World Politics

[Anonymous]

Ok I obviously fail at sarcasm and humor. I will explain context of me calling President Obama a socialist. Where I work there is an abnormal amount of right wing types (not republicans but real right wing types) and I hear or overhear something along those lines or worse every day. I THOUGHT it was funny to post. I was not trying to insult you.

Just let that be a lesson. There's no room for humor here (or anywhere on the left). This is serious business.

 

[VeloCity]

And possibly another;







http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/11/pelosi_visa_60_minutes.php

Nancy starts to fidget at about 1:50.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKXQZ4c6k8g

How does that square with the "liberal media" meme?

 

[rhubroma]

The Globalization of the Protest

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stiglitz144/English

 

[Anonymous]

How does that square with the "liberal media" meme?

The same way Fox leans "right" I guess.

 

[VeloCity]

The same way Fox leans "right" I guess.

Except that Ailes openly admits that Fox leans right.

So again, how does 60 Minutes going after Nancy Pelosi square with the "liberal media" meme?

 

[Tank Engine]

Meanwhile we read today about the B100 Bus, Brooklyn, a public route, though managed privately (how could we but doubt), mostly used by Hassidic Jews and on which only men can sit in the front rows. Women have to take the back seats.

This zone of NY between Williamsburg and Borough Park seems like the mitteleuropean ghettoes of the ealy XIX century in the times of Franz Kafka. The same clothes, the same black and white panorama.

However a NY woman, whose identity hasn't been revealed, decided to go counter-current and sit up front, which provoked the outrage of the Hassidic male passengers. So during the celebration of Shemini Atzeret the B100 has been suspended.

And, look at the case, even the intervention of the major was without consequence. The bus will continue, segregation and all.

Here's a couple of links. Apparently the line is publicly funded, so they must abide by the laws on discrimination. It is said that Orthodox Jews would boycott the line if it were granted to a non-Jewish operator. MLK would be proud Montgomery in reverse.

http://www.wpix.com/news/wpix-bus-company-seats-women-at-back,0,2218263.story

http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32668

 

[VeloCity]

btw from the WP poll I linked to earlier:

18. Do you think the federal government should or should not pursue policies that try to reduce the gap between wealthy and less well-off Americans? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?

Should pursue: Net 60 (Strongly 43)
Should not pursue: Net 35 (Strongly 24)

Which of course would mean that most Americans are socialists . But seriously, it's also why OWS seems to be striking a chord with the general populace, and why - imo - they need to stop "occupying" and start organizing, ie to take advantage of the public mood and before the public gets sick and tired of them.

 

[Anonymous]

Except that Ailes openly admits that Fox leans right.

So again, how does 60 Minutes going after Nancy Pelosi square with the "liberal media" meme?

I don't really care that 60 mins is running a story on Pelosi. Maybe it will be hard hitting, maybe a puff piece. To be fair 60 Mins went after Boehner too. Must be sweeps month.

Except that Ailes openly admits that Fox leans right.

So all Ailes would have to do is deny leaning right and you'd believe him? Got it.

So when the jurnos say the following it must be, like, reverse psychology or something...

“There is just no question that I, among others, have a liberal bias. I mean, I’m consistently liberal in my opinions. And I think some of the, I think Dan [Rather] is transparently liberal. Now, he may not like to hear me say that. I always agree with him, too, but I think he should be more careful.”
— CBS’s Andy Rooney discussing Bernard Goldberg’s book, Bias, CNN’s Larry King Live, June 5, 2002.

“Does anybody really think there wouldn’t have been more scrutiny if this [CBS’s bogus 60 Minutes National Guard story] had been about John Kerry?”
— Former 60 Minutes Executive Producer Don Hewitt at a January 10, 2005 meeting at CBS, as quoted by Chris Matthews later that day on MSNBC’s Hardball.

“Personally, I have a great affection for CBS News....But I stopped watching it some time ago. The unremitting liberal orientation finally became too much for me. I still check in, but less and less frequently. I increasingly drift to NBC News and Fox and MSNBC.”
— Former CBS News President Van Gordon Sauter in an op-ed published January 13, 2005 in the Los Angeles Times.

