Questions of Facts

Climate change denial’s new offensive - Salon.com

2012-02-09T15:13:00.000-06:00

It’s no secret where this denialism comes from: The fossil fuel industry pays for it. (Of the 16 authors of the Journal article, for instance, five had had ties to Exxon.)Writers from Ross Gelbspan to Naomi Oreskes have made this case with such overwhelming power that no one even really tries denying it any more. The open question is why the industry persists in denial in the face of an endless body of fact showing climate change is the greatest danger we’ve ever faced.

Climate change denial’s new offensive - Salon.com

Nation's Largest Catholic University: We Offer 'A Prescription Contraceptive Benefit' | ThinkProgress

2012-02-09T11:05:00.000-06:00

The largest Catholic university in the nation has admitted to providing contraception coverage as part of its health care benefit package, further undermining the GOP’s claims that Obama’s regulation requiring insurers and employers to offer reproductive health benefits represents and “unprecedented” war against religion. The rule — which exempts houses of worship and nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of faith from providing contraception coverage — mirrors existing requirements in six states.

Nation's Largest Catholic University: We Offer 'A Prescription Contraceptive Benefit' | ThinkProgress

WP: Fareed Zakaria-The world has changed, Mr. Romney

2012-02-06T16:04:00.000-06:00

The world has changed, Mr. Romney

This is a new world, very different from the America-centric one we got used to over the last generation. Obama has succeeded in preserving and even enhancing U.S. influence in this world precisely because he has recognized these new forces at work. He has traveled to the emerging nations and spoken admiringly of their rise. He replaced the old Western club and made the Group of 20 the central decision-making forum for global economic affairs. By emphasizing multilateral organizations, alliance structures and international legitimacy, he got results. It was Chinese and Russian cooperation that produced tougher sanctions against Iran. It was the Arab League’s formal request last year that made Western intervention in Libya uncontroversial.

By and large, you have ridiculed this approach to foreign policy, arguing that you would instead expand the military, act unilaterally and talk unapologetically. That might appeal to Republican primary voters, but chest-thumping triumphalism won’t help you secure America’s interests or ideals in a world populated by powerful new players.

You can call this new century whatever you like, but it won’t change reality. After all, just because we call it the World Series doesn’t make it one.

WP: Fareed Zakaria

TIME: Fareed Zakaria The Case for Making It in the USA

2012-01-30T15:35:00.000-06:00

In theory, I am deeply skeptical of government industrial policy. Government doesn’t know how to pick winners and losers, it will make mistakes, and the process will get politicized. All this is true. And yet when I look at China and South Korea and also Germany and Japan, I see governments playing a crucial role. They do make mistakes— their versions of Solyndra— but they seem to view them the way venture capitalists would. Their role is to seed many companies, only a few of which will succeed. Once these companies are identified, government helps them compete against big U.S. multi nationals. There used to be a joke about Marxist economists who would say of a deviation from pure communist economics: “It might work in practice, comrade, but it doesn’t work in theory.” That’s what industrial policy looks like these days. The theory doesn’t make sense, but it’s hard to argue with the result.

TIME: Fareed Zakaria

The Money Traps in U.S. Health Care - NYTimes.com

2012-01-28T15:07:00.000-06:00

Why does an appendectomy in Germany cost roughly a quarter what it costs in the United States? Or an M.R.I. scan cost less than a third as much, on average, in Canada?

The Money Traps in U.S. Health Care - NYTimes.com

The Obama Memos: How Washington Remade the President : The New Yorker

2012-01-26T10:51:00.000-06:00

In the past four decades, the two political parties have become more internally homogeneous and ideologically distant. In “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama wrote longingly about American politics in the mid-twentieth century, when both parties had liberal and conservative wings that allowed centrist coalitions to form. Today, almost all liberals are Democrats and almost all conservatives are Republicans. In Washington, the center has virtually vanished. According to the political scientists Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal, who have devised a widely used system to measure the ideology of members of Congress, when Obama took office there was no ideological overlap between the two parties. In the House, the most conservative Democrat, Bobby Bright, of Alabama, was farther to the left than the most liberal Republican, Joseph Cao, of Louisiana. The same was true in the Senate, where the most conservative Democrat, Ben Nelson, of Nebraska, was farther to the left than the most liberal Republican, Olympia Snowe, of Maine. According to Poole and Rosenthal’s data, both the House and the Senate are more polarized today than at any time since the eighteen-nineties.

The Obama Memos: How Washington Remade the President : The New Yorker

Fact check: Factual flubs in GOP's Florida debate – USATODAY.com

2012-01-24T11:11:00.000-06:00

Fact check: Factual flubs in GOP's Florida debate – USATODAY.com

5 Founding Fathers Whose Skepticism About Christianity Would Make Them Unelectable Today

2012-01-16T15:24:00.000-06:00

5 Founding Fathers Whose Skepticism About Christianity Would Make Them Unelectable Today

Opinion: Crazy never wins GOP sweepstakes - Joe Scarborough - POLITICO.com

2012-01-11T15:41:00.000-06:00

Crazy never wins GOP sweepstakes

You heard right, my Upper West Side friend. Crazy. Never. Wins.

