’s hallucination of needing to stand one’s ground be backed by artillery.”

        lol

      • Gregg

        The idea is if blacks are not safe in a white world then they should be arming themselves and lobbying for the law. Shouldn’t they? I mean, we have an epidemic of racist white guys, especially in the South, stalking the black youth. Don’t we?

        • Alan in NH

          I don’t think one-man vigilantes are the answer. So if Trayvon had had a gun, he could have stood his ground and shot Zimmerman, and that would have been better? I don’t see that stand your ground works either way. But perhaps decent police work does.

        • Anonymous

          I only heard about one.  You know about a lot more?

          • Gregg

            On point had an entire show lamenting it.

            Merlefest is next weekend. Friday is, John Cowen and Pat Simmons, Sam Bush, Flecktones and Los Lobos.

          • Anonymous

            Sounds like a helluva event.  Have a good time if you get there.

  • JGC

    Mr. Romney said he would “clean house” where it comes to the Secret Service scandal.  I suggest he scrub his own detail for possible infractions, and if necessary, replace them with a flying wedge of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

  • Gregg

    Here is Sarah Palin’s response to news a fired Secret Service supervisor posted pictures and comments on facebook saying he was checking her out when standing behind her:

    “Well, this agent who was kind of ridiculous there in posting pictures
    and comments about checking someone out,” Palin told Greta van Susteren
    on her FOX News program. “Well check this out, bodyguard — you’re fired.
    And I hope his wife sends him to the doghouse. As long as he’s not eating the dog, along with his former boss.
    Greta, you know, a lot of people will just, I guess say that this is
    boys being boys. And boys will be boys, but they shouldn’t be in
    positions of authority.”

    • Brettearle

      Palin’s `dig’ about Obama eating dog meat is typical of her primitive rhetoric.

      That comment is much more, over the top [so to speak], than any PETA/MSPCA PSAs about rooftop doghouses.

      Would any Democratic candidate for a national ticket, ever stoop as low as the “Blood Libel” ex-Governor?

      • Gregg

        I thought it was funny? Do you have any words for the professionalism of a Secret Service honcho?

      • notafeminista

        In droves.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

    I salute Dick Clark and his show the American Bandstand for race equality.

    • Gregg

      RIP. Between him and the recent passing of Don Cornilius a entire genre of TV is gone.

  • Terry Tree Tree

    President Obama’s War on Women continues!  President Obama will award the WINNINGEST NCAA coach, that has one of the HIGHEST graduation rates, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom!
       Keep SUBJECTING  women to such warfare, Sir!

  • Terry Tree Tree

    STUPID, was stopping the Space Shuttle Program, BEFORE the replacement system was operational!

    • Sam Walworth

       And our competitors (PRC) have cranked up the Space missions. Nice

  • Michiganjf

    President Obama doesn’t even need to engage with Romney about the assault on women’s right by Republicans…

    just keep reminding voters of all the misogynistic policies being pushed on America by Republicans the last few years… Romney’s smarmy, sycophantic pandering to any Republican he meets will do the rest, placing Romney in lock-step with the most vile side of Republicanism Americans have ever witnessed.

    Romney will be just another rat on a foundering Republican barge.

    • Brettearle

      You are much too overconfident about the way Romney will be perceived by the general electorate.

      • Michiganjf

        You mean because he’s been perceived so well up to this point???!!

        • Anonymous

          No, as a business guy who can deal with the economy, even though government is not a business.

          • Michiganjf

            You mean as a rich kid who’s family’s wealthy connections allowed him to stumble into someone else’s moneymaking schemes… yes, quite a bit of business expertise to sit back and watch the money you entrust to buddies make a killing for you.

        • Brettearle

          In your eyes, it seems to be all or nothing.

          Unfortunately, Romney hasn’t been demonized ENOUGH, in order for him to definitely lose the election.

          Indeed, tragically, he could win…..

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

    The first time I saw the Space Shuttle on top of a 747 was in the movie James Bond’s movie ” Moonraker”. the space shuttle was not operational yet.

    • Anonymous

      “He looks like he’s attempting reentry.”

  • Terry Tree Tree

    With MUCH proof of CRIMES by Newscorp, owners of Fox, and MUCH MORE indications of MORE CRIMES, and predatory practices, the Murdochs claim they are innocent?
        Hacking other news organizations’ computer codes and distributing them to encourage people to watch without paying?  Paying police officials to ignore CRIMES?
       Fair and Balanced?
       Honest?

    • William

      So when NBC edited the Zimmerman 9-11 call that was above the board or typical MSM performance?

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Mis-direction?
           I already answered this question before.
           I do NOT condone the editing of the 9-11 call.
           ‘Sound-biting’, to slant , or TOTALLY distort the original meaning, or statement, should be ILLEGAL!

  • Smaktcat

    bringing hookers to the hotel where the President will be staying in is just so stupid, too stupid to keep the job. Are prostitutes illegal there? if so I don’t really care, but only if they had taken them elsewhere.

    • Still Here

      Maybe screening tutes is another service the SS has to provide?

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Then, maybe NOT?  Speculation can be made about anything?

  • http://twitter.com/Dave_Eger Dave Eger

    I’d like to see where these SS agents get hired afterwards. It is possible that they were paid off by Republican/anti-federal/private-security-industry enthusiasts who are interested in making the way Obama runs the government look bad in order to decline his poll numbers compared to Mitt. If all these SS get hired by private security contractors associated with the political right, it could reveal that they sold out and the whole thing with the prostitutes was revealed on purpose.

    • Sam Walworth

       I doubt that sold out thing, because its like Cops arent doing the right thing and its Obama’s fault.

      Its simply too much blind pride (think that they can get away with anything because they are President’s Security Squad).

      • http://twitter.com/Dave_Eger Dave Eger

        Blind arrogance is most probable, but I don’t think other possibilities should be ruled out, especially on a matter so sensitive.

  • Michiganjf

    The Secret Service scandal reflects the culture introduced into the security services world by Blackwater and their ilk… untouchable and able to do whatever the hell they want.

    • Michiganjf

      Thank Cheney/Bush for that one!

    • Brettearle

      But the screening process, for Secret Service Agents, is likely more thorough and sophisticated than such procedures in private security agencies.

    • Pasqualecap

       I just viewed a photograph of secret service agents at a strip club. One of them had a mohawk with the thin chin goatee, which is a favorite amongst blackwater mercenaries.  These are all deficient human beings who seek power and prestige, only obtainable to their particular strata via a government provided paychecks and firearms.

      • notafeminista

        Where might I find this photo? 

    • Gregg

      Why didn’t heads roll after the Salahis crashed the party? The secret Service is questioning Ted Nugent, why not Farakan whose comments were far more direct and incendiary? 

      Certain things are tolerated.

      • notafeminista

        Not only tolerated, but embraced.

  • http://twitter.com/Dave_Eger Dave Eger

    WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?

    • Gregg

      We do.

  • Pasqualecap

    What’s the big surprise with the Secret Service ??    Call it a diplomatic mission, a military incursion, occupation, whatever… the anglo-saxon concept of foreign relations at its core has always been a rape and pillage mentality, fueled by an undeserved arrogant superiority complex.

    • Brettearle

      C’mon.

      That’s a radical, distorted `sound’  byte.

      Foreign Relations may not be want it to be, but your perception is grossly slanted. 

      • Pasqualecap

         Its no coincidence that the British refined piracy and diplomacy.  Diplomacy is a nicer form of piracy.   When it comes to American or British pirateers or diplomats… its all about the “booty”.   Arrrrrrrrrghhhhh.

  • Michiganjf

    “Nutty guy…”

    …is that the new euphemism for IDIOT??!

    • Anonymous

      That’s it on the Motor City Madman?

  • http://www.facebook.com/dreamingmatthew Matthew Stephenson

    The problem with the Secret Service is not a question of whether or not prostitution is a bad thing. Its a question of how supposed security professionals could be so irresponsible and threaten security. If it were one or two agents, then you could write it off. But when it was a couple of dozen that speaks to a culture that is starting to not take its job as seriously as it should.

    • Brettearle

      What Institution isn’t dysfunctional, these days?

      Problem is, the Secret Service needs to be the standard bearer for effectiveness.

      Obama’s gonna take a hit for this. 

      Unfairly and unfortunately.

      • notafeminista

        Why is it unfair?  As I recall, the buck stops with the President, no?

    • Still Here

      Maybe it was part of their official duties?

      • Anonymous

        Maybe their political persuasion is such that they wanted to embarrass the President.

        • Still Here

          And risk getting fired?  I’d bet it’s part of their job to provide service workers for WH junkets.

  • Christine James

    Re: the Secret Service in Colombia…Reporting
    on President Obama’s visit to Colombia for the Summit of the Americas made it
    seem as though the most shocking news was about the Secret Service. But the
    real scandal in Colombia is that ongoing war has created the largest internally
    displaced population in the world—an estimated 5.2 million Colombians have been
    left homeless after fleeing from violence. Last year alone at least 118,000
    people were newly displaced.And President Obama didn’t even mention it.

    What
    else have media outlets missed about our government’s support of Colombia? Over the
    past decade, the US government has promoted harmful trade policies, supported a
    toxic aerial spraying program, and given approximately $8 billion from
    taxpayers in mostly military aid to the Colombian government, whose armed
    forces have the worst human rights record in our hemisphere. 

    Yet the greatest shocker of all is that Pres. Obama gave the green light for the US-Colombia FTA despite compelling evidence from labor and human rights groups that the promises of the Labor Action Plan have not been fulfilled.  How could the president say that everything is fine when union leaders and land rights activists continue to be assassinated, organizing is still suppressed, paramilitary groups spread terror in rural areas, and justice is still out of reach for most human rights cases? 

    What will it take for these scandals to get the coverage they deserve?

    Ana Zambrano, Director, and Christine James, member, Colombia Vive http://www.colombiavive.org/

    Colombia Vive is a Boston-based all-volunteer non-profit
    working to create awareness in the United States
    of the struggle for fundamental human rights in Colombia and to support Colombians
    working non-violently for positive change. 

  • Drew You Too

    The Secret Service “Scandal” is nothing more than the next whipping post. Ted Nugent says “They’re Criminals” in reference to the current Administration. He’s calling for Metaphorical be-headings. Where was his outrage from 2000 – 2010? You’re putting yourself in a Stranglehold Mr. Nugent. Making yourself a Target unnecessarily is NOT acting like a true Patriot, it’s acting like yet another Talking Head.

    • Still Here

      Target for what?  Are you saying the administration would want to get him for his comments because he is so right?

      • Drew You Too

        I’m saying that if you want to affect change you take action. Climbing a Bully Pulpit and making inflammatory statements is not Patriotism. As for the Administration wanting “to get him for his comments because he is so right”: The Administration is handling him with Kids gloves. If he (Nugent) had addressed those same remarks to Cheney and Bush while in office, how would that Administration have reacted?

    • Anonymous

      Nugent’s comments are those of a self-promoting punk looking for publicity that appeals to his doltish fans.

  • Eileen

    Don’t forget to mention Fenway is 100 today!

  • Pasqualecap

    After the Tet Offensive in Vietnam,  the US still didn’t see the writing on the wall.  With powerful defense,oil and Israel lobbies,  the US will again learn the hard way.

    • Drew You Too

      We’ll do it the hard way but we won’t learn a damn thing. THAT’S the American Way.

  • TomK in Boston

    The current version of the GoP are really great class warriors. The latest is “Screw you and use the results to argue for screwing you more.”

