Daily Archives: January 15, 2013

The Wall Street Journal Doesn’t Think Anyone Makes Under $100k a Year

The Contributor

“While the top 1 percent of taxpayers will bear the biggest burden, many other families, affluent and poor, will pay more as well,” wrote Wall Street Journalreporter Laura Saunders in a story about the effect the “fiscal cliff” agreement would have on taxpayers.

However, a graphic that accompanied the story might help explain the conservative mindset about cutting taxes for the rich. Despite writing about the effect tax inceases will have for the poor, apparently no one in their Wall Street Journal’s world makes under $100,000 a year.

I especially feel bad for the poor, single parent struggling to get by on the measly $260,000 she earns a year. After all, how’s she going to afford paying an extra $280 a month in taxes when she’s only bringing in $21,666 a month?

At least the retired couple that barely squeaks by with $180,000 a year of income in retirement won’t have to pay more taxes (although, wearing a sweater tied around your neck like Carlton Banks is a requirement).

I would remind the editors of the Wall Street Journal that the median income in the United States is right around $50,000 a year, and less than 5 percent of households in the country earn more than $166,000 a year.

 

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Filed under Taxes, Wall Street

House Republicans Can’t Find Any Co-Sponsors For Their Latest Obamacare Repeal Bills

It appears they’re too busy getting ready to impeach the POTUS if he bans their assault weapons via executive powers

Think Progress

Earlier this month, Tea Party darling Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) admitted that his plan to introduce yet another Obamacare repeal bill would be unlikely to pass in the wake of President Obama’s decisive re-election. As it turns out, that was an understatement.

In a sign that the GOP’s anti-Obamacare fervor may finally be giving way to political reality, Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) latest Obamacare repeal billdoesn’t have a single co-sponsor in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Bachmann made introducing the repeal billher first order of business for the 113th Congress, even as millions of Americans waited for House Republicans to act on a disaster relief package in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

And two other anti-Obamacare bills — one to repeal the law’s individual insurance mandateand another introduced by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to repeal the whole law — also do not have any co-sponsors. By contrast, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) so-called “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act” had a total of 182 cosponsors by the fourth day of the 112th Congress, and House Republicans successfully voted to repeal Obamacare a staggering 33 times during the last session — costing taxpayers an approximate $50 million. Public support for repealing the reform law has plunged to an all-time low as Americans begin experiencing its positive effects.

But the latest repeal efforts’ lack of co-sponsors should by no means be taken as a sign that Republicans will embrace health reform altogether. House Republicans can still try to obstruct Obamacare’s implementation by putting the law’s funding mechanisms on the chopping blockand attempting to repeal measures such as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). In fact, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) recently advocated for doing exactly that in an editorial for his hometown paper, and former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) went as far as to suggest “civil disobedience” and breaking the law in order to stymie Obamacare.

Still, the full Obamacare repeal effort’s newfound loneliness in the House is a powerful demonstration of the difference an election can make.

 

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Filed under Gun Control Legislation

Colin Powell Calls Out The GOP’s Racism Problem: There Is ‘A Dark Vein Of Intolerance’

I’ve been dealing with flu symptoms and somehow missed posting this yesterday…

Think Progress

On Sunday, during an appearance on Meet The Press, Colin Powell condemned the GOP’s “dark vein of intolerance” and the party’s repeated use of racial code words to oppose President Obama and rally white conservative voters.

Without mentioning names, Powell singled out former Mitt Romney surrogate and New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu for calling Obama “lazy” and Sarah Palin, who, Powell charged, used slavery-era terms to describe Obama:

POWELL: There’s also a dark — a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party. What do I mean by that? I mean by that that they still sort of look down on minorities. How can I evidence that?

When I see a former governor say that the President is “shuckin’ and jivin’,” that’s racial era slave term. When I see another former governor after the president’s first debate where he didn’t do very well, says that the president was lazy. He didn’t say he was slow. He was tired. He didn’t do well. He said he was lazy. Now, it may not mean anything to most Americans, but to those of us who are African Americans, the second word is shiftless and then there’s a third word that goes along with that. The birther, the whole birther movement. Why do senior Republican leaders tolerate this kind of discussion within the party?

Watch it:

Powell added that the Republican Party is “having an identity problem,” noting that its significant shift to the right has produced “two losing presidential campaigns.” “I think what the Republican Party needs to do now is a very hard look at itself and understand that the country is changed,” he said. “If the Republican Party does not change along with that demographic, they a going to be in trouble.”

Powell also called on Republicans to focus on a more equitable and progressive economic policies that help middle and lower income Americans, as well as immigration reform. “Everybody wants to talk about who is going to be the candidate,” Powell said. “You better think first about what’s the party actually going to represent.”