Despite the crop of nutty right-wing candidates that sprout up in GOP presidential fields every four years, despite the gasps and growls that regularly rise from Manhattan cocktail parties aimed at extremists who are hijacking the Republican Party (in ways that past GOP extremists would never have dreamed of hijacking the party), despite the cries from right-wing radio hosts predicting the rise of Ronald Reagan’s ghost and the nomination of an unelectable candidate, in the end this political chatter always proves to be sound and fury signifying nothing.

Opinion: Crazy never wins GOP sweepstakes - Joe Scarborough - POLITICO.com

FactChecking Health Insurance Premiums

2012-01-08T14:04:00.000-06:00

FactChecking Health Insurance Premiums

The Spirit of Christmas- My Take On It - SusanThur - Open Salon

2011-12-24T12:13:00.000-06:00

“The Christmas Spirit”.
Yes, it happens every year; it can’t be escaped. The Christmas Spirit sneaks up and grabs our Scrooge sour disposition and takes us into that breathtaking transformational world of hope, promise, kindness, and charity.
It is the time of giving and receiving, a time for forgiving, and a time for consideration and compassion for others. This is the time to remember it is about love and good will and opening our hearts.
The Christmas Spirit is the enchanted world of possible dreams and promising visions. During the holidays we are brought back to a childlike state of wishful minds and the carefree faith of childhood, enfolded into optimistic innocence, simplistic warmth and untainted courage and strength.
The carefree confidence of childhood is where the goodness of the human spirit resides; it is the goodness of humanity.
The goodness of humanity will always be Love; it is the unique, everlasting phenomenon of life. We may not be able to touch it, smell it, or quite understand it, and we may even at many times be confused by it. But it is real, just as the Spirit of Christmas is real.
As we grow from childhood to adulthood, we leave behind the belief of Santa but the belief of love lives on. The Spirit of Christmas, that boundless sincerity of love, the giving of one’s self, is never outgrown and always lives within us. We just have to reach in, grab it and live it.
And if, somehow, the remembrance of the fundamental meaning of Christmas is overlooked, forgotten or fades, and sometimes even fought over. Do not fear all you Hum Buggers out there like me, for each year, we are renewed again.
The true meaning of Christmas will forever be a communal celebration of Love.
We do possess the knowledge to keep Christmas well.
For the spirit of Christmas fulfills the greatest hunger of mankind. ~Loring A. Schuler
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
Susan Thur

The Spirit of Christmas- My Take On It - SusanThur - Open Salon

Bill Summary & Status - 112th Congress (2011 - 2012) - S.1867 - CRS Summary - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

2011-12-16T21:58:00.000-06:00

Bill Summary & Status - 112th Congress (2011 - 2012) - S.1867 - CRS Summary - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street | The Ticket - Yahoo! News

2011-12-09T14:54:00.000-06:00

How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street | The Ticket - Yahoo! News

The Occupy Movement 2011 - YouTube

2011-12-07T15:53:00.000-06:00

My new youtube video for the Occupy Movement- 2011

The Occupy Movement 2011 - YouTube

Bomb Buried in Obamacare Explodes - Hallelujah!

2011-12-06T11:08:00.000-06:00

That would be the provision of the law, called the medical loss ratio, that requires health insurance companies to spend 80% of the consumers' premium dollars they collect - 85% for large group insurers - on actual medical care rather than overhead, marketing expenses and profit.

Bomb Buried in Obamacare Explodes - Hallelujah!

700 Billion Dollar Bank Bailout was Secretly 7 Trillion

2011-12-06T10:01:00.000-06:00

700 Billion Dollar Bank Bailout was Secretly 7 Trillion

Forget Hope. Obama Has A New Strategy For 2012

2011-12-05T15:43:00.000-06:00

The new theme: "everyone engages in fair play, everyone does their fair share, and everyone gets a fair shot."

In a word: Fairness.

Forget Hope. Obama Has A New Strategy For 2012

Israel and the Arab Awakening - NYTimes.com

2011-12-05T15:17:00.000-06:00

Israel and the Arab Awakening - NYTimes.com

Cutting taxes for the rich never ends well | Economic Policy Institute

2011-12-02T14:11:00.000-06:00

Cutting taxes for the rich never ends well | Economic Policy Institute

FactCheck.org : GOP’s Phantom Job Losses

2011-12-01T17:43:00.000-06:00

FactCheck.org : GOP’s Phantom Job Losses

Bush tax cuts for the top 1% are greater than the income of the rest of America

2011-11-26T18:21:00.000-06:00

Bush tax cuts for the top 1% are greater than the income of the rest of America:  As the Occupy Wall Street protests continue to grow by the day across the country, the reality is that nothing is being done about it in Washington. The "

What Happened to the Tea Party?

2011-11-25T15:28:00.000-06:00

What Happened to the Tea Party?