    Check this out. Voodoo econ class warfare has done a brilliant job at redistributing income to the top. So, what’s the spin? “The 1% are paying most of the income tax!” Well, DUH, they have all the income! They have grabbed all the wealth and the righties uses that to make them look virtuous! Amazing! Of course, you never, ever mention how much of the income they have and that as a result their tax RATE is lowest since 1929.

    Now part 2 of this attack is in play. Since the poor and lower middle have less income due to righty class warfare, that. It’s brilliant. Take away their income so the rich get richer, then complain that the people you screwed aren’t paying enough income tax, and propose to tax them more.

    See? The rich get more, so they pay more as they should, and the argument is that their taxes should be cut. The poor get less, they pay less, so the TeaOP says their taxes should increase. 

     I am in awe of their propaganda skills. 

    • William

      But it was Obama and the MSM that keeps saying “the rich don’t pay their fair share” when the IRS said “yes they do”. Does this not pit one group of Americans against another? Is this not exactly the opposite of what Obama said he was all about in 08?

      • Terry Tree Tree

        If the rich get 80% of the money, THEY should pay 90% of the taxes, because the 99% want to survive?

        • TomK in Boston

          It’s just smoke to talk about anything but the tax RATE. The bush 15% rate on qualified dividends and long term cap gains has resulted in the super rich paying approximately 15%. That’s the lowest since 1929. The USA is rich white boy paradise.

          The Etcha-types claim everything as a qualified dividend. If Etcha stole the $ out of a homeless person’s cup, which would be acceptable moral behavior in the “private equity” area, he’d claim it was a dividend.

          • notafeminista

            You’ll need to point out where in the tenets of capitalism or laissez-faire free market economics that theft is advocated and promoted.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            ‘Kenny-boy’ Lay was lauded by his buddy ‘W’, wasn’t he?
               The fraudulent-financial-instrument-creating banksters got BONE-USes, for their deceptions, and NO prison?
               SEVERAL examples MORE!!

          • notafeminista

            You obviously didn’t understand the question.  Go back and read it again.

        • notafeminista

          Then the 99% need to re-think their household budget.

        • William

          The term “99 percent” is a rather demeaning name to give hard working Americans. I’m curious which member of the Obama team dreamed that up.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Obviously, it WASN’T one of the 1% of GREEDY rich, that hate the U.S., so much that they will destroy it, for their own wealth and power accumulation?

      • Still Here

        Simple class warfare.  He never says that 50% don’t pay anything and that the top 10% pay 90%.  He just says fair because everyone hates paying taxes that are wasted by the government.

        • Anonymous

          Why does 50% not paying federal income taxes bother you?  Is it because it’s not fair?

          • notafeminista

            No, because it’s theft.  They take services and don’t pay for them.

            Gosh, if I tried that at the grocery store, I’d be arrested.

          • Anonymous

            So in your view one should only get a quantity of government services that does not exceed what they paid in federal income taxes.   What department would you assign to keeping that ledger?

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Inquisative minds want to know!

          • notafeminista

            I wouldn’t.  It would cost too much.  In fact, I’d stop worrying altogether about how much money my neighbor has and what he spends it on.  None of my business.

      • TomK in Boston

        Same script again!  The rich pay more because their income is skyrocketing because of class warfare, but their RATE is the lowest since 1929! It’s bizarre than anyone who claims to be concerned about the deficit would like that.
        Anyone who talks about how much tax the rich pay without mentioning how much of the income they are taking has either been conned or is trying to con you.

        OH, those rich folks are bearing a hard burden. They keep getting more of the total income, and it’s sooo hard that it leads to more taxes, even though they pay a lower RATE than I do. Boo hoo. I remember Etcha saying that life was HARD for a guy with $100 mil in his IRA, he has to pay taxes when he takes the money out.

        Tell me, William, if we reached the point that 100 Romney types had ALL the income, would you consider that the system was really, really fair because they paid all the income taxes?

        • William

          But it seems odd that a President runs on uniting a nation, but is working very hard at dividing it.

          • TomK in Boston

            Interesting, with tax rates at the top lowest since 1929 and a big deficit, you consider the suggestion of raising them “dividing the nation”.  Did you ever consider how much that looks like being conned?

          • Terry Tree Tree

            ‘W’ DID a heckuva job at that, didn’t he?  His admin.’s DAMAGE will endure for generations!
               Thanks for pointing that out!

          • notafeminista

            “‘W’” isn’t president anymore.

        • notafeminista

          ….seems like there’s a saying…
          Something about not knowing a man til you’ve walked a mile in his shoes…why do you assume people with more money than you have it easier than you do?  You think they don’t experience heartbreak, illness, pain, abuse or disappointment?

          What happened to money doesn’t buy happiness?  What’s really insidious about this is that you think someone else’s money will make you happy. 

          Bless your heart.

          • TomK in Boston

            Another righty obsessed with envy. Standard tactic to avoid discussing how we pay for a developed society with the 1% getting 20% of the income and paying 15% tax rate.

            It’s so typical and sad, and wrong, you assume I want someone else’s $ because I want the middle class society I grew up in for my children. FYI I’m quite well off, and I’m not asking for someone else’s money to make me happy. What will make me happy is the gvt leaving people like me with less money, and spending more on everything you people want to cut.

            ps before you recite talking point #102, no, the solution is not for me to write a check. The USA is not a bake sale.

          • notafeminista

            So close and yet so far.  You are right.  The US is NOT a bake sale and the only way the government “makes” money is to take it from you and I.  If you want the middle class society for your kids that you had growing up, then teach them the same values instead of the values (?) the OWS’ers (and you know darn well what I mean) have been brought up with.  Life IS a competition and NOT everyone wins or even gets a blue ribbon. 

          • TomK in Boston

            Of course life is a competition, for most of us. What you don’t want to hear is that the same amount of hard work by an ordinary Joe or Jane produces different results in the society we once had vs a Ryan hunger games society.

            Life isn’t much of a competition for the likes of my ‘ol buddy W, who ended up wealthy and POTUS based on a career of drunk partying…and family connections.”What happened to money doesn’t buy happiness? “ Good question, nota. I wonder why you don’t apply it to the Romney types who have $100 mil IRAs and complain about the tax bite when they withdraw the $, even tho they’re paying some of the lowest rates since 1929. The “private equity” con gamers don’t seem to agree with you. No matter how much they have, they want more. 

            Another $10 mil absolutely won’t affect Etcha’s happiness. Now how about an average citizen facing one of our predatory health ins corporations with a Ryan Groupon in hand?  In that case I bet another $10,000 could have a huge effect on happiness.

            Money above basic needs is one thing, but money needed to provide basic life essentials is quite another matter.

            I expect medieval Lords lectured the peons about money not buying happiness. 

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Poor WHINING rich folk?  The GREEDY rich have WORSE problems than those that have low-paying jobs?
                Simple solution for those SUFFERING  GREEDY rich!
               End ALL their pitiful tribulations!
               Give up the money, and come live where life is Utopia!
               WHY punish yourselves in such torment, when Heaven on Earth is SO near?

    • Anonymous

      The typical fallacious argument used by class warfare liberals is that there is a bucket of money somewhere, and whoever got there first and “grabbed all the wealth” left less for others.  I’ve never heard a liberal explain why if someone works hard and earns more, then that effort has caused someone else to earn less.  The most determinative factors in the amount of income earned are intelligence, education, skill, chosen field, and work ethic.

      • TomK in Boston

        “Someone works hard?” Did you mean, someone comes from a privileged family?

        I’m talking about the tax rates. If we don’t collect enough from the top, the society will not provide the opportunities we used to have for everyone to move up, such as great public education. That causes “someone else to earn less”. Get it? It’s really not complicated.We had strong progressive taxation and a great middle class society, you guys took over in 1980 and have cut taxes at the top to the lowest rates since 1929, and the middle class has been devastated. I’ve never heard a righty explain why we shouldn’t change course back to what worked.

        • Anonymous

          Did I mean “someone works hard” who comes from a privileged family?  No, I meant anyone who works hard.  Your diatribe mentioned “grabbed all the wealth,” and “how much of the income they have” as if their earnings are the problem.  No one took away someone else’s income so the rich could get richer, as you stated.
          The amount that the US spends on education has skyrocketed, and is more than any other country in the world except one.  Federal spending as a percentage of GDP has increased more than fourfold, and total welfare spending has nearly tripled.  If spending more money would solve the problem, the problem would be solved.
          I’d welcome the tax rates of the 1990s, provided that we also revert to the spending rates of the 1990s.

          • TomK in Boston

            Your talking point expressed the view that those who are rich got that way by hard work. That’s a lie. Some did, some did not, and some worked but had their path greased by privilege. An untalented partying white boy from a “good family” is more likely to succeed than a genius from a slum, and that’s becoming more true as we continue to follow the economics you like.

            You are obsessed with envy. None of this has anything to do with taking something away from the successful. It’s obscene that you would even state it that way, since the rich have more of the income now than at any time since 1929 and are paying the lowest tax rate. I don’t think they need your protection. 

            The question is, how are we going to support our society? We can’t tax the Romneys at 15% and have great public education, clean air and water, safe food, basic science, roads, safe streets, a safety net,etc….especially while running  counterproductive wars and a huge military.

            The poor CANNOT move up in a busted society, so, sorry, not taxing the Romneys at a normal historical rate is hurting the poor, just as if Etcha’s $ came out of their pockets..

            It’s funny, I started by criticizing the  evil righty script about how the proper reaction to the rich having all the income is to pity them for having to pay tax, and the proper reaction to the poor being busted by class warfare is to have them pay more tax, and you just repeated the script.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            AMAZING how much SSN AGREES with you?

          • denis

            are you willing tp say per capita spending?

      • Terry Tree Tree

        WHICH Republican-backed programs, and institutions, are the ‘conservatives’ proposing MAJOR cuts to?
           Aren’t there ANY Republican-backed programs or institutions, that have outlived their usefulness, have waste, fraud, abuse, or just cost too much?
           WHY don’t they PROVE they are ‘conservative’?

    • notafeminista

      No one has my income.  Nor is anyone preventing me from having more income. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/dreamingmatthew Matthew Stephenson

    Our soldiers are supposed to act like warriors not thugs. Its true that this has happened in all wars, but we are in the age of you tube and when  thuggishness occurs, it goes viral. In a battle for hearts and minds, this is unacceptable.

  • http://twitter.com/Dave_Eger Dave Eger

    The poll numbers are so close, it’s almost like they’re just being made up to keep everyone confused, or at least simply reflecting how confused the public is by being constantly bombarded by random information.

    • Still Here

      I’m sure you can cut through it and see it the way you want.

  • Scott B, NY

    Romney’s speech at the gypsum plant is typical of the Republican game. Things done under Bush’s watch, and followed Obama into office, like the $230 Billion surplus turning into over $1 Trillion in debt, are somehow Obama’s fault.  

    • Anonymous

      Yet they still blame Clinton for 9/11.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        ‘W’ campaigned that he would make us SAFER!
           Feel safer 10 Sept. 2001, than in 2000?

        • Terry Tree Tree

          Did YOU feel safer in 2008, after ‘W’ had been office 8 years, and had been chasing bin Laden, for over 7?   AFTER his campaign promise to make us safer!

      • Sam Walworth

        Clinton had chased Bin Laden into his cave during his presidency and had almost got him (dead).

