Month: November 2010

Alternative Deficit Reduction Plan

Just a week or so ago there was a draft of a plan by the Deficit Reduction Commission…. (or something like that)…..and with the release came the oh craps from Repubs as well as Dem…they hate this issue or that cut…..most notably it was the cuts and tweaks of the Social Security system that got the most attention…personally, I found parts of the draft very doable and well thought out….but that aside there has been a wealth of bitching and finally we have an alternative to the draft……

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a member of the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, offered a comprehensive proposal to reduce the federal deficit without making middle class Americans foot the bill.  Schakowsky’s plan is an alternative to the Bowles-Simpson plan and would reduce the deficit by $426.95 billion in 2015, surpassing President Obama’s $250 billion target. Critically, the Schakowsky plan accomplishes deficit reduction without making cuts to essential federal expenditures that benefit the middle class.

The Schakowsky plan is based on five key elements:

1) Increased economic stimulus to spur growth in the immediate term

· Provide $200 billion to invest over the next two years in measures to create jobs and spur economic growth, including passing the Local Jobs for America Act; and funding for education and law enforcement; Unemployment Insurance, Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (FMAP) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program extensions; and infrastructure. 

· Adopt the President’s proposals to eliminate overseas tax havens and incentives for outsourcing

2) Smart, targeted spending cuts

· Non-Defense Discretionary – $7.55 billion in savings through increased efficiency and cuts to programs that benefit large corporations that don’t need assistance.

· Defense Discretionary – $110.7 billion in cuts from the 2015 defense budget, including efficiency savings, reducing our troop levels, cutting weapons systems we don’t need, and scaling back the wartime increases in the size of the military.

3) Mandatory spending cuts

  • Health Care – at least $17.2 billion in savings by implementing measures to bring down the cost of health care to the federal government and lower health care inflation overall.
  • Other – $7.7 billion in savings by cutting agriculture subsidies in half, and redistributing federal support to offer greater benefits to small family farms reduce subsidies to large corporate agribusiness.

4) Reductions in tax expenditures

  • Raise $132.2 billion by closing tax subsidies for companies that ship American jobs overseas.

5) Increases in revenues

  • Raise $144.6 billion in revenue through progressive reforms to the estate tax, treating capital gains and dividends as regular income, and enacting a cap and trade proposal that includes protections for lower-income people.
  • Enact President Obama’s budget proposal to let the Bush tax cuts for the top 2 brackets expire and return to 2009 estate tax levels.
  • Non-tax revenue – raise $7 billion by addressing places where the private sector is currently under-paying.

The Schakowsky alternative does not contain any cuts to Social Security.

  • It ensures long-term solvency to Social Security by eliminating the wage cap on the employer side and raising it to 90% on the employee side, applying FICA to all wage income below the cap, and establishing a modest legacy tax on wealthier Americans.
  • Surplus funding that can be used to improve the extremely-modest benefits that are now provided.

All the above from the Representative’s website….

There you have it…an alternative and the sanctity of Social Security is preserved…..Is there any thoughts on this proposal….will it help make the liberals happy….if it does then the conservs will be pissed…..but again it is a start and could be a starting place for compromise…..IMO, not as good as the draft released last week….a little to non-specific……

Mr. President…Screw ‘Em!

For two years the GOP has been bitching that the White House and the Dems have locked them out of the governing process…..even some media types have bitched that the leadership of the GOP has NOT been invited to meet with the president to work on some sort of compromise to govern the country better….they have bitched and they have moaned and they have pouted……it had nothing to do with the “just say no” attitude of the GOP….the massive obstructionism that they employed all the way to the mid-term election, which worked well for them……and now they are looking very arrogant!

The WH has invited the leadership of the House and the Senate, the GOP leadership, to a summit at the request of the Prez so they could work on the possibility of a bi-partisan approach to the coming session of Congress……but said to say…the Repubs could not make it on the day scheduled and wanted to re-scheduled…they had prior commitments that could not be broken……

Obama had invited congressional leaders from both parties to a meeting Thursday to plan the legislative agenda moving forward. Last night, officials announced postponement until Nov. 30, citing scheduling conflicts, though Politico and other media outlets also attribute the delay to lingering GOP mistrust of Obama.

Reports Politico:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) both claim Obama had presented the Nov. 18 date as a fait accompli — without their consent or any attempt to accommodate frenetic schedules following the midterm recess. For weeks, staffers have been warning the White House not to assume the invitation had been accepted, apparently to little avail.

Wait…the President of the United states wants a meeting and you say no thanks…only when we say it can occur….that is ARROGANCE!  When the president wants you at the WH…YOU GO!

