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

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

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

The Sun Sets on a Media Empire

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

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

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

The Mother of All No-Brainers - NYTimes.com

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

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"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why Obama shouldn't have had to 'show his papers'

For the first time in recorded history, a sitting president of the United States found it necessary to produce his original birth certificate for public inspection. Not once, in 235 years, have we ever demanded proof that our president was born on American soil.





Why Obama shouldn't have had to 'show his papers'

President Obama's 'Long-Form' Birth Certificate - Document - NYTimes.com

President Obama's 'Long-Form' Birth Certificate - Document - NYTimes.com

Tax Hike On Oil Profits Blocked - washingtonpost.com

From the Archives

Tax Hike On Oil Profits Blocked - washingtonpost.com

The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit.

Remember that great scene in the 1980 film classic, “The Shining,” when the wife comes upon the typewriter of the Jack Nicholson character, who’s supposed to have been working night and day for months on his novel? To her horror, she finds thousands of pages on which Jack has typed, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” formatted in countless, crazy ways. Suddenly his suspected madness becomes all too frighteningly real.

Well, debt limit mania has driven me to a similar frenzied state. If my wife came across my manuscript it would read, “The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit



‘The Shining’ — national debt edition - The Washington Post

Ryan’s Muddy Medicare Claims | FactCheck.org

Rep. Paul Ryan’s claim that Medicare will be "bankrupt in nine years" goes too far. The trust fund that primarily supports one part of Medicare is projected to be exhausted come 2020, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees said it might not actually happen until 2029. That still doesn’t mean the system will be "bankrupt," though.


Ryan’s Muddy Medicare Claims | FactCheck.org

The Gospel according to Ayn Rand :: Faith in Public Life

The Gospel according to Ayn Rand :: Faith in Public Life

Ever since Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) put out his draconian budget proposal that slashes essential programs for the poor and gives big tax breaks to the rich, Ryan's attachment to the works of Ayn Rand has been in the spotlight. Jonathan Chait, in the pages of Newsweek, calls out Ryan for launching a "War on the Weak" and explains "How the GOP came to view the poor as parasites -and the rich as our rightful rulers." The success of this idea that the rich have the right to rule and the poor don't have any right to their help, is due to the popularity of the philosophy of Ayn Rand on the far right. According to Chait, Ryan is "a Rand nut...Ryan once appeared at a gathering to honor her philosophy, where he announced, 'The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.' He continues to view Rand as a lodestar, requiring his staffers to digest her creepy tracts."
...

Conservative Christians who support the Ryan version of radical conservatism based on the atheist individualist philosophy of Ayn Rand have some serious questions to ask themselves and these questions are long overdue. The political alliance between Christian evangelicals and the tea party has already been analyzed by pollster Robert Jones as a "shotgun marriage."

Barack Obama Is Now The Biggest Tax Cutter In American History

In fact, most Americans have no idea that Barack Obama has lowered taxes. According to a 2010 CBS News/New York Times Poll, only 12% of Americans knew that Obama has lowered taxes. 53% thought that he kept taxes the same, and 24% believed that Obama has raised taxes.

Not surprisingly, only 2% of Tea Party supporters knew that Obama had lowered taxes. 44% of them thought that the President has raised their taxes.

The right believes this because they got the idea from Fox News and talk radio. Four days ago, Fox News.com ran a story claiming that Obama is going to raise taxes. The tax increase boogeyman is a favorite of the right, because it is easy to put out there and it motivates their base every time.







Barack Obama Is Now The Biggest Tax Cutter In American History

Off the Charts Blog | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | Blog Archive | Top Ten Tax Charts

Off the Charts Blog | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | Blog Archive | Top Ten Tax Charts

Why Gas Is So Expensive Today (Hint: It’s Not Libya) - Chris Peterson

The current spike in gas prices is not primarily a result of anything to do with the freedom fighters in the Arab world. Nor is it a result of OPEC’s production levels, which would suggest a far lower $/gallon than can be found on the open market.

Rather, the spikes are primarily a result of the speculative market on oil. This speculative market is driven by the practices of the biggest banks, who have special exemptions to treat commodities like a casino, who have zero incentive to appropriately hedge their bets, who do not provide the liquidity they were designed to provide, and who generally provide nothing of value to society except to push prices of things higher and higher so that very rich people will continue to invest with them.





Why Gas Is So Expensive Today (Hint: It’s Not Libya) - Chris Peterson

Read the Speech- President Obama's deficit speech

The Maddow Blog - President Obama's deficit speech

The blessing of a secular government: David E. Crosby | NOLA.com

Next time you lament the separation of church and state, ask yourself if you would prefer a Muslim government in Egypt over a secular one. The word "secular" means "of this world." It describes a government that confines its rules and regulations to matters of this world rather than matters of the spirit, worship and eternal salvation.

Wise government officials have no interest in regulating, recommending or even defining proper religious practices for their constituents. They are not empowered to do so, nor competent to do so.

