The answer to our prayers . . . gas prices keep dropping, and at the time of year when they have always been highest. There’s a town in California, and one in North (?) Carolina, where gas is now $2.98 per gallon!!!

I wonder what kind of media attention, if any, the Rio+20 (UN conference on sustainable development) is getting. The impression I’m getting is that Americans don’t know and don’t care about it. I understand the economy is really bad and there’s a presidential election going on, but still… Not one line about it on NPR? Why?

More blame Bush for economy than Obama. How would Romney bringing back the Republican anti-middle class agenda help?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57453042-503544/poll-finds-more-blame-bush-than-obama-for-economy/

Tom could you discuss the incident with the HBO series “Game of Thrones” and how the creators used a fake George Bush head on a pike in a scene. Can we expect to see more of this type of crude behavior from Hollywood and the Left going into the election in November?

Does OnPoint want fewer people to comment? This new Disquss format is just awful!!!

Boy the party loyalist back and forth, missing the greater points, deeper corruptions, is so tiring. Day after day.

Follow the money, see the revolving door technocrat appointees/Wall St coke-head goons, look at the monetary policy that feeds it at our expense, and stay on target til it changes.

What was the average GDP during the Bush years?

Obama does not seem to think the Congress matters. He just announced his own Dream Act, his war in Libya, secret war in Africa using contractors and his own words saying he will do what he wants despite what Congress says.

The military and many voices in the private sector argue that we need to invest more in our education system.

Why I’m Still “All In” for Obama

Robert Letcher

mid-June 2012

I
went “all in” for then-Senator Obama back in 2008 because he was the only
candidate in either party who had [1] the nuanced insight to see the complex
problems the county and the world faced; [2] the imagination to see through the
complexity of those problems to workable solutions; and most importantly, [3]
the rhetorical skills to persuade us to come together behind him, to transcend
our differences, so that we could in turn persuade him to lead us toward
remedying the dire problems we face.

In my
opinion, the problems we face—social division and economic calamity—are so
severe that just getting people to work together would have to be considered a
major accomplishment. Examples of his putting these skills to practice
include: his 2004 speech that addressed social division directly; his 2008
speech on race and the perfecting of the constitution, given at Constitution
Hall, where the Constitution itself was written; and his 2009 speech in response
to his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a speech notable for acknowledging
that there is a rest of the world, and that it matters, too.

More
recently, President Obama noted that there are significant differences between
being CEO for stockholders of a company and being President for all the
citizens of a country. Those
differences are manifest in social institutions; for example, many universities
operate both a business school and a public policy schools, and continue to do
so even during this Second Great Depression. In turn, the different schools teach different courses,
toward purposes that are often better seen as complimentary in their
differences, even though there are times when differences remain
differences.

President
Obama’s accomplishments in these regards would have been significant even if
Republicans hadn’t responded with their “No, Nothing. PERIOD!” strategy.
But that’s exactly what they did. And they have been unabashed about why
they adopted it: to make President Obama a one-term President.

Another
key difference is that a President’s decisions must often be taken in a context
of too little informationt, and that eventually brings morals into their
discussion, in this case, public morals, not personal. In contrast, CEO’s must, for reasons
that follow from their repeated appeals to the Jack of All Obfuscations:
“fiduciary responsibility”, to maximize their “bottom line” for their
shareholders.

Such
obeisance to profit reminds me of the bumper sticker: “Selfishness is NOT a
family value.”

Which
gets me around to similarities beween family values as I learned them and as
Obama learned them. Central to
both of us is concern for other people.
Mom always insisted that my siblings and I “share and share alike”.
And Dad often recalled the advice he had received from the priest who
married them: “Marriage is a 60-40 proposition; just make sure that you’re not
on the 60 end very often.”

