If It's Politics It Must Be SSDD

Ugh

USA Today 

WHAAAATT?
USA Today

Oh goody.
USA Today 

But there IS good news!

Great News for Great Pitchers

USA Today 

SSDD Translation:  Same Shit Different Day

Now That We Have a Republican Majority in Both Houses of Congress...

...how about a little reality check?

Who's More Presidential, American & Respectful to the Troops? Jon Stewart knows...

As usual, Stewart tells it like it is.  Ladies, be sure to watch the video around 4:50.

The Daily Show
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239 Days & Counting

 

 

It was all over the airwaves last night.  By the end of this year, Congress will have worked a total of 126 days and taken 239 days of vacation.  Or as Kenneth D. Ackerman puts it,



"What's the best job on earth? Why, of course, to be a Member of the United States Congress."   Huffington Post 12/03/12

Mr. Ackerman cites the average Congressional salary is $174,000 with the Speak of the House receiving $223,500.

I can only imagine how this sits with the public who are, as was I, just waking up to the real hard facts of what these people do not do. 

Mr. Ackerman wrote the above quoted blog exactly one year ago.  This was at the beginning of what will turn out to be, according to the Boston Globe 12/04/2013,

 "...the least productive crop of legislators in modern history."

That same Globe article states Congress has passed only 55 bills, spent only 36 hours per week in session, averaging one bill per week. 

I don't know about you but I'm thinking of running for Congress.
 

 

Another Flaw in the System: NFL Doesn't Pay Taxes

"Despite the fact that it is a $9Billion/Year industry, the National Football League (NFL) continues to enjoy status as a non-profit organization -- meaning it doesn’t have to pay federal corporate taxes."

         

It isn't enough the federal government is currently shut down with over 800,000 people furloughed and 1.3 million working without pay while members of Congress continue to collect their undeserved salaries for NOT doing their jobs.  

The "Haves" Win Again.  

Pissed?  Sign the petition.

Random

Puts it all in perspective, doesn't it?

Unveiling the Rosa Parks statue in the Capitol today.

A blogger friend was there for the ceremony & took some mighty fine shots.

One very cool Bassett Hound

Who'd a Thunk? SCOTUS Upholds Health Care Reform

Robert Reich thinks Chief Justice Roberts voted with his more Liberal counterparts to uphold the Affordable Care Act, lovingly called "Obamacare" by the GOP and their new poster boy MITT, as a reaction to his growing concerns about the Court and the country's reaction to what has appeared to be a series of partisan votes based on political views capped off by the Citizens United vote last Fall.  

Roberts’ decision is not without precedent. Seventy-five years ago, another Justice Roberts – no relation to the current Chief Justice – made a similar switch. Justice Owen Roberts had voted with the Court’s conservative majority in a host of 5-4 decisions invalidating New Deal legislation, but in March of 1937 he suddenly switched sides and began joining with the Court’s four liberals.  In popular lore, Roberts’ switch saved the Court – not only from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s threat to pack it with justices more amenable to the New Deal but, more importantly, from the public’s increasing perception of the Court as a partisan, political branch of government.  robertreich.org

Meanwhile, the debate continues about the effect this will have on the GOP presidential race and how the GOP can spin to their advantage.  Mitt will have answers once he's been briefed by his campaign managers.  At present he's sticking with "What the Supreme Court did not do, on its last day in session, I will do on my first day, if elected President of the United States. And that is, I will act to repeal Obamacare."  According to CNN, Mitt said "Obamacare" 18 times during this reaction speech.

(Oh Mitt, you have to get elected first.  You're not looking so good right now.  You can't even get the dialog back on the economy where you think you shine.)

For his part, the President practically thanked Romney for leading the way in health care reform as well as reminding the citizenry of the many benefits of the upheld law:

Oh shit, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder just found in "contempt of Congress" by virtue of Republican partisan votes in the House while all but 15 Democrats walked out in protest.  

Back to the Future

Yesterday's  blog post by Jayne Martin struck a chord.  She reprised a 2 year old post about the  continuing dominance of "tired old white men" in our political system and the not-so-hidden prejudices of the political and emotional landscape.   