The GOP is flexing its muscle…they think that they have the president by the nuts…..it may seem so…but that is what it is….an assumption……time for Obama to stop trying to please all the people all the time…it cannot be done….time to act like the president and tell them what they will do……if they cannot make it on their terms then they have to explain why they would not meet with the president…

Dems need to use this arrogance to their favor…stop trying to play nice with a group that has NO concept of civility!  If respect cannot be the rule of the day, then use every tactic known to keep them from accomplishing anything…..I realize the country needs all the players on the same page….but that will NEVER happen….so SCREW “EM……go for the jugular!

We Have A Problem!

All the lip flapping coming out of Washington is about the budget, the debt and the deficit…..every new guy has his/her opinion on the proper way to handle each issue…..some are NOT so good or even rational……for one…..

Paul Ryan the new head of the House budget committee when interviewed on MSNBC said…when asked what he and the GOP would be doing come next January…he replied…..”well, we cannot just sit around and do nothing for two years can we?”……I was amused!  Why?  That is exactly what they have done for the last two years and they won the House….sounds like a good plan to me….

And then there is the new Rep. from Maryland…as reported by Political Wire….

Rep.-elect Andy Harris (R-MD), a physician who ran to repeal the new health care reform law, “surprised fellow freshmen at a Monday orientation session by demanding to know why his government-subsidized health care plan takes a month to kick in,” Politico reports.

Harris “reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health care policy would take effect on Feb. 1 — 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in.”

Said Harris: “This is the only employer I’ve ever worked for where you don’t get coverage the first day you are employed.”

God!  I love these mental midgets!

All that humor aside…..let us return to the budget……okay dipsticks……if you do not balance the budget the economy will remain sluggish and unresponsive….BUT!  If you do succeed a balance the budget in the next two years….the economy will collapse…….MAY I SAY THAT AGAIN….the economy will collapse!  You will have a lot of the people in Congress say that government has to be run like a business….that it must live within its means just like a business…..well people this is just bullsh*t!  Why?  It is not the same thing and it can be disastrous for the country to think that way…basically it is just another cutsey slogan to dumb-found the voter…..and of course we have the states that have to work on a balanced budget every year…..good idea…the problem is…they do not and if they say they do it is because of creative accounting not anything that the politicians have done……Washington…we have a problem!

Why?  Very simple….at this point in the economic crisis the government is about the only thing that is producing any economic activity…oh yea…and the biggest CON job…tax cuts will generate economic activity……yep…and it has generated so much since the tax cuts went into effect 8 years ago…..if does generate the jobs…then business was lying and it was a plan to embarrass and beat Obama….they have NOTHING for the country or the people….

Give Us A Break!

We hear over and over how Obama and his policies have killed economic activity and jobs…..or that tax cuts will produce more employment…..or that the….well you get the idea….it is all so much crap!

Why would I say such a thing?

One of the shining lights, according to some, is Caterpilla…the heavy duty machine manufacturer….but look at this…

Seeking to bolster one of its more profitable business areas, Caterpillar Inc. agreed to acquire MWM Holding GmbH, a German maker of power-generation equipment, from 3i Group PLC and related investment funds for 580 million euros ($810 million).

3i, a British private-equity firm, bought the Mannheim, Germany-based company in 2007 for 360 million euros. The planned purchase is another move by Caterpillar to expand businesses outside its core areas of construction and mining …

Or maybe this….

Construction-equipment maker Caterpillar  said Tuesday it will buy locomotive maker Electro-Motive Diesel for $820 million from a private-equity firm.EMD is one of the world’s oldest and best-known makers of locomotives, producing its first engine in 1922.  The brand will remain unchanged as EMD’s brand is well-known in the rail industry.

So Caterpilla is spending about $1.5 billion on acquisitions….this will NOT create jobs…if anything some jobs will be lost because of the purchases…..none of this is to help put people back to work…..it is about the bottom line…the profits and the stock prices……business has NO desire to hire more people now and in the near future…it is more profitable the way it is today…..

So, give us a break!  Stop harping on the extension of benefits for corporations…they have NO intention of hiring more people…..nice try though….but I am not that stupid as to believe the hype!

Truth In Advertising–Part 2

I recently wrote a post about the campaign ads and how they were choked full of lies, half truths and exaggerations….and why we as a country cannot make these cowards tell the truth in their ads for election….after all they are selling a service…the service of representation….

Across the pond…in the UK…they have the right stuff when it comes to these ads….

A candidate named Phil Woolas was suspended and his election was nullified for lying in election campaign stuff….

Woolas – who was Immigration Minister under Gordon Brown – was found guilty by two High Court judges of breaking election law by knowingly making false statements about an opponent.

He accused Lib Dem candidate Elwyn Watkins in a pamphlet and two mock newspapers of pandering to Islamic extremists. His campaign team was said to have set out to “make the white folk angry”.