That
caring for others that Obama and I share came out most visibly in my
demonstrating in public in support of the his HealthCare Reform and enduring
some really ugly treatment at the hands of some anti-HCR people. But as ugly as those people treated me,
none of them stomped on my head, as one campaign staffer for a Republican
candidate for US Senate did in a similar situation did just ahead of the 2010
elections. Such a stomping would
have killed me.

And
those stories are taken from the voting side of life. Stories from the work side of life are even more
compelling. My Mom’s Dad lost all four
fingers and most of his thumb on his left hand in an unfortunate encounter with
a cement mixer more than 80 years ago.
Had there been stronger labor rights, there probably would have been an
OSHA, and his accident would have been designed out of the realm of possibility.

One
final indicator of the depth of my support for re-electing Obama came in an
awareness that I experienced when I saw him during a 2008 visit to Columbus: it
occurred to me, “I’d take one for him”—a bullet, that is. And let me add:
I’m proud to have actively supported this country’s electing its first
President “of color”.

Yup, all the government job cuts make it doubly impressive that Obama has managed to maintain positive job growth in the private sector during his term thus far!
… I’d hate to see what would happen to America under yet ANOTHER Republican!

How much larger is the government with DHS and TSA, and increased military for 2 wars.

Hey guys, you can talk all you want about “can we *afford* medicare and social security” in a few years, but the fact is we have no choice. The *costs* the programs address will be born by us no matter what happens to the programs. People get sick, people get old, you can’t prevent the costs.

Oh good grief, Jack Beatty, public employees are being laid off because their retired brethren are bankrupting state and local governments. And the only difference between Obama and the Republicans is that he doesn’t want to raise taxes on 98% of the population and they don’t want to raise them on 100%. Raising taxes on the top 2% raises less than $80 billion a year, and the federal deficit is $1,900 billion. How, and when, do you plan to dig out of that hole?

The comments from two of the callers show how much the right wing media has distorted the facts. The meme that “we don’t have an income problem, we have a spending problem” is just ridiculous. The Bush Tax Cuts of 2001 and 2003 drastically reduced the income of the nation. Those cuts continue in effect, despite the sundown provisions, because the Republicans in the House held the country’s debt hostage to insure then continued. These tax cuts blew the budget. Of course, Bush also exploded the debt with two unfunded wars. Mr. Obama has reduced federal spending and has not increased the size of the government, which is the second meme the callers stated. The deliberate misinformation propagated by Fox News and others has distorted the thinking of the average American.

A good economic analogy is to piloting an airplane. If a plane goes too slowly there is not enough air flowing over the wings to keep the plane from falling. A naive pilot would point the nose up, away from the approaching ground, but as any pilot knows you need to temporarily point the plane down toward the approaching ground to gain airspeed. Once flight speed is attained, then level flight can be resumed. Likewise, if an economy stalls, the economic pilot (government) must temporarily increase spending (counter intuitively increasing debt) to increase employment (and spenders) increasing the activity under the economy’s wings until employment is back to normal levels. Once employment is at normal levels, then the government can worry about balancing budgets and let the private sector take over employment.

What a joke, Dimond. Why do we even take these appearances seriously and dissect the testimony seriously? The guy should simply be there to be tarred and feathered.

Why are you treating the Dimond testimony seriously?

A federal agent was killed in the USA. Several federal officials were killed in Mexico. Holder needs to resign. Why does government get away with this?

Started by the Bush administration.

Let me ask you some questions:
are you aware that the US government DOESN’T NEED Taxes to pay for stuff? Do
you really know that monetary sovereign nation IS NOT revenue constrained on
its spending? Do you really know what the purposes of taxes are? Do you know
that the same nation doesn’t have a solvency issue like the EU country that all
USER of a foreign currency? There is a monumental difference and it seems that most
of you don’t get it.  Are you aware that
the Debt/GDP ratio is mostly irrelevant? Are you aware that the household-government
comparison doesn’t hold water? Is a big, big lie trotted out for the purpose of
reducing the rule of government and put everything in private hand…..the same
with inflation.   With this respect, when
you have a big output gap between aggregate capacity and aggregate demand, it is
basically impossible to have inflation. 

