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DAnne. I could not agree with you more about spending money on health care, there is nothing better to spend money on. But keep in mind your nation has spent over a trillion a year before the additional cost of the new health care system, and believe me as a Canadian I know how much we are taxed for our free health care. It is half of our governments budget.
Where did the six trillion go that was spent in the last six years. How much of that was spent on Bush and Obama's wars?
If anyone wants to know how the Kochs and their friends have engineered the shutdown read the article by Eric Zuesse in today's Huff Post Politics.
For a moment I was thinking that the Teabaggers had gone Frankenstein on the Kochs, but now I truly think the Kochs are shooting for a total financial breakdown of the federal government, and thus it's ability to enforce environmental regulations, or prevent legislation allowing their tar sands pipeline......two billion more per year for the elderly billionaires. Why can't they get over the money thing..... give up and marry young busty blondes like other old rich guys with little time left do? Could it be because they're freaking nuts?
Speaking of nuts, I see Cruz and his wife, who is an executive with Goldman Sachs, had a little interview with Pat Robertson's $$$$700 club. Robertson being quite confused and ill informed thinks the Democrats have done most of the federal spending. In fact he says..."what we're looking at is a party of spendaholics and the sequestor is the most effective way to scale back spending." Cruz adds that God is in control of the shutdown...I'm not being funny here....it's really what they said.
On the other hand the bible says "The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern".....Paaaatttttt! Pat needs a little time out with the Pope.
Kend ~ Taxes will go up because of national health care? So what? That is money well spent. In fact, what might I ask you is a better way to spend tax money? Killing innocent civilians? Easy for someone to say whose government doesn't have all the ills ours does, and who doesn't have a care in the world about health care.
I understand why the wealthy don't want to waste a cent on our wars for oil. I wish we could get back every cent myself. Money flushed down the toilet on a worthless, obsolete commodity.
Whatever happens, it is clear what the underlying issue is--the wealthy have run up a huge war tab and don't want to pay it. The middle class has been so disempowered that they are not capable of shouldering the burden alone. So these wealthy 'philanthropists' now want to stick the poor and the sick with the bill; or, simply declare national bankruptcy, and throw the nation's assets and credibility under the bus. It is We the People who will suffer; and, perhaps rightfully so. After all, we let those wars happen, didn't we? We didn't care that much that hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims suffered, so why should anyone care if we suffer? What comes around goes around.
Bob with the debt of your nation going up a trillion dollars a year, a massive change in your health care system adding tens of millions of people who could not afford health care to it and getting close to 18 trillion in debt isn't taxes going up a given. Taxes will go up. they will go up on everyone exspecially what is left on the middle class. Americans with have less disposable income and the recovery will take years. Do you really think raising the debt limit is a good idea. Isn't it there to warn you that your spending too much.
People can vote them out, but that doesent mean they will go away,which is why peopl eneed to pay more attention, and vote in every election, even if it is fo rdog catcher, because that is when they get a lot of their agenda through, because they know progressive, and democrats wont turn out to vote.
dialindicator, you expect right. Enjoyed your last comment.
What a paradox - you think you can tell other people how to live the 'FACT' up until the point that you ACTUALLY live the 'FACT' and at the same moment you realize that you cannot tell anyone. It truly is a voyage of self discovery and ONLY a voyage of self discovery. There is no series of steps or set of beliefs that will lead you to live the 'FACT'. There is a parallel here with physical birth. It's a one way. There is no way to become unaware that you have become aware of the 'FACT'. And, of course, why would anyone want to?
I realize that what you and I are speaking of here will be met with disbelief or even derision. I understand why, I used to be where they are, and I accept it. I'll continue to speak and write. I won't be a hermit about it. Who knows (I know I don't) when someone has ears to hear..........
I enjoy listening to Thom's show and I will participate here.