“I know a lot of you believe that most people in the news business are liberal. Let me tell you, I know a lot of them, and they were almost evenly divided this time. Half of them liked Senator Kerry; the other half hated President Bush.”
— CBS’s Andy Rooney on the November 7, 2004 60 Minutes.

The mainstream press is liberal....Since the civil rights and women’s movements, the culture wars and Watergate, the press corps at such institutions as the Washington Post, ABC-NBC-CBS News, the NYT, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, etc. is composed in large part of ‘new’ or ‘creative’ class members of the liberal elite — well-educated men and women who tend to favor abortion rights, women’s rights, civil rights, and gay rights. In the main, they find such figures as Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Pat Robertson, or Jerry Falwell beneath contempt....If reporters were the only ones allowed to vote, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry would have won the White House by landslide margins.”
— Longtime Washington Post political reporter Thomas Edsall in an October 8, 2009 essay for the Columbia Journalism Review,

http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/journalism_should_own_its_libe.php

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough: “The media has been really, really biased this campaign, I think....Is the media just in love with history here, Mark, do you think?”...
Time’s Mark Halperin: “I think mistakes have been made and people will regret it....If Obama wins and goes on to become a hugely successful President, I think, still, people will look back and say it just wasn’t done the right way.”
— MSNBC’s Morning Joe, October 28, 2008.

“Many in the media have been one-sided, sometimes adding to Obama’s distortions rather than acting as impartial reporters of fact and referees of the mud fights.... We hear a lot less about Democratic sins such as President Clinton’s distortions of Bob Dole’s position on Medicare in 1996 and the NAACP’s stunningly scurrilous ad campaign in 2000 associating George W. Bush’s opposition to a hate crimes bill with the racist murderers who dragged James Byrd behind a truck.”
— National Journal columnist Stuart Taylor, September 20, 2008.

“The elephant in the newsroom is our narrowness. Too often, we wear liberalism on our sleeve and are intolerant of other lifestyles and opinions....We’re not very subtle about it at this paper: If you work here, you must be one of us. You must be liberal, progressive, a Democrat. I’ve been in communal gatherings in The Post, watching election returns, and have been flabbergasted to see my colleagues cheer unabashedly for the Democrats.”
— Washington Post “Book World” editor Marie Arana in a contribution to the Post’s “daily in-house electronic critiques,” as quoted by Post media reporter Howard Kurtz in an October 3, 2005 article.

Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham: “The work of the evening, obviously, is to connect George W. Bush to the great war leaders of the modern era. You’re going to hear about Churchill projecting power against public opinion....”
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “But Iraq was a popular cause when he first started it. It wasn’t like Churchill speaking against the Nazis.”
Meacham: “That’s not the way the Republican Party sees it. They think that all of us and the New York Times are against them.”
Matthews: “Well, they’re right about the New York Times, and they may be right about all of us.”
— Exchange shortly after 8:30pm EDT during MSNBC’s live coverage of the Republican National Convention, August 30, 2004.

I could go on but this bores me.

 

[Cobblestones]

In election news, Ohio solidly defeated former Fox News contributor Kasich's Union busting senate bill 5 by a 61% to 39% margin.

Mississippi defeated the 'personhood' nonsense which would make most types of contraception illegal.

Maine rejected a voter ID law.

All in all, a victory for sanity.

 

[blutto]

Just let that be a lesson. There's no room for humor here (or anywhere on the left). This is serious business.

...which explains why 100% of comedians are rabid right wingers...very glad you cleared that up for me because that has been bugging me for quite a while...

...though I will have to correct on one thing you said...there is actually some humour on this site..., because, like everytime you post, us guys split a gut...its like a ray of sunshine in our otherwise dreary dark dank lives...

Cheers

blutto

 

[Anonymous]

btw from the WP poll I linked to earlier:

18. Do you think the federal government should or should not pursue policies that try to reduce the gap between wealthy and less well-off Americans? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?

Should pursue: Net 60 (Strongly 43)
Should not pursue: Net 35 (Strongly 24)

Which of course would mean that most Americans are socialists .

Yeah, I saw that. I was going to say something at the time, such as;

That 'strong 43' result is about the same percentage of Americans who pay no federal income tax at all.

That's a real shocker right there.

But I decided not to.