        His only mistake against Bin Laden was, when the US Navy wanted to fire missiles on Bin Laden’s location, they sought permission for Pakistan Air Space as the missiles would have been flying through Pak airspace and the moles in Pakistan Defense alerted him and he escaped.

        Thank goodness, Obama didnt seek approval of Pakistan when the Navy Seals went out.

  • Jim_in_Fort_Mill_SC

    Tom:

    Ijust do not see how the GOP and most of the base who worships President Ronald Reagan will vote for the only candidate in the GOP who said he didn’t vote for Reagan, as Romney said when debating Ted Kennedy in 1994.  Seems unrealistic to me.  Especially when it has been President Obama who has been saying kind things about President Reagan.  I say One More for the Gipper…Vote Obamam 2012!

    Jim Thompson
    Fort Mill,SC

    • Gregg

       I’m sure Obama voted for Reagan twice.

  • Scott B, NY

    Obama needs to emphasize that the Republicans put making him a one-term president over economic recovery and fairness.

    • notafeminista

      Seems like the Democrats don’t need any help.  It is accepted that the majority of the participants on this forum will find this source suspect on its face.

      http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2873911/posts

      • Gregg

        That is an amazing photo Notafeminista. The lack of leadership is even more breathtaking than the lack of outrage. 

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Greg-Chrzan/100000813760174 Greg Chrzan

        When they held meetings to cut the deficit, it was the republicans that kept walking out of meetings. I wonder what the free republic spin was on that, it they even reported it at all. And dont forget about the Iraq war being totally left out of the budget under Bush. Outrageous? Depends if your a righty or not.

        • notafeminista

          Might have been Greg C.  Got a pic to go with?

        • notafeminista

          One has to ATTEND a meeting in order to walk out of said meeting.  And really?  You’re going to say “well the Republicans did it, so the Democrats can do it?”

          I thought you guys were supposed to be better than Republicans.

          • Zero

            How many times have republicans filibustered the last three years?  Is that not in effect the same thing?

          • Gregg

            No, it’s not at all the same thing. The Constitution requires a budget. I don’t think there is a precedent for this. The President is not serious as evidence by the ridiculous budgets he has put forth. Zero vote from either party. It’s a total lack of leadership and the consequences are devastating. Democrats have been whining for years about wars off-budget (a lie) but EVERYTHING is off-budget under Obama. No problem.

            Why would you excuse this?

        • Zero

          Don’t you remember the republicans defense…”Deficits don’t matter.”

  • http://twitter.com/pmnphxaz Peter Newton

    We often blame external factors for economic woes: why are we not blaming Congress? 2 years ago “I Object” started the end of unemployment benefits. 1 year ago we had a near government shutdown. 9 months ago, we had a crippling debt limit increase debate. At the same time, the FAA bill was not reauthorized and tens of thousands lost their jobs at airport construction projects. The highway is STILL on hold. And the Tea Party wants another shut down this summer. So, where is the uncertainty coming from? Congress! This is a battle of who are you for? Those that control the market because of their control of capital? or for the rest of us, the serfs that make the country go. But, NPR is a part of the 1%, so let’s talk about something else.

    • Gregg

      They can’t even meet the Constitutional requirement of passing a budget.

  • Marc Prufer

    Pinning this economy on Obama is like pinning 911 on GW Bush. My question is what have the tea party republicans in the House of Representatives done to create jobs since 2010?  have they passed one bill to law?

    • Anonymous

      Bush’s negligence was responsible for 9/11.

      • Anonymous

        I’m no fan of GW Bush, however the negligence was system wide. It was in the FBI, the CIA, and the entire US security apparatus that ban be laid on President Clinton just as much as President Bush.  I do see GW Bush as an incompetent President who was prone to cronyism (FEMA) but the 9/11 attack was on everyone’s hands.

        Now we have gone in the opposite direction, we have an out of control TSA and every citizen is now a suspect.

        • http://twitter.com/Dave_Eger Dave Eger

          In looking for a motive to a crime, especially a complex one, it is important to ask “cui bono?”

      • Alan in NH

        Easy, Ahmed. Before there was Israel to kick around, you guys couldn’t get along anyway. I’m not going to make excuses for Israel’s right-wing nationalist ambitions regarding settlements and persecutions but the peace-loving Arab nations did quite little to help Palestinians before 1967 when they were in Jordan and elsewhere throughout the Middle East.

  • http://twitter.com/Dave_Eger Dave Eger

    The $47 billion the Buffet Rule would have raised is completely insignificant. $15,000 for each US citizen is like nothing at all. 

    • Gregg

      Were they going to send out checks?

      • Still Here

        Obama apparently spend mine in Columbia.

  • Terry Tree Tree

    GSA director acting like a CEO?

    • notafeminista

      I never saw or heard any story of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sam Walton or Fred Smith behaving this way.  Have you?

      • Alan in NH

        Steve Jobs and Apple did all their bad behaving offshore in the sweatshop factories of Asia.

        • notafeminista

          Nice try.

      • Zero

        I like how you leave out Warren Buffet. 

  • Terry Tree Tree

    Remember the ‘conservatives’ in Congress, that ‘saved’ $12 Million, by LOSING $44 MILLION in taxes?
       THAT’S saving money?  ‘Conservative’?

    • Anonymous

      Don’t forget that the same conservatives who think cutting $300M in funding to NPR and Planned Parenthood is being fiscally conservative, but bringing in $44B in additional tax revenue is just a gimmick.  

      • William

        Actually, I think it was cutting over 400 million from NPR and that is 4 billion over the next ten years, which is a good deal of money.

        • Patriot1

          They should also cut the Armed forces network that broadcasts propaganda like Rush Limjbaugh and Hannity. That would save some money if not a whole lot of brain cells.

          • William

            NPR has to learn to get off the taxpayer dime.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Churches need to pay taxes on ALL property!  Churches need to pay taxes on ALL income!
               Churches RIDDLED with HYPOCRICY, and CHILD-RAPERS, are churches?

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

        Or wasting TRILLIONS on endless wars.  Thank the conservatives and George Bush.

  • Tncanoeguy

    Catholic leadership are dinosaurs.  

  • W Bradford

    2 points.    ‘Job Ceators” – Didnt Mr Bush push over a trillion dollers to these people just a short time ago.  What did we get..  Hundreds of thousands of jobs lost the first days of Obama’s admin.   Second.. a philosopher wrote that thos of us who forget our history are condemned to repeat it.     News is not only a daily cycle.. it is also important for are learned talking heads to bring up to the people the problems Obama has faced and where they came from over time.  Not just what Romney is promising today.

    • Patriot1

      You forgot to mention millions of jobs lost during the last days of the Bush Administration

  • Ahmed

    I.A.E.A. chief praises Iran as a peace seeking country
    http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2012/02/11/iaea-chief-praises-iran-as-a-peace-seeking-country.html

    It’s Zionist terrorist state of Israel (that steals land from the Palestinians and persecutes Palestinians as well) that is the real threat to peace in the Middle East, not Iran which has not invaded another country in over 200 years.

    • aj

      Truthful statements like yours, are not appreciated here on this forum. Good day sir!

  • Still Here
    • Gregg

       Wow.

  • TomK in Boston

    A good development this week was that someone finally called the sunday TV talk shows out on their righty bias. The corporate media are a disaster! I used to enjoy those shows but I’ve almost stopped watching after endless recycling of righty pols and pundits with only the occasional liberal. Gawd, Ryan and Bachmann are never NOT on – and if there’s a remake of The Wizard of Oz, I can think of a great role for her. Now it’s all spelled out: “If it’s sunday, meet the republican white men”
    http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Sunday-talk-shows-02.png

    • aj

      The congresswoman does kind of look like one of those flying monkeys. ;)

      How much did those monkeys get paid? Probably peanuts. And Miss Judy Garland got 1/100th of what these overpaid hacktresses get these days for ‘starring’ in a flop. Not one of them could hold a candle to Judy Garland. Helen Mirren notwithstanding,Luv her.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

    iOnePoint:

    Modavation is block (i think).

    • aj

      Speak English. ENGLISH!!

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

        Bakit nahihirapan ka sa ingles ko? kapag hindi mo maitindihan huwag mo basihin tanga!!!!

        • aj

          I thought they spoke Puerto Rican in the Phillipines. Because of Magellan and all?

          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

            The Filipino Moros killed Magellan sorry.

          • aj

            LOLL

            He had it coming. Hell of a Mariner though.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            If I am correct, they speak more than a few languages in the Phillipines!

          • aj

            Rarely are you incorrect,my opinion.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            I’m sure we disagree, from time to time.  I know of FEW people that ALWAYS agree with someone else.
               I respect that others have a different opinion.
               I love to learn, from honest arguement, and am able to admit when I am wrong.
               Thanks for the kind words!

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

        hey you don’t have to insult me if I forgot (ed).

        • aj

          Happy 4/20 FAX68! I got nothing but luv for ya man. Especially on 4/20. Peace

          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

             get some blunt and hindu kush and spak it up!!!!

          • aj

            Now your talking!

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

        wo bu xihuan ni

        • aj

          What did you just call me?

          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

            I don’t know what i type my co-worker typed if for me

          • Gregg

            He said, “I don’t like you” in Madarin Chinese.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Chill, please.  English is NOT FAX68′s first language, but he is infinitely MORE understandable, than Moda, and others, that claim English as their mother tongue, and claim a college education!

        • aj

          lol. Well said TTT.

    • aj

      If Modavation is blocked, we need to protest that. Free Speech! How do you know?

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

        Free speech is the last thing leftists will allow….

        • Terry Tree Tree

          Glad to know that aj, I, and others that Moda has repeatedly lambasted as being leftists, are NOT, according to you!

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

            I am considered a leftist on some things, a right winger on others. To me…people who know the issues, and have a brain, and are not encumbered with party line dogma, will have a wide range of opinions on all issues. It is only the simple minded (left or right), the brainwashed (as in the religious), who are monolithic in their thinking. Life is mostly shades of grey, seldom black and white. IMHO

            PS – aj is just high most of the time.

          • aj

            A ha, don’t front.U liked my song of the day. Pass the Dutchie,1982. Billboard#10 in the states, #1 in the U.K.

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

            Dont think so…I like the one with Madonna…my kind of gal, knows how to treat a man.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            LOL,LOL!!

               I, too, have some views that are ‘Left’, and ‘Right’.  I’m up for honest discussion, NOT ‘party’ propaganda! 

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

            Exactly, and thanks.

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Greg-Chrzan/100000813760174 Greg Chrzan

          Or right wing fascists for that matter

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

            True…both extremes are equally dangerous.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Freedom of Speech, for one that makes such wild, vulgar,repulsive, disgusting, vile, drastic accusations and hallucinations, is difficult.
           As a VICTIM of his repulsive fantasies, I guess I must still advocate for his free speech.

        • Terry Tree Tree

          I was hoping that he finally realized how loathsomely hurtful his lies and dis-information was, and had resigned from commenting?

  • aj

    Today is 4/20. Unofficially the day where you stop off at the head shop on your way to work. Sit down at your desk and roll a spliff. When your boss says, “what the hell are you doing?”

    You look her dead in the eye, and say, “This one’s for Marley.”

    Then you lite that shit up, and ‘pass the dutchie on the left hand side.’

    P.S. It’s also the 13th anniversary of Columbine. 13 dead plus the 2 shooters

    P.S.S. It’s also the 2nd anniversary of Deepwater Horizon. 11 dead

    I dedicate this one for the still breathing though, we alive for the briefest of moments…trust me, I know.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUH1XmFb05Y

    • Anonymous

      And George Takei’s 75th birthday. 