Tuesday evening--still no law to raise the debt ceiling. The way I read the U.S. Constitution, the Administration does not tax nnor does it appropriate funds. It is required to pay the debts and manage the money supply (or something like that). Only Congress can raise taxes or appropriate expenditures. If Congress gives some discretionary funds to the President for him to manage, they usually complain!
Moody's calims that if the country defaults, the credit rating will go to C. Should that occur, the interest on any debt refinancing will cost a real bundle. I call that a VERY large tax increase and all due to the Tea Party loyals in the House plus a few in the Senate but all GOP!
Ted Cruz is a horse's ass.
GREAT show today Thom. Hope you and Louise are having a nice night on the town...or whatever. Someone in the Chat room posted this link. http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19428-the-ghost-of-authoritarianism-in... well written, in my opinion. It sheds a great deal of light on the bigger picture behind the dysfunction of our Government as a whole. One theory I have read somewhere (not here, can't remember where); multinational corporations and Billionaires, like Aidelson who have enormous interests in China are teaming up with Chinese industry and Government to twist arms in D.C. to force the devaluation of the dollar which would give China and the multinational billionairs invested with them a huge advantage as China sells US bonds and invests at home and in the EU. Excerpt From article linked to above:
"The new extremists in the Republican Party are simply raising the bar for the authoritarian registers and illegal legalities that have emerged under Bush and Obama in the past decade - including the bailing out of banks guilty of the worst forms of corporate malfeasance, the refusal to prosecute government officials who committed torture, the undermining of civil liberties with the passage of the Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, the establishment of a presidential kill list and the authorization of widespread surveillance to be used against the American people without full transparency. The current crisis has little to do with what some have called a standoff between the two major political parties. It is has been decades in the making and is part of a much broader coup d'état to benefit the financial elite, race baiters, war mongers and conservative ideologues such as the right-wing billionaires..."
Also very informative re. current situation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHVgRgYdCsQ
And deport Ted Cruz back to Canada. Both Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan have gotten even worse since Cruz popped onto the scene.
In my opinion, all those knuckleheads in the GOP are taking their marching orders from none other than Ted Cruz. ICE should deport him back to Canada as a discident and a trouble maker. As for the rest, you could not create one complete, compassionate, understanding, intelligent brain from all those 50 or more tea partiers or tea party followers.
There used to be an old joke before the word "nigger" was deemed to an unacceptable term. It went something like: If you put three upstanding white businessmen in a jail cell with 1 jive-talking black man, you would end up with 3 jive-talking white businessmen instead of one slightly more educated black man. The point is, all those people who are hell-bent on bringing down the government because it supposedly "won't be as bad as everyone says", are actually dumbing-down their own party by accepting the views of one of the most radical, degenerate voices in their party.
So no, I don't believe a solution will be reached before the deadline passes. And I refuse to blame the President for sticking to his guns when it happens. He is absolutely right when he says that to yield to these ransom demands of the GOP would result in ransom demands for every bit of legislation, as well as for every president that comes after him. It's a truly sorry state of affairs, and I sure hope that there is a rabit Obama can pull out of a hat, because that's what this country needs now.
Alice...
Rage is a hopeless, lost, desperate emotion
Seems to reflect American people in general regarding current circumstance
To me... the underlying question is how can America serve dollar 16.3 trillion debt???
The rich have still not got the picture have they!!!
Thy separate themselves from the rest without any realization
If no one else has anything neither can they have anything
John Best says "Forgive me for my language but I am so angry I could chew nails and spit horseshoes." and "One f**king Nazi should not be allowed to take down the economy of the entire planet." And I just want you to know you're not alone. I feel your rage. - AIW
"I'm sick of hearing about the sick, poor and elderly picking up the tab" says Willie W, and "The rich pay their dues to get their way". Rrrrright! And the world is flat, too. Go soak your head, Willie! - AIW
Nora, I really like your posts. You sound like someone who's paying attention. But I pray that you're wrong about Obama's motives regarding Social Security. I'm not saying you are; I just hope you are. - AIW
And the start of another day and everyone has moved on from here except myself and I expect I will hear from Bob or certainly hope to. Millions of times for thousands of years the "FACT" of which Bob and I speak has been misinterpeted, called, twisted, turned into philosospy, religion, or ignored. Ignoreing I sense here and now.