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Filed under GOP Extremism

Paul Krugman Explains Why He Really Didn’t Want That Treasury Job, Anyway

A new commenter inadvertently led me to this article.  Thank you and welcome, Ed Darrell  for your   original suggestion to read You need to watch this: Paul Krugman, ‘Jobs NOW, the key to our recovery’ .

Washington Monthly

In a fascinating and sprawling interview with Bill Moyers, airing this weekend on the PBS show, Moyers & CompanyNew York Times columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman explained why he didn’t want to be nominated to the post of Treasury secretary, even after 235,000 people signed an online petition urging the president to appoint him, and offers his take on Jack Lew, the president’s nominee:

PAUL KRUGMAN: …I probably have more influence…, doing what I do now, than I would if I were inside trying to, you know, do the court power games that come with any White House — even the best — which I don’t think I’d be any good at. So no, this is fine. And what the president needs right now is he needs a hardnosed negotiator. And rumor has it that’s what he’s got, so.

BILL MOYERS: In Jack Lew?

PAUL KRUGMAN: That’s right. The president can’t pass major new legislation. He can’t formulate major new programs right now. What he has to do now is bargain down or ride over these crazy people in the Republican Party. And we what we need now is not deep thinking from the treasury secretary. If the president wants deep thinkers, he can call Joe Stiglitz, he can call other people. What he needs from the Treasury secretary is somebody who’s going to be very effective at dealing with these wild men and making sure that nothing terrible happens.

But that’s not the most interesting part of the interview. Believe it or not, where it gets really fascinating is in Moyers’ discussion with Krugman on the difference between a recession and a depression. (As the title of Krugman’s new book, End This Depression Now!, he thinks what we’re in is the latter.)

While he concedes that the current depression, as he sees it, is not as horrific as the Great Depression of the 1930s, Krugman asserts that it’s likely worse than we perceive, because things that once made a depression obvious to all — breadlines, “will work for food” signs and the like — have take new forms in the the electronic age, and at a time when some public welfare, however meager, is available, and all acting in concert to hide widespread suffering from view:

KRUGMAN: Somebody said that food stamps are the soup kitchens of the modern depression. That there’re a lot of people who would be standing in line to get that soup, who are instead, and it’s a good thing, who are instead getting — I guess it’s now called SNAP, Supplementary Nutritional Assistance Program — but who are getting those debit cards, and are getting essential food stuffs. And they’re at the grocery store and they look like anybody else. But the fact of the matter is they are still as desperate, they’re getting by day to day with the aid of a trickle of government aid, just like the people who were standing in line at the soup kitchens in the ’30s, but they’re not visible. They, we don’t have guys selling apples in street corners partly because, you know, the city licensing wouldn’t allow that anymore.

I totally buy that. I know lots of people of all generations who consider themselves middle-class, but are living hand to mouth. The young people working marginal jobs with no prospects and an unimaginable pile of college debt. The middle-aged people short-selling homes that were theirs for years. The old people who never earned enough to invest in mutual funds.

I know them. Don’t you?

The complete Moyers interview:

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Filed under Paul Krugman

Gun [Advocates] to Build 2,000 Acre Citadel in Idaho’s American Redoubt

PoliticusUSA

Notice the keywords used:

American exceptionalism

armed community

liberty

Yes, the worst elements of the Second and Tenth Amendments have come together in the creation of a monstrous American afterbirth.

According to CNS,

The group, named Citadel, intends to purchase 2,000 to 3,000 acres for the project in western Idaho.  The community will comprise of 3,500 to 7,000 families of patriotic Americans who “voluntarily choose to live together in accordance with Thomas Jefferson’s ideal of Rightful Liberty.”

By contrast,, the mound of the biblical city of Megiddo, in Israel, covers some 15 acres, and early Roman London was about 350 acres. Central part is 843 acres.

We are not talking about a small community. If each family is 3 people, a minimum estimate, we are talking about a town of from 10-20,000 people. You know these people intend to breed, because they see themselves as the last best hope of White America.

The Citadel site explains their concept in the following terms:

“The Citadel is evolving as a planned community where residents are bound together by:”

  • Patriotism
  • Pride in American Exceptionalism
  • Our proud history of Liberty as defined by our Founding      Fathers, and
  • Physical preparedness to survive and prevail in the      face of natural catastrophes — such as Hurricanes Sandy or Katrina — or      man-made catastrophes such as a power grid failure or economic collapse.

Citadel Concept

Where will this paradise on earth be located? In the mountains of Idaho, of course, the bastion of America’s survivalist subculture – “the American redoubt.”

PROJECT LAUNCH: We plan to purchase land for the Citadel in 2013 and break ground soon after. Even before unveiling our national advertising campaign, more than 200 families reserved space within our community!