Please try to read Worren Mosler,
Bill Mitchel, Bill Black, Marshall Auerback, Stephanie Kelton Randall Wray it
will help to uncover the truth about these important issues.  If you go for austerity you’re going to shoot
yourself in the foot! 

Your guests are damned liars. Operation Fast & Furious was NOT “continued from the Bush Administration” — it began in 2009. And Issa’s investigation is NOT “just politics.” Not only an American law enforcement officer but _two hundred Mexican citizens_ have died as a result of this operation.

How many people died from the Watergate break-in?

The Obama Administration’s criminality and incompetence are on full display here, and for your guests to dismiss this as “just politics” or “conspiracy theories” just shows that this show isn’t journalism at all. It’s nothing but Obama Adminstration spin and talking points.

How does it feel to work for Pravda, Mr. Ashbrook?

Austerity does not work. It only makes the economy worse.  During the early 1970′s tax rates of high income earners were much higher than today and we had a booming economy back then. Let’s raise taxes on the rich to levels we had back then. That will make the economy flourish again.

From the Wall Street Journal
http://tinyurl.com/6s5oteg

Join with the people standing up for a working economy in Boston tomorrow in the March Against Austerity.
http://www.bit.ly/j16march

If Obama wasn’t trying to defend a technocratic/quasi-socialistic expansion of the Finance/Government Corporate State, and instead argued for more Organic free markets withing a simple rule of law, then most people would support the Bush tax cut expiration, and Obama, but of course he represents and is pushing the former, not just the latter, and most Americans don’t like that, even if they know Romney is no Panacea.

Doctors will jump ship if Obamacare is fully implemented.

http://www.dpmafoundation.org/physician-attitudes-on-medicine.html

Onpont might take a look at this the below,
�
But is the Houla massacre really “better documented” than other atrocity stories emerging from Syria? On June 7, a major fissure began to appear in the storyline, when leading German daily newspaper Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung (FAZ) quoted sources who said that the Houla massacre was carried out by anti-Assad Sunni militants, and that their victims were nearly all Alawi and Shia—populations traditionally loyal to Assad. According to Syria expert Patrick Seale (Agence Global, 6/12/12) ,who quoted translated parts of the German story,  FAZ sources said after the killings, “the perpetrators then filmed their victims and, in videos posted on the internet, presented them as Sunni victims of the regime.”
On June 7, the BBC began to back away from its earlier stories that had reported the conventional line, blaming pro-government forces for a massacre that including the cutting of women’s and children’s throats. As the UK media watch group Media Lens (6/13/12) reported:
Last week, however, in what might almost be interpreted as a mea culpa, the BBC’s World News editor, Jon Williams, began a June 7 blog emphasizing “the complexity of the situation on the ground in Syria, and the need to try to separate fact from fiction.”
This was a surprising emphasis—the BBC had previously communicated no sense of “complexity” in blaming the Syrian government. Williams continued:In the aftermath of the massacre at Houla last month, initial reports said some of the 49 children and 34 women killed had their throats cut. In Damascus, Western officials told me the subsequent investigation revealed none of those found dead had been killed in such a brutal manner. Moreover, while Syrian forces had shelled the area shortly before the massacre, the details of exactly who carried out the attacks, how and why were still unclear…. In Houla, and now in Qubair, the finger has been pointed at the shabiha, pro-government militia. But tragic death toll aside, the facts are few: it’s not clear who ordered the killings—or why. fair. org /blog/2012/06/14/ was-houla-massacre-a-manufactured-atrocity/

No disrepect to Ms McCain, but the Republican party has absolutely remained the party of No.  There has been no compromise.   Instead of at least trying(def: to attempt with good intentions) to pass bills that may have helped create jobs they blocked any and every attempt by the president to alleviate the country’s dire situation.    I’ve lost count of the number of times president Obama requested removing the tax breaks for the elitely rich.  And as many times, the Repubs voted this down with impunity.  These are not elected officials who are out to better the lives of Americans, rather they are shameful fat cats comfortably ensconced in partisan muck.  I can only hope that somehow the president can win reelection because the alternative is unthinkable. 