I watched PBS' airing of the two part "Clinton" series last week.  It was interesting to go back in time and realize how similarly their presidencies began and the hatred directed towards President Clinton and, worse, towards Hillary.  In most respects, she turned out to be the more politically prescient of the two.  But the nation wanted her head.  They obviously overcame some of the derision only to become mired in the Whitewater and Monica-gate scandals.  Clinton was his own worst enemy as those who worked for and admired him note in the program.  But even he has come out on the other side.

My husband and I are convinced people hate Obama because of his color more than his policies.  In the spirit of bi-partisanship, he's attempted to appease those who do not deserve to be appeased, i.e. McConnell, Ryan, Cantor, Boehner.  They've done all but spit on him.    

 ttaken from the The Schiller Institute newsletter of Lyndon LaRouche  Note remark re: Constitution

We have journalists like Mark Halperin calling him a "dick".  This is our president!  I may have thought G.W. was all those things & more but I don't believe I put it in print, let alone say such a thing on national television.

We can only hope President Obama, if re-elected, has the opportunity to achieve his goals in the second term, unencumbered by the need to seek re-election and please an old white bread male dominated Congress of politicos indebted to PACS, lobbyists and corporate America.

Why We Can't Afford Our Children

I cut and pasted this USAA graph after guessing the answer incorrectly. Of course, it only feels like the cost of child raising has doubled since my sons were born in the late 1980s. The projected amount to put them through college at the time of their births was $100,000 for a Bachelors' degree.

So, who has this kind of money anyway?  Oh.  Right.  The 1% to whom Congress and the candidates pander.

Question 1 Results How much has the cost of raising a child increased over the past 10 years? 20% 11.7% 40% 46.3% 60% 42.0%

Raising a kid from birth to age 18 increased by 40% over the past decade, and topped a whopping $226,920 last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And that's NOT including what you'll need to save to pay for a college education. In 2011-12, public, four-year colleges charged an average of $8,244 per year in tuition and fees for in-state students, and $12,526 per year for out-of-state students, according to the College Board. Meanwhile, private nonprofit four-year colleges charged an average of $28,500 per year in tuition and fees. So how are parents supposed to cope? Luckily, the College Board reports that a full-time undergraduate student, over 2010-2011 received an average of $12,455 in financial aid, including more than $6,500 in grants that don't have to be repaid.

8 Years 4500 Casualties Later

I know I should be happy the war in Iraq is ended and the last troops officially left yesterday.  I am.  But I'm angry.  I'm angry it  in the first place. I'm angry it was sold to us with a lie.  I'm angry we  bought into the lie and I'm angry we didn't call out the perpetrators of this lie once the lie was exposed. 

I'm not the parent of someone in the military.  I am the daughter of a WWII vet and cousin of a lifer in the USAF.  I don't hate the military.  I respect the people who fight for us.  What I don't respect are the men who make these decisions, the so-called "leaders", the Masters of War:  Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush II, Tony Blair, majorities in U.S. Houses of Congress as well as Members of Parliament.

British weekly newsmagazine New Statesman, contains a well written op-ed on the legacy of the Iraq War.  Always interesting to hear how other countries view the U.S., even when they're our bed mates.

"Faces of the Dead" is a NY Times interactive visual of every soldier killed in Iraq & Afghanistan. This is what you call a reality check.

Was it worth it?   We'll be arguing this as long as we live without as much conviction as we argued about Viet Nam.  This perspective was written in 2007 but it's still relevant today; perhaps more so.

As a final note, here's the Iraqi Body Count and their latest estimates on civilian Iraqi deaths.

Dylan's Masters of War music video

Class Warfare???

I don't understand this "class warfare" sound bite coming from the mouths of members of the GOP.  It's a catchy phrase, to be sure, but in the context it's used, it seems oxymoronic.