Elizabeth Warren for Democracy Journal: Unsafe at Any Rate

2011-11-25T15:13:00.000-06:00

Elizabeth Warren for Democracy Journal: Unsafe at Any Rate

Kathryn Dawson: How Cable News Made Me Lose My Religion and My Mother

2011-11-22T13:05:00.000-06:00

Kathryn Dawson: How Cable News Made Me Lose My Religion and My Mother

jeffrey sachs: the price of civilization - YouTube

2011-11-22T11:08:00.000-06:00

jeffrey sachs: the price of civilization - YouTube

Christine Lagarde: Facing down worldwide recession - CBS News

2011-11-22T11:06:00.000-06:00

Christine Lagarde: Facing down worldwide recession - CBS News

Why We Need Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-18T13:50:00.000-06:00

Why We Need Occupy Wall Street

Hardball Blog - Matthews: Clinton representing America well

2011-11-10T10:45:00.000-06:00

Hardball Blog - Matthews: Clinton representing America well

Greek Debt Crisis: How Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its True Debt - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

2011-11-04T14:17:00.000-05:00

Greek Debt Crisis: How Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its True Debt - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Judges Are For Sale and Special Interests Are Buying | TIME Ideas | TIME.com

2011-11-02T12:18:00.000-05:00

Judges Are For Sale and Special Interests Are Buying | TIME Ideas | TIME.com

Can Judges Be Bought | Parade.com

2011-11-02T12:16:00.000-05:00

Can Judges Be Bought | Parade.com

Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating

2011-10-26T13:47:00.000-05:00

Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating

Meet the CEO Behind the Attack on “Privileged” Public Employees | The Progressive

2011-10-20T10:16:00.000-05:00

Meet the CEO Behind the Attack on “Privileged” Public Employees | The Progressive

Leslie H. Gelb Argues That Neocons Like Bill Kristol Are Back to Warmongering - The Daily Beast

2011-10-20T09:56:00.000-05:00

They’re back! The neoconservatives who gave America clueless, unpaid-for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus a near doubling of military expenditures, during the Bush years have risen from their political graves. Someone, maybe a media tiring of President Obama’s interminable plight, pulled the stake from their heart. Now they’ve returned to the op-ed pages, the talk shows, the think-tank discussions, and the advisory ranks of Republican presidential candidates.

Leslie H. Gelb Argues That Neocons Like Bill Kristol Are Back to Warmongering - The Daily Beast

Cenk Uygur: How To Regain Our Democracy

2011-10-20T09:04:00.000-05:00

Our politicians are bought. Everyone knows it. Conservatives know it just as much as liberals do. And libertarians have probably known it all along. The Democrats are bought and the Republicans even more so. They don't represent us. They represent their donors. We have taxation without representation. Our democracy is in serious trouble.

Cenk Uygur: How To Regain Our Democracy

Occupy Wall Street-How I see it Also as a 99%

2011-10-09T12:01:00.005-05:00

My college age daughter is attending the Wall Street Protest in New Orleans. Her eyes are open to what is happening to our Democracy, along with the other young people in her college group.
Since I can't go to the New Orleans Protest and I feel I should do my part-- I will do what I like to do best---Write.
Here is ---How I see it and what I have seen for a while now.

Occupy WallStreet October 2011

The financial chaos in 2008 began with Wall Street. However, this did not happen overnight. It took years of policies (under Democrats & Republicans) that has led us to where we are today by changing the basic structures of banking. There used to be a very well-defined division between commercial banks and investment banks. The biggest political decision and banking reform was in 1999, when parts of the Glass-Steagall Act were repealed. Now we have big banks which are too big to fail and rich hedge fund managers gambling with the money. They gambled big in the years up to 2008 and lost big. The American people (99%ers) bailed out the banks, many people (99%ers) lost their homes, many of us (99%ers) lost money in our IRA’s & 401k’s, and big business lost money and started firing workers (99%ers). The bubble burst in 2008 and the American economy went with it.

The figures in 2009, state, 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans. Much like in Cairo, and in London, and in Athens-the protests are about too many Have Nots.

The problem is NOT –I repeat--- The problem is NOT the Teachers or Laborers, or the Unions, or the Poor, or Immigrants, or the Working Class with their earned income credit, or spending on Entitlements, it is not the Middle Class or your mom on Social Security or your grandfather on Medicare. Money and most important the Political power in the hands of the few is the injustice. It is not the 99%ers that are in charge but the 1%ers. The middle class continues to shrink, and the number of poor has grown.

The Haves have the money, has the power, and have too much political power to buy our politicians and our Democracy. Is anyone asking why nothing gets done in Washington? Because the HAVES like it that way! Until there is Banking Reform, Tax Reform and Trade Reform, nothing in America will change. And I don’t think the Haves want large and sufficient modification in Banking Reform, Tax Reform and Trade Reform. Big corporations sit on $2 Trillion holding back the money as they wait for the 2012 elections, while the American economy slows and the 99%ers suffer.

