The Many Faces of US Politics...

[dec]

Come Clean and Cut Funding
What did the President know and when did he know it, goes the old Washington adage....Congress should cut off funding for the President's green energy programs, regardless of whether the President wishes to see the writing on the wall.

When you are just going to cut and paste pieces from the Heritage foundation you could at least provide a link to the source.

[Tyrones own]

Why not stay on topic...is it that painful?
Yes it's a paste from my cell phone for handiness
But sure feel free to knock holes in it...if you can

[stew]

Fair play to you TO. Fighting the good fight day in and day out, I don't know how you can stick it.

[J70]

My point stands. There are plenty of issues such as those I listed, in response to your lazy, simplistic, outdated Churchill quote, where what is, in US politics, the liberal position, is the only worthy one. That has nothing to do with Obama's performance or the performance of either party or the awful range of candidates the Republicans are putting up.

Wha... He has championed the progressive Liberal utopia like no other that ever came before him, wise up... It has everything to do with him!

All right, I guess I'll have to spell it out for you. Whether or not, from your or my or whoever's perspective, Obama or any other politician has failed or succeeded, does not mean that the issues they failed at addressing, whether through poor design or the limits of politics and compromise, are not worthy ones. And given that his base is deserting him for offering such poor leadership and limp resistance to a Republican party held hostage by the tea party, his championing of the "progressive Liberal utopia" is just a slight exaggeration on your part, don't you think? (Yes, I'm sure from your John Birchesque perspective, he's one stop short of Lenin, but we're talking about reality here).

And for someone who, just three or four days ago, was complaining about exaggeration and sensationalization on my part, you once again demonstrate that there's no one better at dishing it out. Almost as amusing as the occasion a month or two ago when you, with your "Obummer" and whatever other labels you use, were giving someone shit for using insulting, juvenile plays on George W Bush's name!

And yes, Biden is correct.

See... it's really not that difficult to break down and call a spade a spade, you're now two for two... we're beginning to get somewhere here

Well at least I've got the balls to defend a position and admit when the politicians representing my side are found wanting. Unlike yourself...

[Declan]

Paul Krugman is professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University and a regular columnist for The New York Times. Krugman was the 2008 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics - so a raving socialiast then - here's his take on the good Ol US

Panic of the Plutocrats
by Paul Krugman
It remains to be seen whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will change America's direction. Yet the protests have already elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent.

And this reaction tells you something important — namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what F.D.R. called "economic royalists," not the people camping in Zuccotti Park.

Consider first how Republican politicians have portrayed the modest-sized if growing demonstrations, which have involved some confrontations with the police — confrontations that seem to have involved a lot of police overreaction — but nothing one could call a riot. And there has in fact been nothing so far to match the behavior of Tea Party crowds in the summer of 2009.

Nonetheless, Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has denounced "mobs" and "the pitting of Americans against Americans." The G.O.P. presidential candidates have weighed in, with Mitt Romney accusing the protesters of waging "class warfare," while Herman Cain calls them "anti-American." My favorite, however, is Senator Rand Paul, who for some reason worries that the protesters will start seizing iPads, because they believe rich people don't deserve to have them.

Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor and a financial-industry titan in his own right, was a bit more moderate, but still accused the protesters of trying to "take the jobs away from people working in this city," a statement that bears no resemblance to the movement's actual goals.

And if you were listening to talking heads on CNBC, you learned that the protesters "let their freak flags fly," and are "aligned with Lenin."

The way to understand all of this is to realize that it's part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.

Last year, you may recall, a number of financial-industry barons went wild over very mild criticism from President Obama. They denounced Mr. Obama as being almost a socialist for endorsing the so-called Volcker rule, which would simply prohibit banks backed by federal guarantees from engaging in risky speculation. And as for their reaction to proposals to close a loophole that lets some of them pay remarkably low taxes — well, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, compared it to Hitler's invasion of Poland.

And then there's the campaign of character assassination against Elizabeth Warren, the financial reformer now running for the Senate in Massachusetts. Not long ago a YouTube video of Ms. Warren making an eloquent, down-to-earth case for taxes on the rich went viral. Nothing about what she said was radical — it was no more than a modern riff on Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous dictum that "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society."

But listening to the reliable defenders of the wealthy, you'd think that Ms. Warren was the second coming of Leon Trotsky. George Will declared that she has a "collectivist agenda," that she believes that "individualism is a chimera." And Rush Limbaugh called her "a parasite who hates her host. Willing to destroy the host while she sucks the life out of it."

What's going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street's Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They're not John Galt; they're not even Steve Jobs. They're people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.

Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they're still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.

This special treatment can't bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.

So who's really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America's oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.

© 2011 The New York Times Company

[Tyrones own]

Paul Krugman is professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University and a regular columnist for The New York Times. Krugman was the 2008 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics - so a raving socialiast then - here's his take on the good Ol US

Panic of the Plutocrats
by Paul Krugman
It remains to be seen whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will change America's direction. Yet the protests have already elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent.