  • aj

    This just in, Newt Gingrich is going to win New York’s primary.

    I’m still voting for my man Ron Paul next Tuesday. A true statesman, Dr. Paul will unilaterally overturn the Prohibition of Cannabis on day 1!

  • aj

    Shoot, I forgot New York is a closed primary. Last time I voted was in the 2010 governor race. I voted for the, “Rent is too Damn High! Party” candidate.

    • aj

      Does anyone know when and where the “Rent Is Too Damn High! Party” convention will be held?

      • Gregg

        They couldn’t find a venue, the rent was too damn high.

        • aj

          Rimshot, Crash! (laughter)

          Touche’ G-unit.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

        At Trump Tower.

  • aj

    America, your choices are Obama(who eats dogs) or Romney(who eats people).

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

      It is unfair to make comments about Obama eating dogs, when he was just a kid in another culture when that happened.

      • notafeminista

        Especially since there’s a good chance it might not be true.

        • Gregg

          I don’t know, it sure is teed up nicely. It’s in his book, and there is a spoken version in his voice. It’s kind of hard to imagine Obama would lie about himself… or not.

          Bottom line: Insignificant but funny. And it makes the Romney dog issue go away. Everybody’s worried about the dogs.

          • aj

            What did Mitt say to the first group of black folks he met on the campaign trail?

            “Who let the dogs out?!”

            Classy chap,that mitt.

      • ulTRAX

        Don’t forget, the Right isn’t appealing to Libs or independents with such nonsense… they are appealing to their base which, like 3ed graders in the school yard, are just looking for some way to zing the other side. It’s as childish as when they bastardized what Kerry said about being for one version of a bill and not another to accuse him of flip-flopping, but they’ll ignore are the REAL flip flopping their people do. The GOP has no monopoly on such childishness.

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

          Spot on observation for sure.

  • Dee

    To Jack Beatty, ” O ye, of little faith”

    I realize your concern about Obama’s reelection bid and what
    a cruel role the economy will play in this. Still, I feel you are losing sight of how the president can take his record of job growth to the American people despite the high an lows in the Job recovery and the disastrous job market of 8 million job losses he inherited when he came into office in 2008. 

    Plus, the lockstep opposition from Republicans in the House
    and Senate to bail out struggling American workers and home owners–than millionaires and Billionaires who didn’t need it.

    (Amy Stoddard from the The Hill and Yochi Dreazen from the National Journal have suggested that Obama take this approach
    also to the voters who elected him in 2008.  This makes ulti-mate sense to me and it doesn’t place the president in an angry  position but simply noting the added difficulty he has encount-
    ered. ) 

    Nonetheless, I am confident that the economy will continue
    to show consumer confidence as I noted last week. (This was
    report was in the news the earlier part of this week, also. ) 

    I know I continue to renovate and purchase various items as my neighbors are doing (Thus increasing demand for supplies
    & service as Dan Gross from Yahoo noted on Here & Now last
    week. http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2012/04/05/beauty-salons-economy ) 

    In addition, let’s not forger the whole back to school needs
    and the growth it spurs in the economy…Not to mention ,
    the foliage season and the gearing up for winter again…

    Thus, I think there is a lot there that is seasonal in the Fall
    months the Obama team can count–after perhaps a low in
    the summer months. Dee

    • aj

      Addressing your Friday comments to Mr Beatty is cute, and had he any class, he would reply in kind. Instead the honor is mine, in a sort of carpe diem kind of way.

      I’m less bullish on the Obama economy than perhaps you are.But I don’t think any president can do much about it,certainly not mitt.

      My opinion, the U.S. dealt itself a fatal blow on November 4 1980 when it rejected Carter. And the last 31 years have been nothing more than inertia. Sort of like the Towers after the planes hit but before they collapsed. 

      I dunno..am I too pessimistic? aj
       

      • JonS

        You can’t be serious when you talk of Jimmy Carter. If so, you must miss the days of economic malaise, 12.5% inflation and 18.25% home mortgage interest rates (it’s what I paid for my first home thanks to JC). He was without a doubt the worst president of my lifetime. Until Obama…

    • JonS

      Dee,
      you make very good points. Jack Beatty forgets that Obama’s coalition of the hopelessly stupid, uneducated, ill-educated, the 48% non-income tax payers, unions, AFSCME members, government handout recipients, green energy company parasites, etc are all part of his faithful base and growing in numbers under his administration and determined to vote (so long as they live in states with no voter ID law) for Obama so the good times continue to roll. For people like you Hope (and Change) springs eternal . 

      • aj

        Sir, I don’t appreciate your tone, particularly in the last sentence. That said. 

        Inflation during the Carter years was driven by the high price of oil.This crisis adversely affected not just the US but Europe, Japan, Brazil,etc.

        The price of oil reached a tipping point in 1980.A phenomenon known as “the oil glut.”Supply had built up so excessively due to a lack of demand,that the price of oil would plunge throughout the 1980′s.These hard economic facts had nothing to do with Reagan taking the oath of office in January 1981.

        The only lever to the high inflation and high mortgage rates that you look back on now nostalgically,with which the White House could directly effect, was the appointment of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

        Paul Volker was upfront about his crusade on inflation, and how it’s impact would not be politically beneficial during the 1980 presidential campaign. Knowing full well hard working citizens like you would be agitated by high mortgage rates and could opt to take your frustration out inside the voting booth. Carter appointed him anyways.

        President Carter had faith in his fellow Americans,who had been through tough times before, and would no doubt rally once again and sacrifice for the good of the Nation, as they had many times prior.

        But on November 4 1980, Americans changed their tune, and opted for a more egocentric vision. Ultimately, I maintain, a self-delusional one. What was that about some, “Shining City on a Hill” thing? If that is not a utopian pipe dream, I don’t know what is.

        Allow me to borrow a phrase of yours, I guess “For twits like you, Hope (and Change) springs eternal.”

        P.S. Reagan wasn’t half the man that Jimmy Carter was and is…

        • JonS

          Sorry, but Carter’s presidency was awful. He had 4 years to turn things around and failed. Uncontrolled inflation , profligate spending and weakness  at home and overseas marked his presidency.  The Iran hostage crisis didn’t just happen out of thin air. Neither did 10.5% unemployment , 12.5% inflation and 18.25% interest rates. Nice guy but way over his head. 

          • Zero

            If we would have stuck with Carter’s energy policy, America would be in much better shape today. 

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

            More nonsense from you. Your facts and assumptions are all wet.

        • aj

          Sir, I’ve found a mistake in your statistic regarding unemployment rates under Carter. Please explain the discrepancy between my factual unemployment numbers, and your fictitious ones…


             -Carter took office with the unemployment rate at 7.7%.                 
             -7.8% was the highest rate under Carter.It was that high for 1 month!   -In his term he had it below 6%.


             -Reagan took office with the unemployment rate at 7.5%.
             -10.5% was the highest rate under Reagan. It was that high for 6 months!
             -In his first term he never had it below 7.2%.

          Those rates for Reagan’s first term look pretty “awful”, No? To borrow a phrase from you, ” he had 4 years to turn things around and failed “… atleast when compared to Carter’s 4 years. What happened?

          I will reply to the -false- charges of ‘profligate spending’ and the hostage crisis only after you have explained your faulty numbers regarding unemployment, with due respect.
           

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

        What crap. I belong to none of the so called groups you mention. What crap.  I voted for Mr. O before, and will again with pride. Another AMNESIAC I see.  How sad.

  • Dee

    Keystone pipeline and the scumbags in the Republican HSE 

    Making the signing of the Jobs’ Bill conditional on accepting
    the Keystone Pipeline. President Obama should refuse to
    sign at this stage…It is political blackmail and it won’t de-
    liver the kind of good job numbers it promises….

    PLus, the oil companies have a dysfunctional record on safety
    and should never be granted access to American land & water-
    ways. They are not replaceable commodities….Dee

    http://climate-connections.org/2010/12/13/‘climate-capitalism’-won-at-cancun-–-everyone-else-loses/

  • Dee

    addendum

    Here is some of that dysfunctional history the oil industry has
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/08/us/08agency.html

  • Gregg

    During President Bush’s two terms he was asked countless times to say what mistakes he had made. They hounded him and he refused to give an answer. He understood they were looking for a campaign sound byte. It occurs to me President Obama has never been asked the question. Why?

    • Zero

      That is the finest political analysis I have seen out of you.  Nicely done.  But I do remember Obama being asked a question along those lines during the O’Reilly Superbowl interview, after the Keystone decision, health care, and a somewhat recent 60 minutes interview.  

    • Worried for the country(MA)

       That’s right.  He gave himself an A+ and then referred all further questions to the Nobel Prize commission.

    • http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

      Pathetic political spin… how can Bush’s infantile inability to believe could do wrong, or his delusions he was channeling God’s Will… be made to seem respectable.

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

      Obama didn’t involve the Nation in two disasterous wars, killing thousands of our young, maiming tens of thousands of them too….and DRIVING THE NATION TO THE EDGE OF BANKRUPTCY.

      • Gregg

         Sure he did.

        • ulTRAX

          If not for the fiscal insanity of the Bush era… insanity YOU supported from the irresponsible tax cuts to illegal and pointless war in Iraq, we might better be able to weather the economic disaster your right wing policies created. But then you’re no different from the rest of the Right which  never could take responsibility for bankrupting the government or crashing the economy. The Right has found their scapegoats and the Right can’t wait to do it all again only this time their insanity will be on steroids.
           

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

            I would add:  the pointless war in Afghanistan, the corrupt and bloated Pentagon, and the criminally corrupt MIC. Erik Prince should be fined into bankruptcy and then spend the rest of his days in jail.

          • Gregg

            How did they get there? – A Photo Essay.

          • Gregg
          • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

            I have no interest anything this extremist propagandist has to say. Save your breath, and HERS. All nonsense and lies, and I would never listen to her for one second.

          • Gregg

            Intellectual curiosity on parade… NOT! It’s funny and you don’t even have to read, it’s only pictures.

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

            I have no curiousity about propaganda.

          • Gregg

            Tammy Bruce is gay. What do you have against gays?

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

            I am gay too. I stand by what I said earlier about her.

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

            You know…that cretin CRIMINAL Bush ordered the CIA, then the other military force we have, amongst many others, called the Army in.

            You rightests are over the top with AMNESIA.

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

          Another Republican amnesiac I see.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Since ‘W’ was a self-proclaimed ‘compassionate’, ‘conservative’, ‘Christian’, HE, being a perfect diety, NEVER made a mistake?
         HE kept us safe, like HE promised, so 9/11 DID NOT HAPPEN?  That was just a ‘J.R.’ dream?
         HE made the Budget Surplus BIGGER, as he promised in his campaign, so the U.S. has a $50 TRILLION DOLLAR SURPLUS?
          HE FLEW, and CARRIED that plane ALL the way to the carrier, in his left hand?
          HE, being THE DECIDER, and PERFECT, made ALL decisions the BEST possible, and we live in HEAVEN!!
          THANKS, Gregg, for pointing that out, to we that are convinced otherwise!
        

  • Anonymous

    Tennessee’s new motto: “Crazier than Arizona”

    Leading the way for red states…

    http://www.wmctv.com/story/17353757/bill-would-define-holding-hands-kissing-as-gateway-sexual-activity

    Bill would define holding hands, kissing as “gateway sexual activity”

    (WMC-TV) – Tennessee senators approved an update to the state’s abstinence-based sex education law that includes warnings against “gateway sexual activity.”