Sometimes deeply religious people, lamenting what they perceive as the moral erosion of their culture, seek to harness the power of government in an effort to bring the Kingdom of God and make people more Christian.

Laws that require religious behavior make people hypocrites, not Christians. We have a duty as Christians to participate in our democracy, but we should never focus on government over worship and prayer in the effort to effect cultural change. Government is far too weak when it comes to transforming the hearts of people. Only faith and love can do that.



The blessing of a secular government: David E. Crosby | NOLA.com

Improving Care for People with Medicare | The White House

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today released proposed new rules to help doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers better coordinate care for Medicare patients through Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). ACOs are designed to create and support a team of health care providers who treat individual patients by working together across care settings.


Improving Care for People with Medicare | The White House

NATO - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

NATO - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Time for a Little Education - Truthdig

I’m a retired teacher and I’m pissed. No matter what form of media I look at, I’m confronted with constant references to the various budget crises. The federal government has a deficit. States have budget problems. Cities face massive shortfalls. And school districts are on the edge of bankruptcy. The crises are real, but the search for culprits has degenerated into a hypocritical attempt to score political points.





Time for a Little Education - Truthdig

Tribes With Flags - NYTimes.com

Is the battle for Libya the clash of a brutal dictator against a democratic opposition, or is it fundamentally a tribal civil war?”

This is the question because there are two kinds of states in the Middle East: “real countries” with long histories in their territory and strong national identities (Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Iran); and those that might be called “tribes with flags,” or more artificial states with boundaries drawn in sharp straight lines by pens of colonial powers that have trapped inside their borders myriad tribes and sects who not only never volunteered to live together but have never fully melded into a unified family of citizens. They are Libya, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The tribes and sects that make up these more artificial states have long been held together by the iron fist of colonial powers, kings or military dictators. They have no real “citizens” in the modern sense. Democratic rotations in power are impossible because each tribe lives by the motto “rule or die” — either my tribe or sect is in power or we’re dead



Tribes With Flags - NYTimes.com

G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether - NYTimes.com

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies





G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether - NYTimes.com

Five myths about why the South seceded - The Washington Post

One hundred fifty years after the Civil War began, we’re still fighting it — or at least fighting over its history. I’ve polled thousands of high school history teachers and spoken about the war to audiences across the country, and there is little agreement even about why the South seceded. Was it over slavery? States’ rights? Tariffs and taxes

Five myths about why the South seceded - The Washington Post

Today's Social Security Propaganda Rebuttal Post | OurFuture.org

Marketing works. If you put a lot of money into repeating a marketing message over and over and over, eventually people's brains absorb the message. Conservatives have put a lot of money and effort into convincing people that there is something wrong with Social Security, and that effort is paying off.



Today's Social Security Propaganda Rebuttal Post | OurFuture.org

Kill Public-Employee Unions; Erase the Middle Class

But there is something more sophisticated at work here than merely the efforts of talk-show hosts, demagogues and right-wing politicians to stir up or even just reflect, an angry, agitated and hostile populace. That is, there is a plan at work here - let's call it, "the Plan" - and that plan is designed to accomplish the following goals:



Kill Public-Employee Unions; Erase the Middle Class

Crushing the Democrats' Base

Put simply, Republicans are conducting a radical attack on the Democratic Party, aimed at the roots of Democratic power and sustenance. The battle is occurring in Washington and around the country, and even if the right doesn't succeed completely, the fight will almost certainly leave Democrats weakened and defensive.

Look at the targets conservatives have taken aim at in the last couple of years: access to the ballot box, unions, organizations representing the poor, organizations protecting reproductive rights, and more. The assault is not just on ideas or policies (though there's plenty of that, too) but on the institutions that undergird the Democratic Party and the progressive movement.



Crushing the Democrats' Base

Debt, Austerity and How to Fight Back

Editor's note: On Tuesday, April 5, hundreds of schools and community groups will participate in a teach-in on debt, austerity and how people are fighting back. From 2–3:30 pm (EST) a national teach-in will be streamed live from New York City, followed by local teach-ins and strategy discussions around the country. Read the call to action by Frances Fox Piven and Cornel West, check out the organizing guide and join the movement by attending or hosting a teach-in near you. Please see http://www.fightbackteachin.org for more information.
 
Wall Street Banks, American corporations and their political allies have declared a one-sided war on the American people. This war is being waged at our schools and colleges, the workplace and in our communities.
 
Today, Americans are working harder and earning less while corporate profits soar. As homeowners, consumers and students we see our wealth being stripped away by banks. Our government plunges into debt waging trillion-dollar wars. Meanwhile, our infrastructure erodes and climate change proceeds unchecked. Schools, daycare centers, senior citizen facilities, clinics, parks and firehouses are starved for funds so that corporations and the rich can get billions in tax breaks!