Until we get the money out of politics nothing will change. And things are only going to get worse. The Supreme Court ruling of Citizens United is an awful ruling, which will put more money into politics and elections. In the election of 2012--the 99%ers will not even know who is giving money to whom.

Billionaire Warren Buffett recently remarked that the class war is already over; his class won. They win elections, they win getting their way, they win with the tax code, they win with weak banking rules and they win the politicians. They employ successful Lobbyist to keep the rules in their favour, hence the repeal in 1999 of the Glass-Steagall Act and the recent Supreme Court ruling of Citizens United.

In America we have a very resilient and robust Wall Street; and a downcast and depressed Main Street. And the object of the game is to keep the downcast Main Street (99%ers) ignorant to what is going on. They keep the low information voters busy with the stupid stuff, the crazy political issues that are not real issues at all. Instead of doing their political homework they inadequately attempt to entertain and persuade with simplistic talking points and slogans and misinformation email forwards. This is an intellect insult to the ones that know better -- the ones doing their political homework. But more importantly, unbeknownst to the unaware, it is an intellect insult to them too.

It takes a lot of work to be politically savvy—to be in the “know” – with each informative magazine & article read, with each intelligent TV Program watched, with each rational and sensible Political Talk show viewed, with each illuminating newspaper read-- gathering more and more information is needed to figure-- What THE HELL is going on! Don't think you can do it watching one political News Cable Channel. If you think so--you are deceiving yourself. This unfairness taken place is to ourselves and to our country.

And now finally we see the protest on Wall Street and in many other cities around the country attended by many of our young people. This new generation is showing us the way. By their demonstrations and protests they obviously see the dilemma. Finally, the real problem will come out of the darkness and the young will lead us into the light.

The protest called Occupy Wall Street is not about begrudging the rich. Although, I have seen and heard recently, many people begrudging the poor. This is not about beating up on capitalism. This is about fairness and injustices. It is about American’s Democracy eroding away for the 99%ers. It is about losing our Democracy to Corporate Governance.

The Government is not the root of the illness, its infection of dysfunction is the symptom. Through the years, our governmental systems, our politicians, and the office of the Presidency is held hostage to big money- rich special interest- corporate bought system. Pay to Play is the norm. They are caught in this system with no way out until the 99%ers apply the pressure needed to change the process.

"At the root of America’s economic crisis lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among America’s political and economic elite. A society of markets, laws and elections is not enough if the rich and powerful fail to behave with respect, honesty and compassion toward the rest of society and the world." ~ Jeffrey Sachs -The Price of Civilization

The media (Corporate Media) for far too long have not informed the people well and kept us pretty much in the “unknown” for a reason. I am sure we will hear the media reporting the protesters are young people, lazy and don’t want to work, or they are hippies, or their arresting them because they are trouble makers. Don’t believe it! Don’t be fooled!

These are the people conscious and responsive to what is going on in America. They see the damages of inequality--they have done their homework. They know the root of the breakdown IS not and WERE not the results of the 2008 Presidential election, which immediately and quickly spurred protest with vitriol anti-government rhetoric.

It is this young generation, the ones that care, the ones with their eyes open to what is really happening in the world, these are the ones that will change the things that need changing.

Change does not happen from the Top--they change from the Bottom---from the people----the 99%ers!

There would be no Honey without the Bees.

SusanThur A 99%
Go 99%ers, I am with you in Spirit

An Adult Conversation About Taxes

2011-10-05T13:00:00.000-05:00

An Adult Conversation About Taxes

Why Occupy Wall Street Embodies The Real Values Of The Boston Tea Party | Crooks and Liars

2011-10-05T11:50:00.000-05:00

Why Occupy Wall Street Embodies The Real Values Of The Boston Tea Party | Crooks and Liars

Government Private Contractors Hinder Fight on Terrorism - The Daily Beast

2011-10-04T14:10:00.000-05:00

New reports of the shocking number of private contractors working on secret U.S. government programs challenge the belief that they save money—and mock transparent government. Reporter Dana Priest says we need a full accounting if we’re going to continue to fight terrorism successfully.

Government Private Contractors Hinder Fight on Terrorism - The Daily Beast

Will government consider fixing China trade? | Dylan Ratigan

2011-10-01T14:46:00.000-05:00

Will government consider fixing China trade? | Dylan Ratigan

Phony Fear Factor - NYTimes.com

2011-10-01T13:43:00.000-05:00

The good news: After spending a year and a half talking about deficits, deficits, deficits when we should have been talking about jobs, job, jobs we’re finally back to discussing the right issue.

Phony Fear Factor - NYTimes.com

Whatever Happened to the American Left?

2011-09-25T17:42:00.000-05:00

To paraphrase the labor martyr Joe Hill, the left should stop mourning its recent past and start organizing to change the future

Whatever Happened to the American Left?

Is the GOP a Religion?