    In a new family life instructions bill, holding hands and kissing could be considered gateways to sex. Planned Parenthood said that allowing state government to define local sex education curriculum could backfire.

    According to a 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Study, 61 percent of Memphis City high school students and 27 percent of middle school students have had sex.  That’s higher than the national average.…

    [snipped]

    • Gregg

      Back in my day they called that “first base”. Once the little fella gets there, second base is all he can think about.

      • aj

        Nothing beats junior high, I just didn’t know it at the time.

        6th grade, in my haste, I rounded 1st so hard, I tripped on the base and damn near chipped my front tooth. lol. Zori was her name.  

        Betty Boop bum, coke bottle waist, cherry scent, puppy love, handing her notes in class, birthday gave her two 50-cent coins, puppy love, showin off at the bus stop, lunch room, bubble yum, soda tongue, might hump the bed, lol. Those were the days. I want to go back to school, man.

        ” Young hearts beat free tonight,
        Time is on your side. “ 

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

        Speak for yourself, “little” fella.

    • Hidan

      And when those figures go even higher these same politicians will argue for even more foolish laws.

      • ulTRAX

        And you’ve pegged the insanity of the far Right. They create problems then use their own actions as justifications to be even more extreme. For example, the GOP took millions off the income tax roles and now they’re complaining millions aren’t paying income taxes! They sabotage revenues with irresponsible tax cuts then pretend there’s not enough money to fund programs for the poor. We must trust them to save the programs they’ve always opposed.   

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

      Bring back the chastity belt for TN.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        And lock one on EACH TN Legislator, and EVERY MEMBER of their families!
            LIFE imprisonment for ANY of the Legislators that KISS, Hold Hands, or ANY form of CONTACT with ANY human being, as that can be construed as sex!

      • Terry Tree Tree

        As a Tennessean, I find this concept DISGUSTING, and STUPID!

    • ulTRAX

      So was the Right’s banking deregulation the “gateway” to banking fraud?

      Once one goes down the “gateway” path, it’s a slippery slope to more “gateway” questions!

  • ulTRAX

    Has the USA gone insane… seriously… has it?

    I was prepared to write a long post to explain my position.

    Consider this a projection test.

    What do you think… and why?

    • Gregg

      No, we’re not insane, we’re broke.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

        We are broke and in decline because the Nation has indeed gone insane.

      • ulTRAX

        And were we “broke” before the GOP under Reagan sabotaged government revenues with irresponsible tax cuts? Are you finally admitting the connection between the two?

        • aj

          Former Reagan OMB director, David Stockman seems to think so. my opinion

        • Gregg

          We have never been anything approaching this broke before. Ever.

          • http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

            Of course debt’s never been this bad… since policies YOU supported sabotaged debt pay down… debt tends to only GROW.

            You pretend you’d support tax hikes in a good economy and you claim that was the point from 03 to at least early 08… yet I’ve asked you many times would you have supported a tax hike then, and you’ve still NOT answered. After all, YOU claimed we needed that tax cut in 01 to prevent a recession. (Actually that was just marketing cooked up by Mitch Daniels who was convinced there’d be a much bigger SURPLUS than the CBO estimated even after it seemed to be shrinking.) 

            If Bush paid down debt AS HE PROMISED, or if there was some trigger to end what were clearly irresponsible tax cuts if the surplus disappeared, we’d be in a better position to weather bad times. Instead Bush pushed through an ACCELERATION of the tax cuts in 03.

             

            Take some goddamn responsibility Gregggg… it’s those irresponsible right wing policies like deregulation and irresponsible tax cuts YOU favor and YOU supported, that have got us to this point.

          • Gregg

            My rent is free here inside your head, and there’s plenty of space but the demons are noisy. I would like to move out…please.

          • Zero

            It’s amazing how you just shrug off arguments and continue to goosestep along like a happy surf.

          • Gregg

            I don’t shrug it off, I laugh it off.

          • Zero

            Part of the conservative epidemic of running away from arguments.

          • ulTRAX

            Gregg loves to pretend he makes devestating rebuttals when he’s really just being evasive.

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

      Yes indeed it has.

    • Zero

      The rise of agenda-driven ‘news’ outlets have something to do with it.  And CNN used to do hardcore international journalism, etc, but they (like everybody else not publicly funded) are more concerned with gossip.

      We’re cutting humanities, watching the rise the spectacle, supermodels, reality television (which is nothing but more marketing), social networking, text-culture has turned into image-culture, and literacy is weaker and weaker.

      As the late, great Bill Hicks once said, “I’ve notice a certain anti-intellectualism going around this country…ever since 1980 coincidentally enough.”  From Sane Man, 1989.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SNtuagX1rk&feature=related

    • Terry Tree Tree

      I AGREE, on MANY levels, with your observation!
         The powerful GREEDY rich, evidently trying to maintain their POWER, regardless of the DAMAGE they do to the U.S., and the world!
         Is their insecurity so overpowering, that they reject any semblance of humanity?

  • Gregg

    Looking back and remembering all the fawning and fainting by the press over Obama it really hits home how far he has fallen. I honestly believe many people thought the same way as Joe Biden (“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate
    and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,… I mean,
    that’s a storybook, man.”) and Harry Reid (the nation was ready to elect a “light-skinned” black man “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”). It’s not just that they thought he was an exception (insulting enough), they could not imagine a black guy possessing such appeal. This was a reflection of the view America is racist. Jesse Jackson was in tears. The nation reveled in his race, it was just so special. But it wasn’t.

    I got over the historic aspect of a half black man as President in about 5 minutes. I never for a minute thought the color of one’s skin was more important than the content of character. After almost 4 years of unmitigated disaster, maybe America is waking up.

    • Hidan

       Your funny,

      Claiming you don’t see black and white yet your comment is laced with racial politics of course blatantly omitting all the fun stuff(opps racism) that the republicans/teaparty and right has made during the same time frame.

      This is another reason why I find your comments so dishonest

      • Terry Tree Tree

        You, also see MUCH hypocricy in Gregg’s writings?  Anyone else?

        • Gregg

           Alrighty then.

      • Gregg

        The effort to brand the tea party as racist was one of the most disgusting periods in politics I’ve witnessed. I NEVER said I don’t see race, I just don’t look at everything through the lens of race as racist do.

        • Zero

          They branded themselves with birtherism.

          • Gregg

            Birthierism” wasn’t dreamed up by the tea party nor was it a driving force… at all. But say it was, what’s racist about it? I don’t get it.

          • Brett

            Golly, gee.

          • Gregg

            I see, you think I play dumb when you accept liberal dogma without introspection, build an argument on this basis and then when I have the temerity to think deeper, I’m playing dumb, gotcha.

            There is nothing racist about the silly birther movement.

          • ulTRAX

            G wrote: “There is nothing racist about the silly birther movement.”

            Ya right… it’s not code for “Obama’s not one of us”, it’s not code for “a Black man can’t really be president.”. The person playing dumb here is you Greggg… pretending if racism isn’t overt, then it’s it’s no racism.    

          • Gregg

            So it’s a code? Gotcha.

          • Zero

            It is utterly preposterous to think Obama hasn’t gone through a thorough background check by the FBI, yet a bunch of far righties proceeded to establish Obama’s otherness.  They tried their best to separate him from “real American.”  This brand of nationalism has excluded races time and time again in history. He is a foreign borne Muslim, and the proof of which is what?   What are these thoughts borne out of? Evidence? What are these people going by other than his name and skin color?

            The birther crowd jumped to a conclusion based off of superficial appearances and they got embarrassed.

            And I want to see Romney’s birth certificate.  I heard he was borne in communist Canada during a fishing trip while on Lake Huron.    

          • Gregg

            I have to show my birth certificate to get a passport, I don’t think it unreasonable to prove you are Constitutionally eligible.  What if a candidate looked younger than 35? So I have no problem demanding Romney’s.

            I still don’t see the connection. Are you saying because he’s black it means he may not have been born here? It doesn’t make sense.

          • Zero

            Did you read the first sentence of my comment or are you, again, picking and choosing reality to best feed your ideology?

            As for your question, reread my comment because it is making sense to all but you.  I clearly explained that the birthers jumped to a conclusion about Obama based on name and skin color.

            I know you don’t understand this because the right tries to deny that racism exists as much as possible.  Let me put it this way: racism has to be obfuscated because explicit racist remarks result in ostracism.  Today, the right blows all these racist dog whistles and then turn around to the liberals and say, “Quit pulling the race card.” 

            Ah, religion and racism is what keeps the right a bunch of happy surfs.  If they freed themselves from both, their wouldn’t be much of a republican party.   

          • Gregg

            So it’s a code like ulTRAX thinks? We just obfuscate it. Gotcha.

    • Brett

      Hey, everybody, at least he’s not Republican! He just agrees with the Republicans’ more bigoted instincts. 

      • Gregg

        The bigoted nonsense comes from Democrats. I don’t see the flaw in my logic, or the logic of many Americans that feel the same way. Did you have a point?

        • Brett

          Well, sort of…there’s no making any points with you, really; but, I will say, over time, you’ve composed several similar comments to the one you’ve submitted this morning @8:04am. The implication is that Democrats are narrow-minded, oppressive, racists who have systematically mistreated minorities by promoting segregative and divisive sentiments as well as actions and policies toward blacks. By contrast, in your world, conservatives are open-minded, egalitarians whose only want is for people to be judged purely by the “content of their character” and not by skin color or by their differences. I’d say most reasonable people, who aren’t trying to reframe and revise history because of some ideological bent, would disagree with you. Now, you can comb the internet, I’m sure, and find some website of dubious origin to agree your claims (I’d bet that you probably even have one or two already loaded up and ready to go), but you may only fool the foolish, namely yourself.   

          • Gregg

            Websites Shwebsites! Do you honestly believe people didn’t weigh his race when they voted for him? Tons of prominent citizens have admitted as much. Why was Jackson in tears? Why were Reid and Biden so surprised at an articulate black man? How can Affirmative Action possibly work without judging by the color of skin? Disagree all you want but to dismiss the questions completely is to put blinders on.

            I’m talking from my gut, my experience, my ethics but most of all my considered thought. Nice attempt at psychoanalysis but you haven’t a clue. Don’t project your bigotries on me. Jerk.

          • Brett

            You not only don’t know what the word bigotry means, you don’t know what the word psychoanalysis means. I think I’ve finally gotten at what’s wrong here: not unlike our other resident southern bigot, david, you’re stupid. 

          • Gregg

            You are truly a shallow and nasty person. Sad. You have not addressed a single issue I raised. All I see is some is a desperate elitism in the form of innuendo in lieu of an argument. That and hate.

        • ulTRAX

          G wrotes: “I don’t see the flaw in my logic…”  You never do, do you! Ah, to be blessed with the delusion of infallibility!

      • Gregg

        The Republican I referenced and agree with is Martin Luther King Jr. Another great Republican who exemplified MLK’s dream was Jackie Robinson who showed awesome character when most were focused on the color of his skin.

        • Hidan

           MLK was labelled a communist and called for peace, turning the other cheek not war, Something clearly would be deemed liberal. And his actions along with others calling for equal rights turn all those dixiecrats into republicans and enable the famed “southern strategy”

          Also the man who fought most against MLK became an republican and stayed one and even defended his segregationist campaigns on the basis of states’ rights . Guess what party accepted him?