I mentioned the fact that psycological thought can't resolve problems it created. This is where there is irony. Psycological thought may actually neutralize climate change saveing the earth from further peril. Only because of the bigger crisis, the true crisis. Psycological thought could likely reduce the population to stone age numbers or extinction entirely long before the "climate change tipping point" is reached.The planet can support 12 million or more sane comppassionate humans according to science. Is that what science was talking about?
" Three force's rule the world stupidity, fear, and greed"(Einstien). "The Triune God". Supiidity thrives in the weeds of ignorence(the act of ignoring) I'm not looking for attention for myself here. This is an appeal to others. Pay attention! Pay attention to yourself. Pay attention to your loved ones . Pay attention to those whom you "think" you don't know. Pay attention to your environment. Pay attention to "BEING".
This looks like Kabuki Theater again.
Despite all the HIGH DRAMA along party lines, the Corporatist Republicans and Corporatist Democrats share the same goals including walking away with the public's wealth in all its forms -- real estate property (like our homes), public infrastructure (like the Post Office's buildings), public wealth (through PRIVATIZATION), future stipends (like employee retirement accounts).
Obama was given a number of tasks by the Elite who chose his candidacy, and getting ahold of Social Security was one of those tasks. All this drama is about doing that, imo.
Dubya failed to get it done.
And Clinton failed to get it done. [SEE "How Monica Lewisky Saved Social Security" -- http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/10/30/how-monica-lewinsky-saved-social-... ]
But now Obama is going for it, under the cover of bickering buffoonery and the ever growing emergencies created by that bickering buffoonery.
This may turn out to be the endgame of the Wanniski "Two Santa Clauses" strategy (often cited by Thom), which has served the Republicans quite well ever since the election of Ronald Reagan. The problem for its authors and underwriters is that now that their long-sought-after Grover-Norquist moment ("drowning the government in a bathtub") has been reached, there's an ominous and unexpected shudder coming from all over the hull of the vessel, trembling the walls of their finely appointed offices and executive suites ("What's that creepy sound, Mitch, John, Rush, Sean, Eric, Roger, Karl, Grover? Surely not the creaking, groaning or growling of twisting steel or the rifle shot of a shearing bolt, is it? Nah, no way -- let's get on with business."). All along they've envisioned "winning" somehow, ushering in a Randian paradise, when the outcome of the game may instead be a social convulsion that occurs with astonishing rapidity and which no one, not even the Masters of the Universe, can foresee or control. Sure, it'll be "the Democrats and liberals' fault," but that oft-repeated cant will be slender compensation, come judgment day. When Reagan rolled out that line about government being the problem, not the solution, he was speaking on behalf of his billionaire sponsors, a group unaccustomed to hearing anything but lavish praise for their "genius" from the packs of toadies -- all brilliant biz and law school grads -- they employ as their inner circle. If government would just "get out of the way," their spokesmouths would say with a smile (notice the perfect teeth) then we'd all ride the rising tide of an economic boom. Well, some of us would, anyway. I think that not even they fully understood the implications of what they were saying. For them, it meant deregulation of everything and a march backward to the bathtub-gin days of the Gilded Age, which for them was a very good time indeed, or even further, into feudalism, in which the pain-in-the-ass voice of we the people could be shut down for good. In fact, we -- they -- may soon find that disintegration of the United States and its currency leaves even the well-heeled princes and barons of the Chamber of Commerce and all the lords and ladies of Congress, as well as the horde of corporate courtiers, the lobbyists, gripping the free-spinning wheel of a rudderless Titanic. If that happens, then in spite of all their vast resources, they and their friends in the Grand Ballroom will come rushing to the deck, only to find that the life raft they always assumed would be theirs has already departed.