2011-09-25T10:35:00.000-05:00

If you ask why I remain such a strong Obama supporter, it is because I see him as that rare individual able to withstand the zeal without becoming a zealot in response, and to overcome the recklessness of pure religious ideology with pragmatism, civility and reason.
Is the GOP a Religion?

A British View On The American Media | PBH2, Video Before It's Viral

2011-09-23T12:44:00.000-05:00

A British View On The American Media | PBH2, Video Before It's Viral

Republicans Decrying 'Job Killing' Green Energy Agenda Have Sought Green Jobs For Their Own Districts

2011-09-23T12:32:00.000-05:00

Republicans Decrying 'Job Killing' Green Energy Agenda Have Sought Green Jobs For Their Own Districts

Obama the Silent Tax Cutter - Yahoo! News

2011-09-20T12:06:00.000-05:00

Obama the Silent Tax Cutter - Yahoo! News

FOCUS: America's Lost Decade

2011-09-20T11:54:00.000-05:00

The sad truth is that the past decade has been the worst for this country in 100 years.

FOCUS: America's Lost Decade

The Right Has Roger Ailes, The Left Has Jon Stewart

2011-09-20T11:45:00.000-05:00

Jon Stewart Ailes | Jon Stewart Esquire | Esquire Daily Show | Mediaite

Is the GOP a Religion?

2011-09-17T15:24:00.000-05:00

Is the GOP a Religion?

Outrage Index: Near Majority Blames GOP For Frustration With Washington | TPMDC

2011-09-16T15:02:00.000-05:00

Outrage Index: Near Majority Blames GOP For Frustration With Washington | TPMDC

Robert Reich Takes On The 6 Biggest GOP Lies

2011-09-16T14:11:00.000-05:00

UpTakeVideo's Channel - YouTube

Who owns America? Hint: It's not China – Global Public Square - CNN.com Blogs

2011-09-12T13:02:00.000-05:00

Here's a quick and fascinating breakdown by total amount held and percentage of total U.S. debt, according to Business Insider:

•Hong Kong: $121.9 billion (0.9 percent)
•Caribbean banking centers: $148.3 (1 percent)
•Taiwan: $153.4 billion (1.1 percent)
•Brazil: $211.4 billion (1.5 percent)
•Oil exporting countries: $229.8 billion (1.6 percent)
•Mutual funds: $300.5 billion (2 percent)
•Commercial banks: $301.8 billion (2.1 percent)
•State, local and federal retirement funds: $320.9 billion (2.2 percent)
•Money market mutual funds: $337.7 billion (2.4 percent)
•United Kingdom: $346.5 billion (2.4 percent)
•Private pension funds: $504.7 billion (3.5 percent)
•State and local governments: $506.1 billion (3.5 percent)
•Japan: $912.4 billion (6.4 percent)
•U.S. households: $959.4 billion (6.6 percent)
•China: $1.16 trillion (8 percent)
•The U.S. Treasury: $1.63 trillion (11.3 percent)
•Social Security trust fund: $2.67 trillion (19 percent)
So America owes foreigners about $4.5 trillion in debt. But America owes America $9.8 trillion.

Who owns America? Hint: It's not China – Global Public Square - CNN.com Blogs

GOP and Obama's jobs plan: Do Republicans oppose the president's economic policies for ideological reasons or political ones? - By Jacob Weisberg - Slate Magazine

2011-09-12T12:59:00.000-05:00

You can't stop President Obama from reaching out to Republicans; it's what he does. In Thursday night's speech, he tried two separate maneuvers—reminding them of their support for stimulus measures in the past and accepting the good faith of their opposition. "Now, I realize that some of you have a different theory on how to grow the economy," he said. "Some of you sincerely believe that the only solution to our economic challenges is to simply cut most government spending and eliminate most government regulations."

GOP and Obama's jobs plan: Do Republicans oppose the president's economic policies for ideological reasons or political ones? - By Jacob Weisberg - Slate Magazine

Speculators swamping oil, grain markets

2011-08-23T22:14:00.000-05:00

In the sharpest criticism yet of excessive speculation in oil markets, the head of a key regulatory agency presented data Thursday showing that almost nine in 10 traders betting that oil prices would rise were financial speculators, not actual end-users of oil

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/06/09/115551/key-regulator-speculators-swamping.html#ixzz1VudJA9gc

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/06/09/115551/key-regulator-speculators-swamping.html

Corporate Power Decried By Former Lawmaker

2011-08-23T19:45:00.000-05:00

Because [corporations] have become so international and global in nature, it's highly questionable whether governments can actually control corporations to a sufficient degree to prevent them from controlling governments,"

Corporate Power Decried By Former Lawmaker

"What Was Really Great About The Great Society" by Joseph A. Califano Jr.

2011-08-23T19:21:00.000-05:00

Without such programs as Head Start, higher-education loans and scholarships, Medicare, Medicaid, clear air and water, and civil rights, life would be nastier, more brutish, and shorter for millions of Americans.

"What Was Really Great About The Great Society" by Joseph A. Califano Jr.