          “I feel someone must remain in the position of non-alignment, so that he can look objectively at both parties and be the conscience of both—not the servant or master of either.”

          MLK

          “Although King never publicly supported a political party or candidate for president, in a letter to a civil rights supporter in October 1956 he said that he was undecided as to whether he would vote for the Adlai Stevenson or Dwight Eisenhower, but that “In the past I always voted the Democratic ticket.”"

        • Zero

          Martin Luther King Jr., who marched with Memphis sanitation workers,
          who was planning a Poor People’s March on Washington at the time of his
          death, who advocated a guaranteed annual income to end poverty — a
          Republican?Since you walk in his footsteps, perhaps you might want to reevaluate your code of ethics.

        • Zero
    • ulTRAX

      I’m still waiting for ANY of our right wing friends to be in the least fair to the disaster Obama inherited. Do they use the same standards when they compare Obama and Reagan for instance? Reagan didn’t inherite a recession let alone collapsed banking and housing sectors. The Reagan recession started about 6 months AFTER he took office while Obama took office when the economy was imploding. With Reagan peak unemployment was 10.8%… higher than under Obama, and it was over 10% for 10 months… over 8% for 27 months. Reagan’s predictions for 13 million new jobs fell short by about 3.5 million. Yet the Right sweeps all that under the rug and claims the irresponsible tax cuts under Reagan… they sweep under the rug all his tax HIKES, were a smashing success!

       

      • Zero

        Hey, the right blamed Clinton for 9/11…if we use their starting point…Obama inherited a 9.8% unemployment rate.  Now unemployment is at 8.2% despite republicans laying off over a half-a-million public employees. 

        • Anonymous

          Clinton can’t be blamed for 9/11–but did his administration take seriously enough, the first World Trade Center attack, in 1994?

          • Zero

            Your point is irrelevant to my point, but I will indulge you.  I don’t blame any president for a terrorist attack because it is not a matter of “if” but “when.”

            If you want my theory on how to mitigate terrorism: stop making bombs for Israel, fight wars like Libya and help Syria (i.e., put humanity before product), and actually help the countries instead of helping oil companies obtain their natural resources.

            All that cowboy republicanism has never worked.  And sure, Clinton is one of the “boys” when it comes to this crap.  He ordered the bombing of Iraq in retaliation for the ALLEGED assassination attempt on George H. W. Bush.  Eight civilians lost their lives.  Yet, Clinton tells us to not overact to the World Trade Center bombing….  And I remember when Bin Laden declared a Holy War on America, and why we didn’t take him out, I don’t know.  But that really doesn’t matter because someone would have taken his place.  

            The core of our problem with terrorism is that we approach the Middle East for economic interests. Until we put humanity before economics, we will always deal with terrorism.  

          • Anonymous

            Super Powers don’t put humanity before self-interest.

            They never have and they never will.

            If they did, they wouldn’t be a super power.

            Comes with the territory.

            It’s a `sacred’ and essential precedent.

            Such policy has been practiced, across the history of mankind, regardless of outcome or degree of immorality.

          • Zero

            Anytime people start talking in terms of universal law, I get skeptical. 

            I would abstract ‘superpowers’ to ‘powers’ and say they tend to put economic interests before human interests.

            However, I think when it comes to domestic economies, economic interests (maintaining healthy supply and demand) is human interests.  But colonization per se has never been worth the economics. 

            If we can’t be a benevolent superpower, then it is a crime against humanity to remain a superpower.  Moreover, World War II and Libya were fought in the interests of humanity before economics, yet in the long run it was economically sound.  (Perhaps, WWII was fought because of the perceivable threat to America, although FDR wanted Hollywood to make films about the ills of Nazi Germany, so extrapolate as you may.)

            I admit that my thoughts are more idealistic, but the other philosophy hasn’t worked out well.  

      • Anonymous

        Please don’t forget the terrible legacy that `Dutch’ left behind:

        The Deficit

    • Anonymous

      Waking up to what?

      That a Black Man can’t be President?

      That a Black Man shouldn’t be President?

      That a Black Man won’t necessarily be a good President–simply because he’s Black?

      If your real question, the fourth question, then I think you are being woefully naive if you believe that Democrats thought President Obama was going to be a good President–solely for the fact that he is partially African-American.

      What’s more, for you to call the President on his character–and bringing, in by direct implication, MLK’s famous remark, then what, also, is your point?

      Where has the President fallen down–in terms of character?

      Just WHAT are you defining as character?

      That he uses drones?
      That he expanded the war in Afghanistan?
      That he doesn’t agree with the House’s economic policies?

      What in tarnation are you saying, erroneously, about character?

      I may disagree with Representative Ryan’s budget proposal but I might not judge him on his character, accordingly.

      Maybe you’d judge Senator Reed’s character for opposing the Iraq war.  

      Seems to me that YOU’RE USING POLITICAL BIAS TO JUDGE CHARACTER.

      And if you ARE, you’d be WRONG AGAIN, sir!

      • Gregg

        Waking up to the fact Obama’s race was irrelevant.

        • Anonymous

          It was unnecssary for you to bring in MLK’s point about character.

          You know very well that King’s comment is sacrosanct in the African-American culture–and by turning the phrase around and throwing it back, ironically, upon the African-American community, is to show disrespect to the African-American community.

          You didn’t have to do that.

          • Gregg

            The emphasis was on the color of skin but they go together. Taking a measure of a man’s character is not a bad thing. I have no idea how you got I was impugning Obama’s moral character. That’s an entirely different discussion. I’m saying don’t judge him by his skin. Judge him by the company he keeps, the church he goes to and tenets’ thereof, the words he’s written, his record of promises kept and his leadership skills. You know… “character”.

          • Anonymous

            Not my point.

            I was referring to you using “content of his character” to MAKE your point.

            Everyone can see what you are doing–except you, apparently.

            You’re missing the point.

            Assessing character is reasonable–but not in the way you are doing it.

          • Gregg

            Brettearle, I believe very strongly in MLK’s words. I live by them, he was a great man. I believe his message has been bastardized and misrepresented terribly. I hate it, really I do. I am trying to point that out but I am met with hate for defending his message. It makes people uncomfortable when they realize their conventional wisdom is in direct opposition to his message so they attack me rather that addressing their own bigotry.

            You did not do that despite your obvious distress. Thanks for that, I tried to answer your questions. Please answer mine: What about my comment is unfair?

          • Anonymous

            Wrong yet again.

            You’re attempting to misuse your considerable but misdirected intelligence.

            Your insight is not misplaced; it’s a good one.

            But your cynicism and that chip on your shoulder, revealed the holes in your character– by you trying to be slick and clever.

            It failed.

            And many can see that it failed.  

          • Gregg

            Okay Brettearle, If you can’t articulate why I’m being “slick” or unfair then I give up but I do think it’s a worthwhile discussion if only someone was willing to engage. Wink wink nod nod everybody knows doesn’t do it for me. Thanks anyway.

          • Guest

            please stop your games  gregg. you’re an anti-democrat bigot.

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

      You would have preferred that warmongering fossil McCain? What nonsense.

      • Zero

        Which McCain?  The politically schizo McCain who says things he doesn’t mean to excite people like Gregg…or the rational McCain who said we shouldn’t cut taxes for the rich that would wipe away the surplus, who thinks we should run government from a secular point-of-view, who thinks Citizens United is the worst decision since the pre-Civil War era, who thinks we should help Syria, and has revealed that he thinks Obama is the right man for the job via Freudian slip…?  

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

          Any and ALL faces of McCain should RETIRE. I am not one to quote the Bible as a rule, since I think it is mostly the collective ravings of primitives), but in this case the admonition of there being a time for all things is so very true. John:  it is TIME to retire so that you may stop making yourself look like the dottering fool you have become.

  • Still Here

    SS and GSA, it’s apparently anything-goes at any cost with no responsibility at the top in the Obama WH.  What a disaster of a president!  

    • Anonymous

      Oh, sure…..

      The President is responsible for everything and anything.

      Oh sure……

      I guess it’s comforting to play that primitive game, if you don’t want look at dimensions and complexity

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

      The real sad thing here is your apparent AMNESIA regarding the criminal George Bush, and his disasterous wars and blunders of HISTORIC proportions.

    • Still Here

      The president sets the tenor as well as the moral compass for his administration.  Only sheep would give him a pass on this.

    • ulTRAX

      People have lost their jobs. Only a extreme right wing partisan would claim there’s no accountability.

      How many lost their jobs in the Bush Junta after 911, when no WMDs were found in Iraq, or after Katrina, of after Bush destroyed the economy? 

  • Hidan

    If anyone is interested

    The Doha Debates – Iran’s nuclear program

    The Doha Debates hosted by Tim Sebastien takes on Iran’s nuclear program and asks if it is peaceful
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVZGREqdfZ8&feature=related

     

    • Anonymous

      Iran’s nuclear program is about as peaceful as a Siberian Tiger loose at a Steak House in Cleveland

      • Guest

        and the Israeli development of the north bank is purely peaceful.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

    Chuck  Colson is dead. I was raised to say only nice things about the dead. Good.

    • Zero

      Tried to circumvent the democratic process, found Evangelical Christianity (which is the exact opposite of everything Jesus says), and Bush awarded him a medal.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

        Exactly. A total fraud, a total criminal. I would expect Bush to give him a medal. These types infest DC in the same way maggots infest a wound.

  • Gregg

    Let me try again. I believe many people, beyond the famous ones who were proud of it, voted for Obama because he is black. Some solely so and others to varying degrees. So start there, am I wrong? Is it crazy to think somewhere in the deep recesses of their minds people used race as a factor when they voted for Obama? It seems to me people are up in arms
    (rightly so) about the opposite question (voting against) but consider mine worthy of contempt.

    Why should ones race be a factor (even a tiny one) in deciding our President? If you agree with me that it shouldn’t then we have no beef.

    I strongly believe voting for someone because they are black is just as bigoted as refusing to vote for them because they are black. There is no difference. Can someone tell me the difference without getting all nasty and personal? Please enlighten me.

    • ulTRAX

      There are more ways to be irrational, be it racial, religious, nationalistic, political, etc, than the opposite. Before you start tossing stones about other people’s irrationality, just remember you live in a glass house.

      • Gregg

        Are you saying anyone who used race as a factor in voting for Obama was acting in an irrational way? If you are then we agree… for once.

        • Gregg

          Okay ulTRAX, this kumbaya thing is cool. I’ll go further, if the word irrational is acceptable to describe using race as a factor in voting for (or against) President then I will admit I am more inclined to forgive irrational behavior than racist behavior. It gives me hope. People are far more likely to realize they acted irrationally than to look deep enough into their own soul to admit the truth.

          • ulTRAX

            Since you had problems comprehending my first post, let me repost it…  

             I might agree except, unlike you, I factor in the psychology of those who were oppressed based on race as well as those who oppress based on race. The former might develop a more cohesive group identity than the latter… and they might then cheer on one of their own.

            Is that then “racism”? According to you it is. I can’t judge since I’ve not been a member of such an historically oppressed group.

            But let’s imagine if the rest of the nation ganged up on your state and for decades, perhaps centuries, oppressed the population for no other reason then they thought people from the Carolinas were stupid, then even you might cheer if someone from your state made it big.  

            On the other hand, if you’re asking me if I believe despite the above dynamic, racial minorities can be racist… of course. I have no use for Al Sharpton who discredited himself back in ’88 in the Tarwara Brawley case.