The US/Zionists are escalating the violence & suffering in Syria

Like so many people on the Left today I continue to believe the Zionist apologists in the US Senate John Mc Cain and Joe
Lieberman and their cohorts in the US House John Boehner,
plus the US Secretary of State , Hillary Clinton in the State Department are responsible for this American propaganda�
war against the Syria to bring down the Syria leader……
In addition, to those in the Right Wing/Zionist Think Tanksin Washington, such as Robert Keagan at the American Ent-er prize and John Bolton & Company in other US/ Zionist backed Think Tank for this American war of propaganda in Syria and for the shocking suffering & war crimes being per-petrating against the Syrian people today in our US name (indirectly, but directly to benefit the Zionist land thieves and war mongers in Israel. (See the URL below for more information  of this)..Now, it is interesting to note how the UN is now accusing those on “both sides ” for escalating the conflict in Syria and for the failure of UN monitors and relief workers to assist the Syrian people in great need on the ground…..Shame , shame on those involved on the American side.As Ramsey Clark and other legal scholars have proposed those US/Zionist apologists need to be reined in today and charged their war crimes against the Syrian leadership and people….in our name.  DeeSyria, The Next “Humanitarian War” http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29234The Israeli Lobby, and the Zionist warning to Syria of “next” http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobbyNeocons not Mullah. would blow up the Middle East http://politicalcorrection.org/fpmatters/

I was just helping my husband make sausage this evening (smoked pork, chicken and roasted garlic), and as I was turning the handle, my mind kept floating back to that great sausage-making body, the U.S. Congress.  I think part of our recent difficulty is that no one is willing to make the necessary compromises to the recipe to turn out the sausage.  

A current example is the rapidly-announced new Obama administration immigration policy for young folks who were brought over the U.S. border by their parents, and who were brought up essentially as any American child, and would therefore make it difficult to return back to country of origin.  And then there is Marco Rubio’s version, still in development, but both policies being much the same in intent. 

So here we are with both parties seemingly ready to address a difficult situation, and in a humane way that benefits that family and the U.S. populace at large. And instead we get talking points and stalemate, once again.

Just make the sausage, guys.

President Clinton and Governor Cuomo have now said “Frack baby Frack”

General, brief comments about the format of the show.  To wit:

1.  Please lose that HORRID, AWFUL, NERVE-RACKING “theme music.”  It’s gone from merely tedious to downright dreadful.  It’s way past time to replace that sonic pollution.

2.  A commercial three or four times / hour is unacceptable.  (And as an aside:  “Liberty Mutual.  Responsibility: What’s your policy?”  Aside from being overtly stupid and pandering, what, exactly is it supposed to mean?  Just idiotic.)  The show needs to be funded.  We get the picture.  No need to beat it to death.  This sort of repetition does nothing more than make me contemptuous of the show and its sponsors.  Get a clue.

3.  While Mr. Ashbrook’s sentiments would seem to be in the right place, his propensity to yammer incessantly, to constantly interrupt his guests and/or not to let them get a word in edgewise is unacceptable.  There is no need to say in one thousand words what can more succinctly be articulated in ten; if the guests aren’t allowed to adequately convey their message, then can we assume they have nothing serious to say?  Think about it:  Is it an AM “talk radio” format that you’re shooting for, or something that is supposed to be imparting actual, ya know, real information?  You can’t be both…you just simply cannot.

I doubt any of these quite valid points will be read, let alone acted upon.  However, to the extent they are ignored, you may expect that I, for one, will likewise ignore the show.

Simply stated:  I just can’t take the format any longer.  It’s really gotten bad.  Like…way bad.