Concerns About the Religious Right Are Not Overblown | Psychology Today

2011-08-23T19:10:00.000-05:00

In a Washington Post On Faith column a few days ago, Lisa Miller, a senior Newsweek religion writer, makes a rather puzzling argument, saying that concerns of secular progressives about the influence of conservative religion in presidential politics are overblown. "Here we go again," she complains. "The Republican primaries are six months away, and already news stories are raising fears on the left about 'crazy Christians.

Concerns About the Religious Right Are Not Overblown | Psychology Today

TIME: Fareed Zakaria-The Pragmatic President

2011-08-15T18:12:00.000-05:00

Obama’s temperament was eloquently expressed by the late Bart Giamatti, a former president of Yale and former baseball commissioner, when he urged students not to fall prey to ideology from the right or left and to celebrate the democratic process that balances the two extremes. “My middle view is the view of the centrist,” he said, before quoting law professor Alexander Bickel, “who would ... fix ‘our eyes on that middle distance, where values are provisionally held, are tested, and evolve within the legal order derived ... from the morality of consent.’ To set one’s course by such a centrist view is to leave oneself open to the charges, hurled by the completely faithful of some extreme, of being relativistic, opportunistically flexible, secular, passive, passionless ... Be of good cheer ... To act according to an open and principled pragmatism, to believe in the power of process, is in fact to work for the good.”

TIME: Fareed Zakaria

Is Standard and Poor’s Manipulating US Debt Rating to Escape Liability for the Mortgage Crisis? | Firedoglake

2011-08-09T17:46:00.000-05:00

Whatever S&P’s agenda, it has nothing to do with avoiding default risks or putting the US on sound fiscal footing. It appears to be intertwined with their attempts to absolve themselves from responsibility for their role in the 2008 financial crisis, and they are willing to manipulate not only the 2012 election but the world economy to escape the SEC’s attempts to regulate them.

It’s time the media and Congress started asking Standard and Poors what their political agenda is and whom it serves.

Is Standard and Poor’s Manipulating US Debt Rating to Escape Liability for the Mortgage Crisis? | Firedoglake

Oh, you want a dictatorship! | Norbrook's Blog

2011-08-06T15:06:00.000-05:00

The far Left and the far Right both have some things in common. They both have an innate belief that they, and only they, know the “truth” and want to “save the country.” The other thing they have in common is a complete inability to understand the Constitution, although they’re more than willing to use it as a convenient justification. Virtually everything they say circles around it. Read them, and you hear the same things. The President should have “forced” Congress to do something, the President should “demand” they do this, the President should have “done” that by Executive Order. He needs to be strong and forceful. Reading all those comments, either in favor if their party is in the Presidency or worrying about it if their party isn’t, just tells me one thing: They don’t want the system of government we have.

Oh, you want a dictatorship! | Norbrook's Blog

The health care law is constitutional : SCOTUSblog

2011-08-06T14:48:00.000-05:00

The health care law is constitutional : SCOTUSblog

The Tea Party, the debt ceiling, and white Southern extremism - War Room - Salon.com

2011-08-04T10:47:00.000-05:00

The debt ceiling crisis is the latest case in which the radical right in the South has held America hostage until its demands are met. Presidents Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln refused to appease the Southern fanatics. Unfortunately, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress chose not to follow their example and instead gave in. In doing so, they have encouraged the neo-Confederate minority in Congress to find yet another opportunity in the near future to extort concessions from America's majority by sabotaging America's government.

The Tea Party, the debt ceiling, and white Southern extremism - War Room - Salon.com

The Debt Crisis, Merely Postponed - NYTimes.com

2011-08-04T10:30:00.000-05:00

By ERSKINE B. BOWLES and ALAN K. SIMPSON

The Debt Crisis, Merely Postponed - NYTimes.com

The Crisis in Washington: Where We Are and How We Got Here - Jared Bernstein, The Atlantic - NationalJournal.com

2011-08-04T10:18:00.000-05:00

But mostly, it's a story of destructive ideas (self-regulation, supply-side economics) amplified by powerful political forces to claim an ever-growing share of national output, such that by the end of this period, the share of income held by the top one percent--over 20 percent--was more than double its level before this brief history began. And this is, of course, a zero-sum calculation. Their gains in share were the bottom 99 percent's losses.

The Crisis in Washington: Where We Are and How We Got Here - Jared Bernstein, The Atlantic - NationalJournal.com

The Willful Ignorance That Has Dragged the US to the Brink | Common Dreams

2011-08-03T00:02:00.000-05:00

The Tea Party version of the American Revolution is not just fundamentalist: it is also Disneyfied, sentimentalized, and whitewashed. It rests on a naïve, solipsistic and exceptionalist faith that for America it will all work out in the end, because America is "the greatest nation in the world". They take solace in tautology: America is great – this they know – because Fox News tells them so.