Now here is a great idea…..my Brit friends I salute you and your country’s election laws….

Why Not A Non-Violent Approach?

International Studies Desk

Subject:  Middle East

I realize I said I would not post on the Middle East conflict again and I will hold to that…this post was a post in waiting….and I feel compelled to post it…..

For the time being any Middle East peace is on the back burner…it has been overshadowed by the US mid-terms and Obama’s visit to India….but people need to keep an eye on the region……it could be the powder keg that erupts without warning and becomes front page fodder….again…..

I recall back in the day in the ME there was the first Intifada…..when kids were throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers and were met with bullets and tanks…this gave the Palestinian cause a shot to the arm in the world stage….and then as quickly as the sympathy began it was over….why?  Some moron thought that firing rockets at the Israelis was a good idea….and once they did all that international good will and sympathy went down the crapper…..

How about a non-violent approach?  Well that is just ducky….but what did Gandhi accomplish?  England would have given India up anyway…..the caste system is still prevalent….so what did they accomplish?  MLK in the Us, what did they accomplish?  Blacks can vote and eat at all lunch counters…but they are still seen as 2nd class citizens by many….so what did they really accomplish?

I have heard some say that the Palestinians should take a page from the playbook of Gandhi and MLK, jr and try the non-violence approach….but is that a good idea?  In an article written by Yglesias for thinkprogress.rg…..

………as it turns out the IDF isn’t just folding immediately upon contact with non-violent tactics. Instead, Abdallah Abu Rahmah who was leading non-violent resistance in the village of Bil’in was sentenced yesterday to 12 months in prison. Some people I’ve spoken to here say this goes to show that non-violence is hopeless and that a return to armed intifada is inevitable. They may be right about the inevitability, but I think they’re wrong about the hopeless part. Your Gandhis, your Martin Luther Kings, and your Nelson Mandelas all spent time in prison and prevailed in the end. The point, however, is that it only works if it captures the attention of the world so here I am paying attention.I know that a lot of decent people try to avoid commenting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because they find the debate too unpleasant. But I find that those same decent people tend to be the ones who like to muse about “where’s the Palestinian MLK?” and such. So if you’re one of those people, I implore you to pay attention and mention this. The alternative to there being some sign that this is catching the eyes of the world is a return to violence and counter-violence and disaster.

Contrary to popular belief….the theory of non-violent action is NOT appropriate or effective in every case…….and the Middle East Peace Process is one of those cases….with that said……it could be part of the plan to get Israel to the table……the one thing that is seldom mentioned when talking about non-violence….that is that your opponent does NOT have to abide by the technique……India comes to mind….Selma comes to mind…..

Oh Haiti! I Am So Sorry!

Think back about a year ago….a massive earthquake took out a large portion of the island nation of Haiti….you remember those days….celebrities getting their required PR photos taken….politicians handing out a couple of bottles of water so their photo-op looked good and so on….all the concern was basically a PR stunt…yes I said stunt…..

Only a small portion of the money pledged has made it to the country…..why?  Better yet…now that the sensationalism has subsided….NO one cares….it is sad and I apologize for the lack of compassion that the media and governments are showing toward the island….

And now…thanx for all the concern of the world a massive Cholera epidemic has engulfed the island….

Hundreds of protesters threw stones at UN peacekeepers, set up burning barricades and torched a police station in Cap Haitien.

Six UN peacekeepers were injured in the clashes, the UN said. At least 10 people were also injured.

As well as calling for UN peacekeepers to leave Haiti, demonstrators accused the government of “leaving the people to die”, the AFP news agency reported.

This will not be last incident of protesters and violence….the world has seen to it…….we should be proud of our governments….we opened our hearts and wallets to people that needed our help and the government have been nothing but pricks from the start……. after the photo-ops…….

Reason Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

Or…..Do They All Have Alzheimer’s?

I recently wrote a post about my representative, Gene Taylor (D-MS-4) and his defeat by an unknown quantity in one Palazzo…I wrote:

in office….. What makes this all the more  moronic is that Taylor is a conservative Dem and voted like on on many issues…however he got a great rating by the group that watches middle class issues and also by the ARA a group that watches votes by Reps and then grades them on senior’s issues….For instance, 100% rating from the National Right To Life Committee,  76% rating from the Christian Coalition, given an “A” rating by the NRA, a 90% rating by the Association of Retired Americans, 100% by the Citizens For Tax Justice, 92% by the US Border Control for a sealed border, all the issues that the conservs and especially the Tea Party stand for……his ONLY crime was that he was a Dem in the House that was controlled by Pelosi…

I attacked the people of my district for their moronic vote…that it showed a serious lack of knowledge about the candidates….after all my district is a conserv district because of the amount of military and retired people….and Taylor was a Blue dog (conserv) Democrat……and even though he voted the way that his district wanted he still loss his bid for re-election……

I now need to apologize to the people in my district for chastising them for their vote against Taylor…it is NOT them that is the morons…..it is the whole senior voting block…nationwide!