And this reaction tells you something important — namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what F.D.R. called "economic royalists," not the people camping in Zuccotti Park.

Consider first how Republican politicians have portrayed the modest-sized if growing demonstrations, which have involved some confrontations with the police — confrontations that seem to have involved a lot of police overreaction — but nothing one could call a riot. And there has in fact been nothing so far to match the behavior of Tea Party crowds in the summer of 2009.

Nonetheless, Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has denounced "mobs" and "the pitting of Americans against Americans." The G.O.P. presidential candidates have weighed in, with Mitt Romney accusing the protesters of waging "class warfare," while Herman Cain calls them "anti-American." My favorite, however, is Senator Rand Paul, who for some reason worries that the protesters will start seizing iPads, because they believe rich people don't deserve to have them.

Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor and a financial-industry titan in his own right, was a bit more moderate, but still accused the protesters of trying to "take the jobs away from people working in this city," a statement that bears no resemblance to the movement's actual goals.

And if you were listening to talking heads on CNBC, you learned that the protesters "let their freak flags fly," and are "aligned with Lenin."

The way to understand all of this is to realize that it's part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.

Last year, you may recall, a number of financial-industry barons went wild over very mild criticism from President Obama. They denounced Mr. Obama as being almost a socialist for endorsing the so-called Volcker rule, which would simply prohibit banks backed by federal guarantees from engaging in risky speculation. And as for their reaction to proposals to close a loophole that lets some of them pay remarkably low taxes — well, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, compared it to Hitler's invasion of Poland.

And then there's the campaign of character assassination against Elizabeth Warren, the financial reformer now running for the Senate in Massachusetts. Not long ago a YouTube video of Ms. Warren making an eloquent, down-to-earth case for taxes on the rich went viral. Nothing about what she said was radical — it was no more than a modern riff on Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous dictum that "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society."

But listening to the reliable defenders of the wealthy, you'd think that Ms. Warren was the second coming of Leon Trotsky. George Will declared that she has a "collectivist agenda," that she believes that "individualism is a chimera." And Rush Limbaugh called her "a parasite who hates her host. Willing to destroy the host while she sucks the life out of it."

What's going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street's Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They're not John Galt; they're not even Steve Jobs. They're people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.

Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they're still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.

This special treatment can't bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.

So who's really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America's oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.

© 2011 The New York Times Company

This Paul Krugman Declan... Jaysus let me sit back in my favorite chair and let the pearls of
wisdom from the wise one sink right in 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/15/paul-krugman-fake-alien-invasion_n_926995.html

[tyssam5]

Paul Krugman is professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University and a regular columnist for The New York Times. Krugman was the 2008 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics - so a raving socialiast then - here's his take on the good Ol US

Panic of the Plutocrats
by Paul Krugman
It remains to be seen whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will change America's direction. Yet the protests have already elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent.

And this reaction tells you something important — namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what F.D.R. called "economic royalists," not the people camping in Zuccotti Park.

Consider first how Republican politicians have portrayed the modest-sized if growing demonstrations, which have involved some confrontations with the police — confrontations that seem to have involved a lot of police overreaction — but nothing one could call a riot. And there has in fact been nothing so far to match the behavior of Tea Party crowds in the summer of 2009.

Nonetheless, Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has denounced "mobs" and "the pitting of Americans against Americans." The G.O.P. presidential candidates have weighed in, with Mitt Romney accusing the protesters of waging "class warfare," while Herman Cain calls them "anti-American." My favorite, however, is Senator Rand Paul, who for some reason worries that the protesters will start seizing iPads, because they believe rich people don't deserve to have them.

Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor and a financial-industry titan in his own right, was a bit more moderate, but still accused the protesters of trying to "take the jobs away from people working in this city," a statement that bears no resemblance to the movement's actual goals.

And if you were listening to talking heads on CNBC, you learned that the protesters "let their freak flags fly," and are "aligned with Lenin."

The way to understand all of this is to realize that it's part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.

Last year, you may recall, a number of financial-industry barons went wild over very mild criticism from President Obama. They denounced Mr. Obama as being almost a socialist for endorsing the so-called Volcker rule, which would simply prohibit banks backed by federal guarantees from engaging in risky speculation. And as for their reaction to proposals to close a loophole that lets some of them pay remarkably low taxes — well, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, compared it to Hitler's invasion of Poland.

And then there's the campaign of character assassination against Elizabeth Warren, the financial reformer now running for the Senate in Massachusetts. Not long ago a YouTube video of Ms. Warren making an eloquent, down-to-earth case for taxes on the rich went viral. Nothing about what she said was radical — it was no more than a modern riff on Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous dictum that "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society."

But listening to the reliable defenders of the wealthy, you'd think that Ms. Warren was the second coming of Leon Trotsky. George Will declared that she has a "collectivist agenda," that she believes that "individualism is a chimera." And Rush Limbaugh called her "a parasite who hates her host. Willing to destroy the host while she sucks the life out of it."

What's going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street's Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They're not John Galt; they're not even Steve Jobs. They're people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.

Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they're still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.