          • Gregg

            I had no problem comprehending your excuses when I read them which was after I posted the above.

          • ulTRAX

            You’re evading the issue again Greggy….

            But let’s imagine if the rest of the nation ganged up on your state and for decades, perhaps centuries, oppressed the population for no other reason then they thought people from the Carolinas were stupid, then even you might cheer if someone from your state made it big.

            Are you claiming that ANY sign of group identity or solidarity would then be irrational?  

            I see more irrationality on the part of the oppressive group than the oppressed. But that can easily grow into an irrationality of its own… case in point: Sharpton. But my other point is I see racism as just another form of irrationality… not something apart from irrationality about politics, religion, sports, nation, etc.  

          • Gregg

            Solidarity is one thing, elections shouldn’t be about settling scores.

          • ulTRAX

            Who said anything about settling scores?

            So if you agree that group solidarity can be a legitimate response to oppression, they why are you accusing Blacks who voted  for Obama of racism?

            You remember what you wrote: “I strongly believe voting for someone because they are black is just as bigoted as refusing to vote for them because they are black. There is no difference.”

      • ulTRAX

         I might agree except, unlike you, I factor in the psychology of those who were oppressed based on race as well as those who oppress based on race. The former might develop a more cohesive group identity than the latter… and they might then cheer on one of their own.

        Is that then “racism”? According to you it is. I can’t judge since I’ve not been a member of such an historically oppressed group.  

        But feel free to continue your nauseating pretensions that morally you’re above everyone else.

        And you wonder why people think you’re an arrogant arse!

        • Gregg

          Dadgummit, I knew it was too good to be true.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      For OVER 200 years of our history of Presidents, there is NEITHER a minority face, NOR a female face among them.
          HALF, sometimes MORE of the U.S. population has been female!
          HALF, now MORE are of various minorities!

      Can you honestly tell me, in ALL that time, there has NOT been a lady, OR a minority person that was MORE qualified to lead this country, than YOUR pick of WORST President?
         THAT is YOUR race card?
          Yes, PART of my vote for President Obama was based on the above FACTS.
          MOST of my vote for him, was because he seemed to make the most sense, while campaigning!
         A veteran, I have heard from other veterans about McCain, and Palin sealed his doom with me!
         Actually, after ‘W’, I’m NOT sure I can EVER vote for another Republican!  If the self-proclaimed ‘decider’, that took over 15 minutes to ‘decide’ to attend to a country he was told was under attack, INSTEAD of be read an elementary book to, Republicans ADMITTED they have NO one worthy of the office!  THAT was the BEST and BRIGHTEST Republican?  DISGUSTINGLY DISQUALIFIED!!

      • Gregg

        Thanks for going on record TTT. And to answer your question: Hell yes, throughout history there have been plenty of black men who would’ve made better Presidents than some of the white guys who got the job. Without question. That’s why race is not a criteria worth considering. I hate you disagree.

    • Zero

      Perhaps, you should watch the democrat primary debates. Clinton was leading the polls until Obama destroyed her in the debates.  The polls changed overnight.

      We don’t like the flavor of the month like the republicans do.  We like intelligence.  Which is also why we like Huntsman the best (generally speaking). 

      • Gregg

        I watched every single Democrat debate. Obama excoriated Hillary for the mandate. She was far more cautious about closing GITMO and I don’t think endorsed the idea. Obama had no problem lying about those issues. I voted for her in the NC Primary.

    • Brett

      Oh, so, let me get this straight, in all the comments you’ve made on this forum about race, you expect us to believe that what we must take away from the most prominent points of your comments should be:

      A) Martin Luther King was a great man with some profound ideas on humanity.

      B) Race can sometimes be a factor in the way people make decisions and formulate perspectives.

      C) Politicians have the capacity to say stupid things and put their respective feet in their mouths while other politicians may indeed be racist.

      If this is true then you’ve certainly gone through some incredible machinations to make those points; and, most anyone with any modicum of cognitive ability would consider those points to be pretty pedestrian ones at that. 

      If you are a paid shill, you would be overcompensated at any price.   

      • Gregg

        A) The color of one’s skin is the first thing people focus on.  MLK’s message has been turned on it’s head.

        B) Fine, but don’t cast a vote based on race. Voting for someone because they are black=voting against their opponent because they are white. And vice-versa. Same thing.

        C) Duh!

        I’ve been told since Obama was elected that I’m a racist. Many of us have. It’s sick and the word is thrown around with astonishing ease. We’re getting angry about it’s collective divisive nature not the stupid individual knee-jerk accusations. The charge that opposition to Obama must be because he’s black is false but it’s made all the time. Obviously if it were true then we’d be racist. But somehow support for Obama because he is black is painted as noble. It’s not, and it’s far more prevalent than the former. What I have done is turn the tables. No one seems to be willing to explain why one mindset is racist and the other is not. So they attack and avoid the issue.

        I see no evidence this forum is the place where the discussion can proceed past the most shallow reasoning to address what I personally believe is a travesty.

      • Guest

        a paid shill would never admit they were!

  • Gregg

    I am interested in the views from a perspective far different than mine if anyone’s game. I’d appreciated it.

    Who should Romney pick for VP? Marco Rubio seems to be everybody’s favorite. He is very inspiring and the only one I have heard say sometimes deciding one way or another is better than compromise. I agree. I’m a little concerned about his lack of experience. Two years in the Senate isn’t a lot. I like Allen West and think his military background would be a plus but he is very polarizing, Gen. Petrayus would be a better pick for the military edge but I don’t know his politics. I love John Bolton but that’s not going to happen. I read the one polling best among republicans is Condolezza Rice. She has an 80% approval rating and is an obvious heavyweight. I’d love it. There’s Paul Ryan and Chris Christie too.

    What about Obama, should he drop Biden for Hillary?

    • aj

      Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas)

      • Gregg

        Hmmm. I hadn’t thought of her. I like her but she couldn’t beat Perry for Governor and Texas is red either way so I doubt it. Just my gut.

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

          Perry is a phony and a cretin. Only is Texas would an incompetent like him serve in ANY elected position.

          • Gregg

            Who do you like?

    • ulTRAX

      It seems to me that all you’re interested in is keeping you posts at the top of the forum.

      But then I’ve long thought you’re a paid shill for the far Right.

      • aj

        Thanks for the unemployment numbers under Reagan. Your stock your posts full with hard economic data and I find they are a value-added contribution to the collective dialogue. my opinion 

        • ulTRAX

          Thanks AJ!

      • Gregg

        I’ve got bills but it’s not about me.

      • Gregg

        Most of the time I comment by way of replies but thanks for the insight into your tactics. You have always been possessive about “your” threads. If I have something to say then I say it. I don’t think in the terms you describe.

        • ulTRAX

          Threads are a way of organizing discussion so if someone hijacks a thread, of course the person who started it has some right to protest. After all, the hijacker always had to ability to start their own thread.

          Now, having anything intelligent to say about the topic of this thread?

           Didn’t think so.   

          • Gregg

            This thread, my thread, got hijacked right away. AJ was the single pertinent response. He’s a decent, albeit intense, lefty. Good man. Virtually everything else was an attack on me or someone I like for VP. That’s it. I am not whining about it, I don’t care at all. It’s not like it’s my blog. Outing liberals as nasty, shallow and unwilling to honestly debate is a never ending battle. At least it’s easy.

            Excuse me, what were you saying?

          • ulTRAX

            Gregg again pretends only he’s interested in honest debate. I write again: When all you do 24/7 is post partisan right wing spin if not absolute garbage, refuse to correct idiots like Moda no matter what lies and distortions he posts, never take ANY responsibility for the disaster policies YOU support created, deny any official government numbers that destroy your claims, etc etc… you’er NOT here for honest discussion.

            But feel free delude yourself.

          • Gregg

            So…. who ya’ like for veep?

    • Zero

      Amazing how the republicans would vote for Condolezza Rice after she helped goosestep America into Iraq.

      Learn, man, learn.

      • Anonymous

        Conjobdoleeza lied almost as much as Shrub did. Greggg hates liars though, as long as they’re Democrats.

        • Gregg

          Blanket unspecified accusations, typical. I like her, sue me. Are you still going with Rocky?

          • Anonymous

            Greggg’s as clueless as they come.

            “The overwhelming bulk of the evidence was that this was an attack that was likely to take place overseas.”

            —White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, news briefing, 5/16/02

            “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”
            —Title of the CIA’s August 6 2001 briefing memo to President Bush

            http://slate.msn.com/?id=2066154“The war came to us, no [sic] the other way around.”

            —Secretary of State Conjobdoleeza Rice, lying once again, this time to troops in Iraq. 5/16/05

            http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/05/15/iraq.main/index.html

            “It’s hard to envision a plot so devious as the one that they pulled off on 9/11. Never did we realize that the enemy was so well organized.…al Qaeda struck in a way that was unimaginable.”

            - G.W. Bush, in a January 2002 interview with Tom Brokaw, referring to the 9/11 attacks

            “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked plane as a missile. All this reporting about hijacking was about traditional hijacking.”

            - Condoleeza Rice, My 16, 2002, referring to the 9/11 attacks 

            “There was…an awareness by the government, including the president, of Osama bin Laden and the threat he posed in the United States and around the world. That included long-standing speculation about hijacking in the traditional sense, but not involving suicide bombers using ariplanes as missiles.”

            - White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, May, 2002

    • Anonymous

      Don’t worry, Greggg, no one gives a rat’s behind what you think.

      “I like Allen West.”

      “I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party.”
      —Allen West

      • Gregg

        Awesome!

    • Brett

      “I am interested in the views from a perspective far different than mine…” -Gregg

      Which is precisely where your stupidity comes in. You’d have to really do some searching (Still Here notwithstanding) to find anyone who would be fooled by such a statement. I can think of  nothing more exemplifying of stupidity than for someone to think those around him can be so easily fooled. 

      • Gregg

        Why the hell do you think I’m here Brett? Oh never mind.

        I’ll tell you what, I’ll stipulate right up front. I am a stupid, partisan, myopic paid bigot who tortures kittens. Maybe you can save yourself the trouble of replying at all if I do so. You certainly have nothing else to offer. I’m reading comment after comment and they are about me instead of the issues I raise. It’s frustrating but illustrative.

        • Brett

          What my recent comments ARE illustrative of is that you can no longer hold any credibility. There was a time when I tried to find some common ground, and I attempted to have an exchange of ideas. 

          You really are seeking approval; that I’ll not give. All of this said, I do agree with one thing: I will in future save myself the trouble. But make no mistake about it, if you do take it upon yourself to reply to any of my comments, you would be negating any agreement I’ve made to let you be.

          • Brett

            P.S-I don’t think anyone considers you a kitten torturer. 

          • Gregg

            I am interested in your perspective but not the hate and I certainly couldn’t care less about your approval.

            I was suggesting you save yourself the trouble of all the personal verbiage so you can actually get to the point, which you never did. I don’t know what “common ground” has to do with anything. So, if your jack-hammer style nuance tells you I was implying you never reply to me then so be it. It’s probably just as well.

        • ulTRAX

          Let me guess Greggy, you’re only here for “honest discussion” ROTF?

          When all you do 24/7 is post partisan right wing spin if not absolute garbage, refuse to correct idiots like Moda no matter what lies and distortions he posts, never take ANY responsibility for the disaster policies YOU support created, deny any official government numbers that destroy your claims, etc etc… you’er NOT here for honest discussion.