 

[Anonymous]

..its like a ray of sunshine in our otherwise dreary dark dank humorless lives...

Cheers

blutto

I fixed it for you.

Oh, and I'm glad to help you through you otherwise dreary dark dank humorless life.

 

[redtreviso]

What caused the financial crisis? The Republican Big Lie goes viral.

The Republicans are spreading the Big Lie that it was TOO MUCH GOVT REGULATION and the banks were innocent. They say the banks were FORCED to make loans to poor people (mostly people of color too)

Why are people trying to rewrite the history of the crisis? Some are simply trying to save face. Interest groups who advocate for deregulation of the finance sector would prefer that deregulation not receive any blame for the crisis.

Some stand to profit from the status quo: Banks present a systemic risk to the economy, and reducing that risk by lowering their leverage and increasing capital requirements also lowers profitability. Others are hired guns, doing the bidding of bosses on Wall Street. Here's abbreviated reasons.

1.Fed Chair Alan Greenspan dropped rates to 1 percent

2.Low rates meant asset managers could no longer get decent yields from municipal bonds or Treasurys. Instead, they turned to high-yield mortgage-backed securities.

3.Moody’s, S&P and Fitch. They had placed an AAA rating on these junk securities, claiming they were as safe as U.S. Treasurys.

4.Derivatives had become a uniquely unregulated financial instrument. They are exempt from all oversight, counter-party disclosure, exchange listing requirements, state insurance supervision and, most important, reserve requirements. This allowed AIG to write $3 trillion in derivatives while reserving precisely zero dollars against future claims.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-caused-the-financial-crisis-the-big-lie-goes-viral/2011/10/31/gIQAXlSOqM_story_1.html

 

[VeloCity]

Yeah, I saw that. I was going to say something at the time, such as;

So who's not paying federal income tax? Oh right:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2011-10-06/income-tax-nonpayment/50676912/1

 

[Anonymous]

So who's not paying federal income tax? Oh right:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2011-10-06/income-tax-nonpayment/50676912/1

Did you read the Q&A in this article?? Priceless.

Here's a look at who doesn't pay, and why.

Question: So the reports that half the U.S. doesn't pay taxes are true?

Answer: No, they're not. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C., 46% of tax filers will owe no federal income tax this year. But when you figure in payroll taxes — such as those for Social Security, Medicare and unemployment — more than 80% of tax filers pay some kind of federal tax. And that doesn't include sales taxes, state taxes, local taxes, gas taxes, etc., which catch just about everyone.

Q: But almost half the filers don't pay federal income tax. How come?

A: It's because of the way the tax code is written. In 2010, a married couple filing jointly didn't have to pay any income taxes if their income was less than $18,700; couples older than 65, if their income was $20,900 or less. And even if you make more than that, the standard deduction — which goes up each year — and a myriad of other deductions and tax breaks reduce income tax exposure. In 2009, the most recent year for which Internal Revenue Service data is available, filers with adjusted gross income of less than $30,000 made up 83% of all the nontaxable returns. According to the Tax Policy Center's calculator, a couple with two kids younger than 13 that makes $30,000 would get $5,000 back under current laws.

Q: Isn't it poor people who aren't paying?

A: No, at least not them alone. A Free Press analysis of IRS data shows that, in 1996, people with incomes of less than $30,000 made up 99.5% of all the nontaxable returns. In 2009, that group made up 76% of those returns. On the other hand, people making more than $30,000 went from less than 1% of nontaxable returns in 1996 to 17% in 2009.

Q: But $30,000's not a big income — is most of that growth among nonpayers coming near the bottom of that scale?

A: Much of it is — the number of nontaxable returns for filers with incomes of $30,000-$40,000 went from about 85,000 — about a third of 1% of the total — to 4.8 million, or 8% of the total, by 2009. That's an increase of more than 5,000%. (By way of comparison, the overall number of tax returns went up by about 17%, and the total number of nontaxable returns doubled in that time.)

But the percentage increase was even bigger for higher wage earners. Nontaxable returns from people with income between $75,000 and $100,000 went from 4,025 in 1996 to 476,624 in 2009 — an increase of almost 12,000%. More than 1,400 millionaires didn't pay income taxes in 2009, either.