This special treatment can't bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.

So who's really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America's oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.

© 2011 The New York Times Company

This Paul Krugman Declan... Jaysus let me sit back in my favorite chair and let the pearls of
wisdom from the wise one sink right in 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/15/paul-krugman-fake-alien-invasion_n_926995.html

Eh I believe that was a joke. WW2 was good for jobs though, 20% unemployed in 1939 to 1% in 1944. Unfortunately the economic benefit of the present wars has stayed in very few hands, due the system being protested against. Protesters messed up though, they should have started in the summer, there won't be too many of them out there when it starts getting cold soon.

[J70]

FFS anyone who can read can see from the very link TO posted that Krugman was joking and using it to illustrate his point.

[Groucho]

[Tyrones own]

Exactly... open your eyes lads. Nobody pays that biased clown any bit of attention
bar the New York Times readers amongst us 
FFS John Kerry never flip flopped and back tracked as much as Krugman has
as an economist/columnist!
Have to laugh at the lead out any time his crap is posted on here about
how he's a nobel winner...need I remind any of ye that Barrack won one of those too 

[Eamonnca1]

Have to laugh at the lead out any time his crap is posted on here about
how he's a nobel winner...need I remind any of ye that Barrack won one of those too 

Bush sure as shit didn't.

[Tyrones own]

Have to laugh at the lead out any time his crap is posted on here about
how he's a nobel winner...need I remind any of ye that Barrack won one of those too 

Bush sure as shit didn't.

Correct... like the two mentioned above, he didn't deserve one 

[Eamonnca1]

If there was a Nobel prize for contributions to satire I'm sure Bush would have walked away with it 8 years in a row.

[J70]

Exactly... open your eyes lads. Nobody pays that biased clown any bit of attention
bar the New York Times readers amongst us 
FFS John Kerry never flip flopped and back tracked as much as Krugman has
as an economist/columnist!
Have to laugh at the lead out any time his crap is posted on here about
how he's a nobel winner...need I remind any of ye that Barrack won one of those too 

Yet the whole right wing, Reagan-venerating, tea/Republican party base their entire economic "policy" on the University of Chicago group, in particular Friedman, who've won more Nobel prizes in economics than any other university. Krugman won for some arcane academic work he did back in the 70s, not for his political views or NY Times columns.

Why anyone would hang on the views of any particular single economist is beyond me anyway. A hard science it is not!

[omochain]

As a preface ... I am an old dude who thinks that God gave him 2 ears and one mouth for a reason. So I have limited my engagements on the board for good reason. However my addiction to Mr. T's take on US politics and his ability to make even me feel like even I still have a Christian spirit (compared to MR T) have prompted me to post this rant

As we stand at this time the country is almost impossible to govern because of the myopic greed of a few. The social contract between Main street America and the Financial system is broken and the government has been completely usurped by lobbyists.

Once ( When FRD was in charge) we sent our money to Wall Street and they found a way to invest it in businesses that made things like TV's, Washing machines, steel and clothing in the good ole USA.  Now they can make more money by moving the money we send them into arcane synthesized financial instruments (That's credit default swats) that do nothing for anyone other than create a commission for someone living in the Hamptons.  Unfortunately our F'd up tax code gives us little choice but to keep sending our money to these guys who reward Corporate America for off-shoring real blue collar jobs that pay a decent wage. In the stead of these real jobs we are hiring greeters at Walmart and other minimum wage jobs that leave folks reliant on the Government for healthcare coverage. We rejoice when we create another distribution outfit (Walamrt, Target) that makes it easy for China to feed our voracious appetite for cheap goods while we defend ourselves with (tongue in cheek) Low Tariffs, a crazy currency rate and gift them our technology.


Congress and by extension the Executive branch and Judiciary are bought and paid for. The Republicans and the Democrats are both beholden to wealthy donors (corporate, institutional, private and organizational). The only way to clean the mess up is "campaign finance reform" but no one in any branch of government is voting for that. You saw how McCain (once the great campaigner for campaign finance reform) had to do a 180 degree turn  to get his party's Presidential nomination in 2008 and his co-sponsor Russ Feingold failed to get re-elected in Wisconsin. If you do not join the Lobbyists you get licked.


The notion that Government is not a good thing (Reagan got elected on the back of his derogatory use of  "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help") and the consistent mantra coming from the right that all evil emanates from Washington is a foolhardy populist line that does not serve the national interest of the US. We need a citizenry that is bought into making government work.  Putting good people in place who can do a good job and holding them accountable if they do not. Instead we get Tea-party hypocrites who take government subsidies and free healthcare from the government while lecturing the rest of us that we should look after our own healthcare needs.

In a country where so many people can be conned into voting against their economic self-interest so regularly by clever manipulative mavens I am not holding my breath for any decent things to occur any time soon.

And as long as we have the likes of Mr T. espousing the politics of self interest over Henry Ford's notion of "pay them enough so that they can buy more of my shit" we are in a seriously myopic economic downward cycle that will eventually make Mr. T a less wealthy person than he should be.

Rant over