Debt, Austerity and How to Fight Back

The $110 Billion Question - NYTimes.com

When one looks across the Arab world today at the stunning spontaneous democracy uprisings, it is impossible to not ask: What are we doing spending $110 billion this year supporting corrupt and unpopular regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are almost identical to the governments we’re applauding the Arab people for overthrowing?





The $110 Billion Question - NYTimes.com

Governors are Proposing Further Deep Cuts in Services, Likely Harming Their Economies — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Forty-two states have released their initial budget proposals for fiscal year 2012 (which begins July 1 in most states), and, for the fourth year in a row, these budgets propose deep cuts in education, health care, and other important public services — in many cases, deeper than previous cuts. [1] These cuts will delay the nation’s economic recovery and undermine efforts to create jobs

Governors are Proposing Further Deep Cuts in Services, Likely Harming Their Economies — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

200 years that changed the world - Gapminder.org

200 years that changed the world - Gapminder.org

Reality Check: Who's Afraid of Reforming Wall Street? - TIME

Joe Klein --a way to dramatize the complicated issues at the heart of regulatory reform. The President should appoint Warren. The Senate should be forced to vote on her, so the public will know who really wants to clean up Wall Street and who doesn't.


Reality Check: Who's Afraid of Reforming Wall Street? - TIME

Jon Stewart Calls Out Fox News' Hypocrisy Comparing Teachers, Wall Street (VIDEO)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/04/jon-stewart-teachers-walls-street-fox_n_831243.html

Richard (RJ) Eskow: The United States Isn't a Company and It Isn't a Family -- It's a Country.

Let's begin with a multiple choice test. The United States of America is:

a) a for-profit corporation;

b) a family, like the typical American family in a 1960's sitcom;

c) a nation -- with a national economy and nation-sized problems.

If you answered "c," there's good news and bad news. The good news is that you answered the question correctly. The bad news is that you probably have no future as a pundit, where recycling bad metaphors is an essential job skill. (On second thought, that's probably good news too. You undoubtedly have better things to do with your time.)







Richard (RJ) Eskow: The United States Isn't a Company and It Isn't a Family -- It's a Country.

War, debt and democracy - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Moreover, the US is paying for these wars with debt. The government funded World War II partly with war bonds, but it also instituted the first general income tax in American history, increasing tax revenue from $8.7bn in 1941 to $45bn in 1945. This would have been impossible for an unpopular war. To finance today’s wars, by contrast, the US government has not only avoided raising taxes, but has actually cut them on an enormous scale, with the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 now extended at least through 2012.





War, debt and democracy - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

George F. Will - Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and the spotlight-chasing candidates of 2012

If pessimism is not creeping on little cat's feet into Republicans' thinking about their 2012 presidential prospects, that is another reason for pessimism. This is because it indicates they do not understand that sensible Americans, who pay scant attention to presidential politics at this point in the electoral cycle, must nevertheless be detecting vibrations of weirdness emanating from people associated with the party.




George F. Will - Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and the spotlight-chasing candidates of 2012

ThinkProgress » REPORT: Five Things Unions Have Done For All Americans

Over the past few weeks, right-wing legislators have unleashed a torrent of radical legislation upon the American electorate designed to gut collective bargaining rights and attack the middle class. As these conservatives have launched their assault, a Main Street Movement consisting of ordinary Americans fed up with living in such an unequal country has fought back.

Conservatives have sought to malign this movement by claiming that it is simply defending the parochial interests of labor unions, who they claim are imposing huge costs on taxpayers with little benefit. Yet the truth is that America’s public and private unions have been one of the major forces in building a robust and vibrant middle class and have fought over the past century to improve the lives of all Americans in a variety of ways. ThinkProgress has assembled just five of the many things that Americans can thank the nation’s unions for giving us all:




ThinkProgress » REPORT: Five Things Unions Have Done For All Americans

gulfnews : Yemeni describes bloody siege on Al Qaida

A doctor who treated wounded Al Qaida fighters in Afghanistan's Tora Bora has said Osama Bin Laden was at the mountain as coalition troops attacked.



gulfnews : Yemeni describes bloody siege on Al Qaida

Federal Eye - Government overlap costs taxpayers billions, GAO reports

"The president has made it a priority to reform government and make it more effective and efficient for the American people, which is why his budget reflects a commitment to streamlining government and saving taxpayer dollars," White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said in response to the report.

Upon taking office, Obama quickly appointed a chief performance officer, a new position meant to tackle government organizational issues.




Federal Eye - Government overlap costs taxpayers billions, GAO reports

The Liberal Media Strikes Again

If I hear one more person talk about the "liberal media" in America, I will probably vomit on them. It was a stupid and ridiculous thing to say last week - take a long look at which mega-corporations own which news networks, and you won't find a "liberal" entity anywhere on the list - but the events in Wisconsin have further underscored the absurdity of the statement.


The Liberal Media Strikes Again