Q: Why the change?

A: Tax cuts and tax breaks. As Clint Stretch, tax policy expert at Deloitte, explains it, the tax cuts won by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003 not only reduced income tax rates, they doubled the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000; eliminated the marriage penalty by giving couples twice the standard single deduction (rather than a slightly smaller amount), increased the earned income tax credit, cut capital gains taxes and more. All of those items — as well as breaks like those for mortgage interest, charitable deductions and medical expenses — can mean a huge savings.

But it didn't stop there. President Barack Obama added other breaks, too, like the Making Work Pay credit — worth $800 to a couple or $400 to an individual filer — as well as the American Opportunity Credit for college, worth up to $2,500 per student, usually more advantageous than the existing $4,000 deduction for tuition and fees. "Mathematically, you're not going to pay taxes" if you have a modest income and qualify for a lot of those breaks, Stretch said.

(Editor's note: A previous version of this story may have given the impression that a taxpayer could claim the American Opportunity Credit and the tuition and fees deduction in the same tax year. You cannot.)

Q: If we get rid of those breaks, will more people pay?

A: Yes, but that would have a lot of other effects, as well — some of which are difficult to predict. Let the child tax credit decrease and Obama's Making Work Pay credit expire, and it takes money out of people's pockets. Reduced spending by families could further slow the economy. Reduce the mortgage-interest deduction, and people may choose to use more of their savings — potentially reducing spending on other items — or restrict themselves to less-expensive homes, holding down the housing market. And if people have to spend more on college, without the breaks offered there, or if senior citizens pay more in taxes, that money can't be used in the consumer market.

Q: Did the recession play a role in the increase?

A: It did and it does. As of 2009, the total number of tax returns had increased slightly over 2006. But the number of taxable returns actually fell — by close to 12%, or more than 10 million returns — during that period. Total adjusted gross income (AGI) fell by 5%, a drop of about $400 billion to $7.6 trillion. By comparison, from 1996 to 2006, the total number of returns rose by 18 million — about 15% — and the total number of taxable returns rose by 1.8 million — 2%. That's modest growth, but during that period, total AGI nearly doubled, from $4.5 trillion to more than $8 trillion. In short: more people making less with more deductions and bigger exemptions means more nontaxed returns.

Q: But the trend was already in that direction?

A: Yes. In 1996, 76% of all returns were taxed. In 2006, 67% were taxable. But the recession deepened the trend. In 2009, 58% were taxable, 42% were not — and the Tax Policy Center estimates 46% will be nontaxable this year.

Q: Is it likely to continue?

A: That's unclear. Obama wants to extend some of his and Bush's tax cuts for middle- and lower-income earners, but there's very little political chance of Republicans in control of the House allowing higher taxes for higher earners — even those making $1 million or more annually — to be enacted. But a stalemate could lead to the Bush-era tax cuts — including the child tax credit, capital gains cut and more — expiring at the end of next year, which would lower the number and the amount of the breaks.

There is talk of reforming and simplifying the whole system. In the meantime, Len Burman, a tax policy expert who has worked for the Treasury Department and the Congressional Budget Office, said that although almost everybody pays some kind of tax, "over the last 30-40 years, there's been a shift toward providing more and more public services through the tax system."

From a political standpoint, that has been easier than raising taxes to fund new programs. And changing that will be difficult, politically.

As Burman asked rhetorically when GOP presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he was "dismayed" by the number of Americans not paying income taxes, "So you're going to raise taxes on middle-income people?"

 

[Amsterhammer]

Ok I obviously fail at sarcasm and humor. I will explain context of me calling President Obama a socialist. Where I work there is an abnormal amount of right wing types (not republicans but real right wing types) and I hear or overhear something along those lines or worse every day. I THOUGHT it was funny to post. I was not trying to insult you.

Thanks for clearing that up. To be clear, I did not feel personally insulted, but I feel that using that term when describing this president insults every reasonable person's intelligence, as well as being insulting to him.

I did not grasp your intended humor a. because I see you using the term regularly b. because a lot of the stuff you post comes straight out of some weird and largely incomprehensible left field and c. because you are from Texas, so it's perfectly possible for someone looking in from Europe to think, 'well, he could just mean it'.