The Willful Ignorance That Has Dragged the US to the Brink | Common Dreams

Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Debt Deal--Hardball with Chris Matthews

2011-08-02T14:46:00.000-05:00

Hardball with Chris Matthews

Debt Deal: How Obama Helped Himself in 2012 Campaign - The Daily Beast

2011-08-01T13:38:00.000-05:00

Disenchanted liberals may eventually think better of Obama, especially if the next stage of the deficit deal produces some of that 'shared sacrifice.'

Debt Deal: How Obama Helped Himself in 2012 Campaign - The Daily Beast

Highlights of the plan to raise the debt ceiling - The Washington Post

2011-08-01T12:53:00.000-05:00

Highlights of the plan to raise the debt ceiling - The Washington Post

Deficits: There never was a surplus | The Economist

2011-07-31T00:43:00.000-05:00

The Bush tax cuts did the opposite: $3 trillion worth of tax cuts were predicated on the premise that we were returning the people "their" money. As it turned out, the money wasn't there to return. Even without the tax cuts, the wars, or anything else, the government would have entered 2011 with $1.3 trillion in debt, not $2.3 trillion in savings. Basically, in the grip of careless enthusiasm about the economic future, we borrowed $3 trillion from bond markets and handed it out to citizens in rough proportion to how rich they already were. In the middle of a recovery. This is not a useful thing for the government to do.

Deficits: There never was a surplus | The Economist

Who gets paid and who doesn't

2011-07-30T16:09:00.000-05:00

Rachel Maddow Show

Debt Limit Debate Round-Up | FactCheck.org

2011-07-30T15:16:00.000-05:00

Debt Limit Debate Round-Up | FactCheck.org

Don't Fall for the GOP Lie

2011-07-30T15:02:00.000-05:00

Don't Fall for the GOP Lie

You choose: who gets paid (and who doesn’t) - The Washington Post

2011-07-30T14:44:00.000-05:00

You choose: who gets paid (and who doesn’t) - The Washington Post

Interest Payments at Historic Low - There is no Debt Crisis

2011-07-29T14:25:00.000-05:00

Interest Payments at Historic Low - There is no Debt Crisis

Default ‘Danger’ Revisited | FactCheck.org

2011-07-29T14:16:00.000-05:00

Default ‘Danger’ Revisited | FactCheck.org

The Chart That Should Accompany All Discussions of the Debt Ceiling - James Fallows - Politics - The Atlantic

2011-07-26T12:56:00.000-05:00

The Chart That Should Accompany All Discussions of the Debt Ceiling - James Fallows - Politics - The Atlantic

How to Turn Republicans and Democrats Into Americans - Magazine - The Atlantic

2011-07-26T12:51:00.000-05:00

An insider’s six-step plan to fix Congress

How to Turn Republicans and Democrats Into Americans - Magazine - The Atlantic

President Obama: Go 'big' on debt deal - USATODAY.com

2011-07-22T15:10:00.000-05:00

President Obama: Go 'big' on debt deal - USATODAY.com

Does Washington have a spending problem or an income problem?-FactCheck.org

2011-07-22T14:41:00.000-05:00

Does Washington have a spending problem or an income problem? FactCheck.org: http://bit.ly/p3H1cZ

Fiscal FactCheck | FactCheck.org

Politics - The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch - Book TV

2011-07-19T09:23:00.000-05:00

Politics - The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch - Book TV

Liaquat Ahamed: U.S. taxes are too low | Video | Reuters.com

2011-07-19T09:12:00.000-05:00

Liaquat Ahamed: U.S. taxes are too low | Video | Reuters.com

Eric Cantor Sings? "I Want What I Want When I Want It"‬‏ - YouTube

2011-07-17T18:40:00.001-05:00

‪Dolan Bloom: "I Want What I Want When I Want It"‬‏ - YouTube

Worst Is Yet to Come for News Corp.

2011-07-16T13:55:00.000-05:00

The emotional supercharge of 9/11 in the US is many times greater than Milly Dowler in the UK - and look what happened here.

Commentators have compared the crisis to Watergate; Carl Bernstein, the former Washington Post reporter whose revelations helped depose a US president, says it is evident to him the events of the past week "are the beginning, not the end, of the seismic event".

To coin a famous Murdoch newspaper headline: will the last person to leave News Corporation turn off the lights?

Worst Is Yet to Come for News Corp.

IT'S OFFICIAL: The Whole World Thinks Republicans Are Dangerous Maniacs Threatening Everyone

2011-07-15T12:50:00.000-05:00

Yes, the rest of the world is watching this embarrassing debt ceiling nonsense, and it is growing dismayed.

