Category: Media

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In GOP fantasy land, state budget woes due only to spending

It amuses me when cheap labor conservative Republicans blame spending for budget problems. They call for cutting state workers or reducing their pay or cutting programs. In their fantasy land, the Republicans fail to even acknowledge that their beloved tax cuts play a part in shortfalls.

As Media Matters pointed out about a one-sided 60 Minutes report on December 19th:

In 2,600 words about state deficits, you won’t find the phrase “tax cuts.” Instead, CBS adopts the Republican framing that deficits are all about spending — frequently with loaded phrasing like “gold-plated retirement and health care packages.” And throughout the report, CBS allows Christie, New Jersey’s Republican governor, to launch attacks on unions and make unsupported claims about budget problems, all without ever challenging his assertions and without including substantive disagreement from Christie critics.

And here’s how CBS addressed New Jersey’s pension problems:

It’s also the truth that some of the responsibility for New Jersey’s pension woes lie at the doorstep of the governor’s mansion. Christie and his predecessors have failed to contribute to the state’s share of its pension obligation in 13 of the last 17 years, one of the reasons the fund is going broke. Christie says it’s ancient history.

“We spent too much on everything. We spent too much. We spent money we didn’t have. We borrowed money just crazily. The credit cards maxed out, and it’s over. It’s over. We now have to get to the business of climbin’ out of the hole. We’ve been diggin’ it for a decade or more. We’ve gotta climb now, and a climb is harder. Gotta do it,” he said.

You’d never know from CBS’ report that a big part of the reason that “Christie and his predecessors” failed to make required contributions to the pension fund is that they decided to use the money for tax cuts instead. (Like I said, the CBS report takes the GOP-friendly stance that deficits are all about spending, not revenue.)

60 Minutes’ one-sided, GOP-friendly report on state budgets

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More Doug More Often

My attempt at a narcissistic cult continues with the addition of a tumblr page. It will be the place to find pictures, videos, quotes that I want to share but really don’t want to do a full blown blog post or to share wider than Facebook. See the link below:

I call it Doug’s Twigs and Berries for obvious reasons.

Check it out….

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Republicans continue to publicly lie about Bush tax cuts

Just amazes me that a sitting Senator of the United States would actually LIE on national TV. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was on Fox “News” Sunday and told the whopper that the Bush Tax cuts would pay for themselves. I understand why Fox “News” didn’t challenge him but why do they still lie like they do in public?

In fact, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) found that the Bush tax cuts accounted for almost half of the mushrooming deficits during his tenure. As another CBPP analysis forecast, over the next 10 years, the Bush tax cuts if made permanent will contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession put together. Predictably, the Bush tax cuts didn’t come anywhere close to paying for themselves. And as Congressional Budget Office projections revealed in June, making them permanent is the very worst thing the so-called deficit hawks could do to reduce the U.S. debt.

Lindsey Graham Regurgitates the GOP’s Tax Cut Whopper

As I always ask a GOP friend of my, where are the jobs the Bush Tax cuts were suppose to provide. Here are some other truths about the Bush Tax cuts:

Here, then, are the 10 Epic Failures of the Bush Tax Cuts:

1. Dismal Economic Growth
2. A Decade of Budget Deficits
3. Red Ink as Far as the Eye Can See
4. Disastrous Job Creation
5. Declining Incomes
6. Increasing Poverty
7. A Massive Windfall for the Wealthy
8. Record Income Inequality
9. A Sagging Stock Market
10. Jeopardizing Future Economic Growth

10 Epic Failures of the Bush Tax Cuts

There are some rich people who do get it. One, a billionaire hedge fund manager named Tom Steyer puts it better than I can:

“I think anyone who doesn’t give credit to the system that they are born into is taking an awful lot onto themselves. I mean, I really think that people have sacrificed a lot more than a little tax money to make that system available for all of us. And I would be ashamed of myself if I didn’t give some credit to them,” Steyer said, choking up and pausing to regain his composure.

Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager Chokes Up At The Wealthy’s Lack Of Contribution To This Country

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The Real Story of Thanksgiving and Socialism

A friend of mine posted a story of the “A Lost Thanksgiving Lesson” told by FOX “news” talking head John Stossel. He claims that because the colony tried to operate as a commune there was a famine and so to save the colony the Pilgrims ditched socialism. Like most Libertarian fantasies, Stossel’s story is 99.9999999% made up.

Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. But the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn’t happen.

Long before the failure of modern socialism, the earliest European settlers gave us a dramatic demonstration of the fatal flaws of collectivism. Unfortunately, few Americans today know it.

The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally.

That’s why they nearly all starved.

When people can get the same return with less effort, most people make less effort. Plymouth settlers faked illness rather than working the common property. Some even stole, despite their Puritan convictions. Total production was too meager to support the population, and famine resulted. This went on for two years.

A Lost Thanksgiving Lesson

The real history tells a different tale:

Historians say that the settlers in Plymouth, and their supporters in England, did indeed agree to hold their property in common — William Bradford, the governor, referred to it in his writings as the “common course.” But the plan was in the interest of realizing a profit sooner, and was only intended for the short term; historians say the Pilgrims were more like shareholders in an early corporation than subjects of socialism.

“It was directed ultimately to private profit,” said Richard Pickering, a historian of early America and the deputy director of Plimoth Plantation, a museum devoted to keeping the Pilgrims’ story alive.

The arrangement did not produce famine. If it had, Bradford would not have declared the three days of sport and feasting in 1621 that became known as the first Thanksgiving. “The celebration would never have happened if the harvest was going to be less than enough to get them by,” Mr. Pickering said. “They would have saved it and rationed it to get by.”

The Pilgrims Were … Socialists?

The first Thanksgiving or harvest feast was held in 1621 not 1623. The Native Americans were invited because they helped support the colony with food and teaching them how to grow their crops in New England during their first year when half the colonists died.

So socialism did save the colony and the Libertarians/Tea Party/Conservatives are full of stuffing – and not the good kind.

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TSA outrage misplaced

The big buzz this weekend is the outrage about the new pat downs and scanners used by the TSA at our airports. The right wing have their answer which is racist on its face and other complaints are misplaced.

The right wing don’t believe all people should be checked – they argue only nasty brown men need to be stopped. They also carry water for the airlines who hate strong security because it’s bad for business.

Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney U.S. Air Force (Retired) thinks that we should strip search all 18-28 year old Muslim males at the airport.
What would happen is that anyone who’s the slightest bit swarthy, black or middle eastern looking — be they Italians, Spanish, Jews, non-Muslim Arabs, North Africans, or blacks — will be summarily detained and strip searched at airports. And for how long does this continue? When does it end? Who will be wrongfully detained? But rewind a second here. The Underpants Bomber was an average-looking black man. McInerney is basically suggesting that all blacks in that age range be strip searched. All of them.

McInerney Wants to Strip Search Muslims (Blacks)

But as travelers grow more frustrated with heightened airport security, it appears Republicans are opening a new front on the privatization crusade.

A Republican lawmaker, who is faulting big government spending, is suggesting that airports dump the Transportation Security Administration altogether, and opt instead to privatize security.

And some airports, fed up with poor service in a climate where travelers are outraged about the prospect of full-body scanners, are listening.

The consideration comes after Florida Republican Rep. John Mica — a longtime critic of the TSA — wrote letters to the country’s 100 busiest airports earlier this month asking them to switch to private security.

Mica is poised to become chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, so he’ll be in a position to advance this issue.

GOP FLOATS TSA PRIVATIZATION

This weekend we had stories about a cancer survivor having to take out and show a prosthetic breast and a small child having to take off his shirt while a TSA agent patted him down.

If the pat downs and scans were done outside of airports – such as to access buildings or neighborhoods then I would agree they were unreasonable searches but in an airport getting ready to board a plane – all of us are potential terrorists so the searches are not unreasonable.

The body scans are not equal to porn unless you get freaky with pictures of white blobs.

Racial profiling just doesn’t work. What we need to do is profile based on behavior. Israelis talk to everyone entering their airport and detain those who meet certain requirements for further scrutiny.

The TSA pat downs and scans may not catch everyone but flying is not a civil right.

To the issue of more security being bad for business – terrorism is also bad for business and if your airline or airport is a known terrorist target then people will avoid you if your security is lacking like it was back on September 10, 2001 when minimum wage low skill workers were responsible for airport security.

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