I'm delighted that you distance yourself from the 'real right wing types' at your office, whose sense of humor is clearly the same as Scott's.

I'll try harder in future to read between your lines. Heaven forbid I should become known as a humorless old fart.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Uh, doesn't that contradict your previous post, Scott, as to who does or should pay taxes?!

As far as Pelosi, or Boener or whomever, as far as I'm concerned, the more 60 Minutes goes after them, the better. And props to them for their segment on Jack Abramoff. It was once again neither partisan or biased. Just very factual, informative, great journalism, and offered insight and a few possible solutions. A must watch for anyone who wishes to comment on politics in this country. Only a demagogue blinded by dogma would see this as biased or uninformative.

In election news, Ohio solidly defeated...union busting senate bill; Mississippi defeated the 'personhood' nonsense; Maine rejected a voter ID law.

All in all, a victory for sanity.

Would love to hear what the mainstream Republicans or "conservatives" comment is on this. Both the bills themselves, and whether they supported them, believe they would better the country, or feel they should be further pursued.

 

[Anonymous]

Uh, doesn't that contradict your previous post, Scott, as to who does or should pay taxes?!

Not sure what you mean...

 

[blutto]

I fixed it for you.

Oh, and I'm glad to help you through you otherwise dreary dark dank humorless life.

...in point of fact you ruined a seriously good alliteration thang there...it took me hours to craft that...so typical...you create some great art and a right wing developer drops a highrise on it and calls it progress...life is so unfair...

...and you are wrong about the humourless thing...we do have humour in our lives, you...and please, do keep up the good work...

Cheers

blutto

 

[redtreviso]

Did you read the Q&A in this article?? Priceless.

All you have to look at scott is Cheney and Bush's income disclosures.. Bush with no less than 17 mil from the sale of the Rangers and Cheney no less than 35mil from Haliburton claim to only make 1 million a year including their salaries.
These are the American (I only make 10k)Greeks.. Declared income is arbitrary..What they are taxed on it is fluff.. You can cite chapter and verse on tax tables and rates but it is all a joke..The truly wealthy just pick a number somewhere near what they spend on dinners and vacations and then *itch about how much taxes they have to pay..

 

[VeloCity]

Interesting article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-de...2011/sep/05/migration-increase-global-economy

 

[redtreviso]

The Republican War on Reality.

Twenty years ago, conservatives launched a full-throated attack on "political correctness" and "relativism" because of their frustration with an academic climate that challenged their ability to offer judgments unfettered by cultural sensitivities about an increasingly diverse and complex world. Such sensitivities blunted conservatives' ability to make clear, categorical moral statements about right and wrong, leading to "the death of outrage," as former secretary of education and conservative pundit William Bennett put it. What's bracing to see in 2011 is that facts themselves represent the same impediment for conservatives that political correctness did two decades ago: an intolerable constraint on the right's God-given right to unabashed condemnation.

I think it's fair to say that most people, at one time or another, feel that kind of anger in their gut and a consequent urge to heap invective on the objects of their rage without having to worry over whether they've considered all sides of a situation beforehand. What's remarkable about the contemporary right, however, is the extent to which this urge is now predominant and has been raised, in many ways, to its supreme value.

This is consistent with what we know about the clear tendencies of more authoritarian-minded individuals: a hatred of ambiguity, a discomfort with difference, a greater tendency to seek out information sources that confirm their biases and a distaste for thinking about complexity. In place of such potential sources of tempering of initial reactions, the modern right has embraced factual relativism in service of this deeper set of impulses.

http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/the-republican-war-on-reality/Content?oid=2700024

 

[Anonymous]

...in point of fact you ruined a seriously good alliteration thang there...it took me hours to craft that...so typical...you create some great art and a right wing developer drops a highrise on it and calls it progress...life is so unfair...

<snipped>

I chuckled. Well done.

 

[redtreviso]

Here's a perfect reason to never agree with scott or his kind , ever..

How someone like this made it through middle school without getting their head kicked in is beyond me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb73zqY6lZM&feature=youtu.be

 

[blutto]

I chuckled. Well done.

...I try...and my mom would agree...she was always saying that I was very trying...

Cheers

blutto