WHY APPLY FOR RESIDENCE: If living in an affordable, safe, well-prepared, patriotic community where your children will be educated in school rather than indoctrinated, consider the Citadel. Approved applicants receive a Lifetime Lease (paid off in only 30 years). No credit check. No background check. Zero down payment. Zero interest. Zero property taxes.

What is amusing is the group’s description of what they embrace and consequently, what they abhor.

“The Citadel is not profit-driven. The Citadel is Liberty-driven: specifically Thomas Jefferson’s Rightful Liberty.”

Jefferson’s rightful liberty apparently demands that, “Residents should also agree that being ‘prepared for the emergencies of life and being proficient with the American icon of Liberty — the Rifle — are prudent measures.’”

And of course, we all know how Jefferson felt about liberals:

Marxists, Socialists, Liberals and Establishment Republicans will likely find that life in our community is incompatible with their existing ideology and preferred lifestyles.

I’m just throwing this out there, but I am thinking the group missed a few American history classes. Or maybe the only book on Jefferson they have read is David Barton’s counter-history, The Jefferson Lies. Just sayin’.

Liberalism, of course, is all about liberty. Liberty for all, not just a few who embrace a particular ideology, but those of all ideologies and religions. Citadel misses that important point entirely, as a group of gun-loving, government-hating, right-wing extremists who want to hide from an increasingly modern and diverse world.

Instead liberty for all, Citadel says that every patriot selected to live within the community “will voluntarily agree to follow the footsteps of our Founding Fathers by swearing to one another our lives, our fortunes and our Sacred Honor to defend one another and Liberty against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

In other words, gun down all those icky people who are different from you. Not that icky people are likely to be getting in, as “the community will be protected by a perimeter wall that will be inaccessible to ‘tourists.’  Each neighborhood within the community will have lower walls, dividing the town into defensible sections.”

They can’t build a Great Wall around America’s borders, so they’re going to build them around their Citadel, complete with towers: a medieval fortified city, though they call it castle.

I guess we can rest assured they won’t be asking for government assistance. They have created their own firearms company after all, to employ the first wave of pioneers (though gun sales tell us they’ll be well-armed when they arrive). They figure tourism will take care of the rest, as Americans travel to see the freaks in the American redoubt in their natural habitat.

A comment from the article worth pondering…

Sally: 

Look at the layout..they have space for a Farmer’s Market, but no farmland at all.

And with no taxes, who is going to pay for roads, electric lines, the schools (or brainwashing facilities,) and fire protection?

Not to mention water lines, sewers and the maintenance of such. And it’s Idaho, so there’s snow. Do you see any place for snow removal equipment? salt storage? And, what about trash pickup? People who think they want to live in some ‘gated’ community had better read the fine print first. A gun will not give you any quality of life.

We’ve all heard of gated communities. We’ve all heard about the Second Amendment. Have you ever wondered what happens when you put the two together? How about a fortified community? That’s the latest right-wing tactic.

that, ” A group of like-minded patriots, bound together by pride in American exceptionalism, plan on building an armed community to protect their liberty.”

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Filed under U.S. Politics

The NRA’s New Shooting App Is for Kids of the Same Age of Sandy Hook Victims (and Up)

Unbelievable.  Where’s the logic in this sort of thing, given what happened a month ago?

Gizmodo

Here is some free PR advice for the National Rifle Association: Now is not the time to release a target practice iOS app—especially one intended for kids. According to the NRA, the app is intended for children as young as age four.

In Target Practice you can choose to test your skills in an indoor or outdoor range or opt to shoot skeet. You get to pick your weapon, and you can pony up $1 to unlock better (more powerful) guns. For example, in the outdoor range your default is an M16, but you can upgrade to an AK47 or an MK11 if you pay. It’s really just a point-and-shoot game, but the fact that it’s meant for kids is straight up stupid.

It would be a different story if the app were teaching kids about gun safety. As advertised, Target Practice does give safety tips, but they aren’t the kinds of things that are going to keep a child from accidentally setting off a gun in the home. They’re tidbits like, “keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot” or “know your target and what is beyond it.” And the official Safety Tips section just takes you out of the app to the NRA’s website.

Not that it should surprise you at this point, but the organization really missed an opportunity here. This would be an excellent time to teach kids about gun safety; too many children are killed each year by accidentally setting off firearms in their homes. Kids see guns in games and they think guns in real life are games. That’s just how innocent minds work. And that’s what makes this app—like most moves this out of touch lobbyist group has made in recent memory—both poorly timed and poorly executed. How about something productive for once? I guess that’s too much to ask of an organization whose only interest is to get guns into peoples’ hands. [The Appside via TheNextWeb via App Store]

 

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