  • aj

    Happy Birthday Mother Earth. You don’t look a day over 4,540,000,000 years old. Still the elegant tender loving blue lady whose nurtured us hominids for the past few million years even when we don’t deserve it. May you live to 9,000,000,000!

    XOXO  

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQOCSU3NJ5J6SSQBEM5YBFCPZY Jason__A

      WTF? The Earth is only 6,000 years old!  For the Bible, or some Christian nut, tells me so.

    • Gregg

      AJ, it looks like I’ve ticked off the white guys royally. On one hand I appreciate your not piling on but on the other I am braced for your biting critique because I know you are an honest man. You may actually put me in my place or at least give me a different perspective to think about. The majority of my close black friends are conservative. The black musicians I work with are mostly apolitical but that is something we avoid anyway. The vibe is too precious to screw with. I can tell you Percy at one time had to ride in the back of the bus now he rides in the back of a limo. He’s not bitter about the former and doesn’t gloat about the latter. He’s all about love and music. It’s a beautiful world.

      If you don’t want to weigh in, can you suggest a good song for the mood?

  • Anonymous

    RIP.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/19/levon-helm-of-the-band-obituary.html?fb_ref=article&fb_source=home_multiline

    The death of Levon Helm from throat cancer on April 19 has silenced one of the great voices in American music.

    There was something oracular about that voice, something that sounded as old as time itself. Even when Levon Helm was young, he had a voice that spoke to you with the authority of something graven in stone. But it was a voice that could also tease, and cut up, and sound as full of mischief as a 10-year-old boy on the first day of summer vacation. It was, in other words, the perfect voice for a rock and roll singer, maybe even the voice of rock and roll itself.…

    [snipped]

    • Gregg

      NJ, it’s sad. There was a notice on his website for about a week that he was near the end. I posted a video 80 or 90 comments into this board of him singing “Ophelia” in 2009. He still had it, it’s worth looking up. Youtube has a few videos from the PBS special. Robbie and Garth are the only ones left.

  • ulTRAX


    Gregg is here pretending to be honestly interested in discussing race. Sure… how about this… so was the GOP racist in nominating Clarence Thomas for the USSC knowing that his skin color made him the perfect Trojan Horse and it would make it difficult for Dems to vote against an ideological right wing Neanderthal? Is the GOP racist in that it’s always looking some Black politicians to showcase like Herman Cain or Alan West who are usually caricatures of a Party that’s already gone loony… just to “prove” they’re not a racist party?

    Sometimes such efforts to “prove” one’s not racist ARE racist. 

    • Gregg

      Democrats were very vocal in their disdain for Clarence Thomas as evidenced by his “high-tech lynching”. What are you talking about. I’ll give you this, the exit of black icon Thurgood Marshal made Bush think he needed a black man and race was a political factor in that decision. I don’t condone it and if that was the main criteria then it certainly would be racist. However, hos Conservative credentials, intellect, honor and experience trumped everything.

      Did the RNC recruit Herman Cain or Allen West? That’s news to me. 

      • ulTRAX

        More of your typical evasion. My question was is the GOP racist in that it’s always looking some Black politicians to showcase like Herman Cain or Alan West who are usually caricatures of a Party that’s already gone loony… just to “prove” they’re not a racist party?

        • Gregg

          I can’t get past your premise so I can’t answer your question. I don’t believe they are caricatures, or the party is loony, or they are showcased to prove squat. Call it evasion if you want to. I’m not going there.

          • ulTRAX

            Evasion by any other name.

      • ulTRAX

        Of course, of course… Bush wasn’t trying to sneak a Trojan Horse far right crazie onto the court. He was motivated by pure motives. It’s amazing how in your wacky Orwellian world, all conservatives are noble and well-meaning.   

    • Brett

      Excellent point…and, then there’s Michael Steele. I don’t think it was a coincidence that he won the chairmanship in Jan. of ’09.

      • Gregg

         He was awful.

  • Gregg

    The food stamp President:

    “The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that 45 million people in 2011 received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
    benefits, a 70% increase from 2007. It  said the number of people
    receiving the benefits, commonly known as food stamps, would continue
    growing until 2014.”

    http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/04/19/food-stamp-rolls-to-grow-through-2014-cbo-says/

    • ulTRAX

      Fortunately there is a safety net for those times when irresponsible and nutty policies YOU support, destroy the economy for the rest of us.

    • ulTRAX

      Gee Gregg, you always claim the Bush economy was great especially after the irresponsible tax cuts were accelerated in 03. Yet according to the chart at your site… Food Stamps usage went up about 53% between 2000 and 2005.

      I know you’ll never think about this but when the Right spends so much time trying to cut the minimum wage, deindustralize America with free trade, deregulation of economic predators, support for Wal-Mart retailing, and a war on unions then, guess what! More people have their wages driven down and even in a “good” GOP economy more have to use the safety net.   

      • Zero

        Yeah, even in the late mid 80s when the economy picked up again, poverty increased.  But it is pretty obvious that republicans generally care more about corporate profit than mass human prosperity. 

        • Gregg

          IMHO times are much harder than they need to be. We can argue all day whether that’s true, we’ll never agree and it really doesn’t matter. Bottom line: Here we are. We are fortunate to have a safety net but there are unavoidable negative consequences when people get a free lunch. The good intentions are largely irrelevant. This dynamic is exponentially compounded as the number of recipients surpasses the number of donors. The steroids kick after a couple of generations of this.

          A brutally honest discussion needs to take place.

          • Zero

             For the nine-hundredth and ninety-ninth time, Germany has a much stronger safety net than America, but the welfare life isn’t taking over their culture.  You have very little to support your claim.  First, our safety net is not a budget problem.  And the few people who do indeed live the welfare life are uneducated.  Anybody with a decent education would not tolerate being on welfare their entire life.

          • Gregg

            Two very good friends were sworn in as new dual citizens (America/Germany) just last week. They have boarded horses at our farm for over 15 years. My wife has been with them a few times as they travel back and forth. We know their family and extended family. We hosted a summer camp one year for 12 German kids. I’ve helped out often at their business where everybody speaks German. I am familiar with the culture.

            Germans are taxed and regulated out the wazoo for their “safety net”. That’s why my friend are in business here.

            “In Germany, losing his factory job didn’t stop Alfred Butt from taking a
            Mediterranean vacation this winter. Thanks to generous jobless
            benefits, being out of work “hasn’t changed my life that much,” Mr. Butt
            says.”

            http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124155150793788477.html#mod%3Dtodays_us_page_one%26articleTabs%3Darticle

          • ulTRAX

            If Gregg’s info is from a right wing source… it MUST be true!

          • ulTRAX

             Don’t you just love the way that right wing article frames the issue without really telling us much? We’re told… and Gregg jumps to give this as his prime example, that a Mr Butt can take a seaside vacation. Do we know if this person has savings? Does his wife work? Did he get a good deal? Is getting away to the Mediterranean that big a deal if you already live in Europe? Are they flying down for an extended weekend? Once there are they vacationing on the cheap? But the American can’t get away. Therefore the conclusion we must draw is Europe is too generous when we don’t know anything about is circumstances either. Does he have a mortgage or kids in college? Did he not make much money therefore isn’t getting much UI? Was he in a one income family?  Gregg then tries to use this bogus piece of journalism… actually it’s an editorial on the WSJ blog section, along with his personal anecdotes claim he knows the German culture and therefore his opinion on this matter is credible.

          • Zero

            God forbid we have the economy and quality of life Germany has.

          • Gregg

            It’s not what it’s cracked up to be. Why don’t you move there?

          • Zero

            Why can’t we just make America a better place to live?  Why do not want everybody to live a good quality life?

          • ulTRAX

            America: IMPROVE it or leave! LOL

          • ulTRAX

             Yes, it might be unfortunate for people to get a free lunch. For instance I’d rather see our UI benefits turn into a government jobs program when it looks like the economy cannot absorb workers say after 4-6 months.  Yet when it comes to free lunches, that’s exactly the policy YOU support! When it came time to pay down debt in 2001, YOU supported Bush giving a massive tax cut instead. And NO, it had nothing to do with a recession. Bush proposed it at least as far back as May 2000. Our generation has pissed away some $15 TRILLION on ourselves WE REFUSED TO TAX OURSELVES FOR. It’s the biggest free lunch in history and YOU APPROVE! And then there’s the fact that Food Stamp usage is up because policies YOU APPROVED OF, crashed the economy.  Your blatant moral hypocrisy is beyond disgusting.

      • ulTRAX

        Gregg, of course,just wants to spew right wing talking points about Obama, and EVADES this simple truth that Food Stamp usage FELL by 8 million with good economic times under Clinton yet INCREASED by 11 million under Bush. 

        http://www.trivisonno.com/wp-content/uploads/Food-Stamps-Presidents-Totals.png

    • ulTRAX


      I should also note that you’re exhibiting the typical hypocrisy of the Right. They’ll complain endlessly about spending for the safety net, but utterly silent on how much we piss away for interest on the debt. For instance Bush pissed away some $2.9 TRILLION on interest in his 8 years. At an average of 362 billion a years… that’s about 500% more than estimated Food Stamp spending for 2011. I have to wonder… what’s worst… spending on food, or spending 5x that and getting NOTHING.  Obviously from Gregg’s posts, the latter is just peachy.  

    • Anonymous

      Yep, to right wing hacks like Greggg, helping poor folks is eeeevil. Helping large corporations, no problem. Silence from the hacks like Greggg on corporate welfare.

      • Gregg

        I do not think helping poor folks is evil, creating them is.

        • ulTRAX


          Then look in the mirror Gregg. Just because the Right CLAIMS it wants to lift all boats and PRETENDS the 99% are just temporarily not rich, doesn’t change the fact that their REAL agenda isn’t to turn the US into a system that just works for those already rich. Perhaps that’s why you’re evading my post that under the policies of Bush2… policies YOU support not only created more Food Stamp users even in economic times you consider to have been good… but ultimately destroyed the economy. Oh, but that’s right… you never take ANY responsibility for the disaster your beliefs create. You just spin, evade, or ignore.

  • ulTRAX

    Our right wing friends here love to claim the Obama Stimulus was a dismal failure, that his policies are making the situation worst.

    But given the economy COLLAPSED under the policies of the Right… irresponsible tax cuts, reckless fiscal policies, free trade, and banking deregulation. Given the GOP has never renounced those policies or shown any regret or taken any responsibility for imploding the economy, what would the GOP have done to reverse their own policies and fix the economy?

    Would they have gone back to Reagan’s policies? But what was the record there? Reagan didn’t face collapsed banking and housing sectors. He promised the world. Yet 6 months after taking office the economy sank into the deepest recession since the 30′s. A year and a half later peak unemployment was 10.8%… higher than under Obama and remained over 10% for 10 months. Unemployment was 8% or higher for 27 months. Unemployment didn’t drop to below 7% until Jan 86! The Orwellian Right sweeps all this under the rug and claims the Reagan tax cuts were a smashing success.  

    I’ve long noticed that when an ideologue… left or right, is painted into a corner they never have eureka moments where they suddenly realize possible errors in their thinking. They become more evasive, more hostile, more determined NOT to face the possibility they are their precious belief system could be based in bad information. If one looks at their heirarchy of implicit values, facts take a back seat to delusions of infalibility. Sadly, politics may seem secular, but functionally belief in politics is akin to belief in religion. 

    If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting  different results then the GOP is not just a classic example of insanity… the GOP is getting more insane. With the Dems being the dysfunctional alternative, we really do near to fear for our nation.   

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