The term expression now used by many politicos on the Right is a refutation of  the tax proposals put forth by the President last Monday.  President Obama wants to tax anyone making a million dollars plus to pay at least the same effective tax rate as many of those who work for them.  Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

There was a hue and cry from the GOP with (R) Rep. Paul Ryan leading the charge with his own tax program "which would slash taxes for the rich as well as funding for food stamps and other low-income assistance programs".  Huh?  When asked if he was engaging in his own "class warfare", his said

“...the president is using rhetoric that divides people, that preys on people’s sense of anxiety, fear, envy.” He said: “what we’re trying to do is appeal to people’s sense of hope, aspiration. We want an equal- opportunity society. We want a society of upward mobility, and that is what we’re striving for.”

Wait.  Whose hopes and aspirations is he talking about?   Upward mobility?  Right now, many of us would be happy with a job, food on the table and a permanent place to sleep.

Speaker of the House Boehner was not to be denied his moment in the sun; of course, he always looks like he's been in the sun.  

“I don’t think I would describe class warfare as leadership. The government has a spending problem and I don’t believe it makes any sense to tax the people we expect to invest in our economy.”

Uh, that would be a shitload of GOP supporters and opposition to environment protection, social welfare and less government oversight like the billionaire Koch brothers.

They couldn't possibly mean these people.  The ones the US Census Bureau say are now 46,000,000  strong in what is still considered by many the "richest country in the world":

The pain was not evenly distributed, however. Black households suffered the greatest decline, losing 10.1% of household income since 2007. Those over the age of 65 saw household income increase by 5.5% since 2007.

Roughly 9.4 million individuals have lost their full-time jobs since 2007. There are roughly 6.6 million fewer men in the full-time workforce and 2.8 million fewer women.

The national poverty rate has hit 15.1% of the population now lives in poverty — up from 14.3% in 2009 and from 12.5% in 2007. 

The Census reports that 46.2 million individuals now live in poverty, up from 43.6 million in 2009. This is the highest number of people living in poverty since statistics were first kept in 1959 — a 52-year highRead more: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/devil-details/census-report-income-down-poverty-up/5140/#ixzz1YobLjsa6

You get the idea.  And the idea is we, the people of the United States of America, are circling the downward economic drain while the country burns and the GOP, lobbyists, bankers, corporations and Wall Street fiddle.

Who's Gonna Level the Playing Field?

I can't say it as well or as knowledgeably as Robert Reich.  After President Obama's Rose Garden press conference this morning, subject:  The Economy, Reich had this to say.

Trickle-down economics has been a cruel joke.

On the other hand — given projected budget deficits — if the rich don’t pay their fair share, the rest of us will have to bear more of a burden. And that burden inevitably will come in the form of either higher taxes or fewer public services.

If anyone’s declared class warfare it’s the people who inhabit the top rungs of big corporations and Wall Street (and who comprise a disproportionate number of America’s super rich). They’ve declared it on average workers.

The ratio of corporate profits to wages is higher than it’s been since before the Great Depression. And even as corporate salaries and perks keep rising, the median wage keeping dropping, and jobs continue to be shed.

You’ve got the chairman of Merck taking home $17.9 million last year. This year Merck announces plans to boot 13,000 workers. The CEO of Bank of America takes in $10 million, and the bank announces it’s firing 30,000 workers.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but the way I see it we’ve got a huge budget deficit and a giant jobs problem. And under these circumstances it seems to me people at the top who have never had it so good should sacrifice a bit more, so the rest of us don’t have to sacrifice quite as much.

Yeah.  Those salaries.  Those layoffs.  Those Congressmen who won't level the playing field.

Where the hell did THIS GUY go?

 

Obama and the Oompa Loompas

Did you watch the President's Jobs Speech last night?  He had some good things to say and I really should comment on them but I'm still thinking about the faces of his political foes and the captions running through my head as the cameras caught them in close up during the speech.

Boehner never cracked a smile.  Oh, there was a glimmer of one but I think he was contemplating how to shave another point off his handicap.

My older son thinks he looks like an Oompa Loompa.  You know, he's right! 

McConnell had his classic Tooter the Turtle look on.  Not a pretty sight.

McCain looked like he has a real big hemorrhoid.  But then, he always looks like that.

As for Rand Paul, he looked like he wanted to have a throwdown with the Prez.  I'd love to see Obama knock that hairpiece off his head.