Politico has an article written by Bryan Tau……

Voters over 65 favored Republicans last week by a 21-point margin after flirting with Democrats in the 2006 midterm elections and favoring John McCain by a relatively narrow 8-point margin in 2008.
Concerned by changes to Medicare and compelled by a Republican Party that promised a return to America’s glory days, seniors played a crucial — and often understated — role in races across the country. They were unswayed by ubiquitous Democratic warnings about Republican changes to Social Security. And they put a series of campaigns out of reach for Democrats 

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44802.html#ixzz14hSxQK6O

Seniors voted overwhelmingly for the Repubs, eh?  They voted for the same group that wants to privatize their retirement so that the next crisis leaves them penniless and they voted for the same people that want them to work until they are 70 or 75 before they can retire…..they voted for the people that want to gut Medicare and leave them at the mercy of the insurance companies….they are ALL morons!  Wait!  That is being unfair!
“A CNN/Gallup Poll released Monday revealed that a vast majority of registered male voters would have strongly supported a naked woman in the 2010 midterm elections.”
At least with the naked woman….you would know what you are getting…….even if it fake!
They are all IDIOTS!  Reason be damned!

Should GW Be Held Accountable?

With the incoming House in January, there has been lots of copy on the possibility of hundreds of investigations by Rep. Issa…..there are some things that I agree need investigating and then there is my thought that all this drama is a witch hunt against Obama…political theater that will waste millions of taxpayers money…..but beyond that there are a few things that I feel need a closer look….like how government contracts are awarded or why lies and character assassination are allowed in campaigns……unfortunately I am talking about some of the stuff from GW presidency…..and from his days a gov of Texas….

First of all on the subject of torture….from his interview with NBC Matt Lauer…..

“The lawyer said it was legal and it did not fall under the Anti-Torture Act. I’m not a lawyer. I have to trust the people around me.”
Bush defended the tactics of CIA officers during the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, who was suspected to be a member of al Qaeda with information on the 9/11 attacks. He said the tactics “saved lives” and that he was protecting America by allowing what many Americans, including President Barack Obama, would call torture.

The rest of the world considers water-boarding as torture…many people have been tried and convicted on this issue to include Japanese soldiers during WW2 and some police officers in the US…to mention just a few….and since it is recognized by the world as torture and GW admitted to knowing and approving of the technique……should he be held accountable?

Then there is when he was governor of Texas…..and he sent a bunch of people to the other side in the executions in the state….but there is one that stands out….

Claude Howard Jones was convicted of murder during a liquor store robbery in 1989 and put to death on December 7, 2000.

His murder conviction was based on a single piece of forensic evidence recovered from the crime scene — a strand of hair that prosecutors claimed belonged to Jones.

The Texas Observer magazine on Thursday said the DNA tests completed this week at the request of the Observer and the New York-based Innocence Project indicate that Jones was “excluded as the contributor of this questioned hair.”The day before he was put to death in the Texas execution chamber, Jones had asked for a stay of execution so that the strand of hair could be submitted for DNA testing.

His request was denied by the then governor of Texas George W. Bush.

What could have it hurt to delay the execution to determine if the man was innocent of the crime?  Now how does the state of Texas repay for this abortion of justice?  How does it make amends?

Should GW be held accountable for these two cases?

It’s Green Week! (Again)…. (And Again)

A Daily Irritant

“Green Is Universal”……..a catchy little phrase from NBC/Universal when they want to appear to be trying to solve our energy problem…..it appears once or twice a year….like any other of the major failures the US has and they want to talk about it……

This week their promo is…”let the conversation begin”

Is that not the most putrid piece of garbage you have ever heard?

Let the conversation begin……here is a news flash for you guys……NO ONE is listening…NO policy maker gives a sh*t…..we have been having this “conversation” for 30+ years…..now what has that accomplished?  I know!  I know (he said raising his hand)………cars have been made more efficient by 3-5 mpg!

Now there is something your can tell your grand kids about…..

PAY ATTENTION!   NO ONE IS LISTENING!  Money talks and bullsh*t walks!  Talk is cheap! Do you now get the idea!  Can you grasp the concept of reality?

You can talk about every solution you can think of….but until we are willing to act on this then shut the Hell UP!  Cowards one and all…..they willing to talk but not to act……30 years of talking and you still sound like cheating husband trying to figure out what to say……you guys are pathetic!

Here is a sterling idea……FIND SOLUTIONS OR SHUT THE F*CK UP!