Der Spiegel has a roundup of commentary in German newspapers about the fight, and the universal message is this:

The US is holding the entire world hostage, and it's the Republicans that are playing with fire.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/its-official-the-whole-world-thinks-republicans-are-dangerous-maniacs-2011-7#ixzz1SCJ8FzLA

IT'S OFFICIAL: The Whole World Thinks Republicans Are Dangerous Maniacs Threatening Everyone

Fox News won't touch Murdoch story with a "ten foot turban Durbin" - Boing Boing

2011-07-15T12:22:00.000-05:00

Fox News won't touch Murdoch story with a "ten foot turban Durbin" - Boing Boing

The Sun Sets on a Media Empire

2011-07-15T12:21:00.000-05:00

But Murdoch’s political power can never return. He used Macchiavelli’s maxim, that it is better to be feared than loved, to dominate British politics. Even those who got closest, including Blair, privately bemoaned the Faustian pact. Almost nobody now regrets his fall. But, as the British political class now emerges blinking into the sunlight, many remain astonished that this most dreaded of media moguls should suddenly be friendless in Westminster.

The Sun Sets on a Media Empire

Giza Pyramids-Inside and Out-June 2011

2011-07-07T08:54:00.002-05:00

What Michele Bachmann and Her Teapot 'Patriots' Do Not Know About America | The Nation

2011-07-07T08:19:00.000-05:00

What Michele Bachmann and Her Teapot 'Patriots' Do Not Know About America | The Nation

The Mother of All No-Brainers - NYTimes.com

2011-07-07T08:16:00.000-05:00

But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.

The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no.

The Mother of All No-Brainers - NYTimes.com

How Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes Failed at Setting Up a Strong Republican Candidate for 2012 -- New York Magazine

2011-05-24T00:01:00.000-05:00

This is a very revealing, and honest, article of what really goes on behind the scenes at Fox News.

How Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes Failed at Setting Up a Strong Republican Candidate for 2012 -- New York Magazine

YouTube - Jill Sobule "The Rapture"

2011-05-20T16:25:00.000-05:00

YouTube - Jill Sobule "The Rapture"

Getting ready for tomorrow--Saturday May 21- End Times.

Obama Shifts to Speed Oil and Gas Drilling in U.S. - NYTimes.com

2011-05-14T10:48:00.000-05:00

The president noted in his address that the Justice Department had formed a task force to look into potential market manipulation or excessive speculation in oil, and he repeated his call for a repeal of the $4 billion a year in tax incentives the oil industry receives.

Obama Shifts to Speed Oil and Gas Drilling in U.S. - NYTimes.com

Statement: Robert Greenstein, President, on the 2011 Medicare Trustees' Report — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

2011-05-13T23:23:00.000-05:00

Thanks to last year’s health reform legislation (the Affordable Care Act, or ACA), Medicare’s cost outlook remains less troubled than before that legislation’s enactment.

Statement: Robert Greenstein, President, on the 2011 Medicare Trustees' Report — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

The “Border Security First” Argument: A Red Herring Undermining Real Security

2011-05-13T22:51:00.000-05:00

The final argument the “border security first” crowd raises is that President Obama’s Department of Homeland Security demonstrates a lack of commitment to immigration and border enforcement that undermines public confidence in any changes to immigration law. The numbers tell a different story.

The “Border Security First” Argument: A Red Herring Undermining Real Security

The Paranoid Style in American Politics

2011-05-03T16:38:00.000-05:00

American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wind. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics., In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.
Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent.

The Paranoid Style in American Politics

How conservative greed and corruption destroyed American politics - Republican Party - Salon.com

2011-05-01T14:18:00.000-05:00

Fantastic misgovernment of the kind we have seen is not an accident, nor is it the work of a few bad individuals. It is the consequence of triumph by a particular philosophy of government, by a movement that understands the liberal state as a perversion and considers the market the ideal nexus of human society. This movement is friendly to industry not just by force of campaign contributions but by conviction; it believes in entrepreneurship not merely in commerce but in politics; and the inevitable results of its ascendance are, first, the capture of the state by business and, second, all that follows: incompetence, graft, and all the other wretched flotsam that we've come to expect from Washington.

How conservative greed and corruption destroyed American politics - Republican Party - Salon.com

On road to surplus, U.S. detoured into debt

2011-05-01T14:09:00.000-05:00

The biggest culprit, by far, has been an erosion of tax revenue triggered largely by two recessions and multiple rounds of tax cuts.

On road to surplus, U.S. detoured into debt

How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis - By Frederick Kaufman | Foreign Policy

2011-04-30T15:02:00.000-05:00

Commodity traders employed by the banks that had created the commodity index funds in the first place rode the tides of profit.

How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis - By Frederick Kaufman | Foreign Policy

Top Climate Scientist on the Monster Tornadoes: It Is Irresponsible Not to Mention Climate Change | Truthout

2011-04-30T14:51:00.000-05:00

The fact remains that there is 4 percent more water vapor–and associated additional moist energy–available both to power individual storms and to produce intense rainfall from them. Climate change is present in every single meteorological event, in that these events are occurring within a baseline atmospheric environment that has shifted in favor of more intense weather events.

Top Climate Scientist on the Monster Tornadoes: It Is Irresponsible Not to Mention Climate Change | Truthout

What Ben Bernanke should’ve said - Ezra Klein - The Washington Post

2011-04-29T15:51:00.000-05:00

What Ben Bernanke should’ve said - Ezra Klein - The Washington Post