I'm sick of hearing about the sick, poor and elderly picking up the tab. The rich pay their dues to get their way. The world is not enough. Unstoppable. Richest country on Earth? Bull! It's richest minority on Earth. Bought and paid for. Nobody can stop it. Nobody that can wants to.
"Can the Senate end the debt-limit standoff?"
Do they want to?
Perhaps we are seeing a warped reaction against the oligarchic system from within. I'm just shooting the breeze here but what if the "teabaggers" in the House of Representatives subconsciously feel that something is truly rotten in the State but don't yet realize they were Koch-opted a long time ago.
Maybe it is just intra-elite squabbling that will end with a last minute compromise once elected officials see the opinion polls!
Or it is all Kabuki theatre to force through a default? God knows why.
Like Loren Bliss sad, I fear destroying America is republcans plan (and 9-democrats).. Interesting that Osama couldn't do it, but was able to manipulate the GOP into cooperating, reacting with 10-years of war that has hurt our economy to the point where drowning our government in the bath tub is possible (a reference to a republican strategist during reagans time, g norquist I believe).. Now I see republicans Publicly protesting the shutdown. This didn't make any sense at first, until I realized that the Republican voter base will swallow anything. They are trying to make it look like Obama cost shutdown. The way I understand govt, the republicans do not have the votes to implement their agenda, and so this s a misuse of their govt power (can they be sued because f the oath office?.). This is clearly fascism, since the people overwhelmingly are in favor of health care for all, Medicare, social security., but the republicans (and 9-democrats.. Can I have a list please), are fighting hard to implement what corporations want. Fascism.
Loren Bliss: Many years ago I had the pleasure of watching Jorma Kaukonen and his Hot Tuna band do a fine cover of The Eve of Destruction at a small bar. I'll never forget it.....funny thing is I found the song to be quite uplifting, and I don't believe my friend that we are on the eve of destruction. In fact I believe we are on the eve of transition to economic and social equality in this fine country. We can win this class war, Reagan/ Koch and company started, trust me!
The Tea Party faction of the Republican Party pulling the strings of their dummy, House Speaker Boehner, could not get away with their shutting down the Government without the help of the Corporate News. On CBS “Face The Nation”, Democratic Senator Schumer talked in “code mode” so not to offend the Republicans, then Republican Senator McCain spewed outright lies about the Democrats “moving the goal post” against agreement. Since there was no rebuttal from Senator Schumer, Republican Senator McCain wins.
"It's unlikely that Teapublicans will accept a plan that repeals the sequester without equal cuts to other programs." Well good for them, they want more social safety net cuts to make up for their unfunded wars and tax cuts for billionaires. All pretty wishful thinking for a party that's staggering around trying to avoid the inevitable knockout punch headed their way. Thank you Teabaggers!
Anyway, why are we even talking about safety net cuts when the Democrats are clearly in the drivers seat? In fact I have an idea for the Democrats, instead of Tommy Reed's House debt clock, how about the dems put up a clock showing the massive cost of the Bush-Era tax cuts for the top 5%? From 2001 until 2011 it was at $1,034,424,338,581 ........ and the only thing that has trickled down is poison tea. Better yet, let's have the clock include all of the cost of tax cuts since the Reagan period. For gods sake, when will the Dems go on offense?.....it's time my polite friends. And it's high time for the Teabaggers to put down their Soldier of Fortune magazines and leave town.
By the way, did the Washington police tear gas and arrest the protestors who were vandalizing and pushing through the barriers at the WWII memorial?.....or is that just reserved for young people with huge college debt and no jobs? I'll bet anything all of those old people at the protest are living on Social Security. Too bad they don't realize that Palin and Kruz-control want to cut it....damn entitlement that it is! .