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How to Reduce The Budget?? Surely a no-brainer?
(a) Agree a figure, say $400M.
(b) Take it 100% off the defense budget. It would not be noticed. (Don't fire missiles for a hour, or whatever.)
Is "everyone" on Capitol Hill braindead for not discussing this invisible elephant? Are we braindead for not screaming for it?
Let's cut Capitol Hill heath, pension, etc perks whilst we are at it. If "closing down government" means keeping the National Parks etc open and closing down Capitol Hill (without pay) until it is sorted, then I am all for it.
Come on, Thom, beat the drum on this one! PLEASE!!
The Ryan proposal involves a top bracket of 25% -- a nonstarter now due to the fact that the regular folks have begun to wake up in large numbers -- as evidenced by the GOPs defeat in WI election this week.
Why has no politician asked for monetary restitution from those (corporations/individuals) who tanked a world's economy and those who benefited from it? They must make us whole again.
If the Democrats give 1 dollar more we lose, we cant call it a loss any sooner. We have to strengthen and drive we cant be this ready to give up.
The information highways are no different than transportation highways, and essentially they have to be created as open access networks, just like roads open to all, by communities wishing their benefits. Where the problem lies is who is going to do it, the public sector or the private sector? Well, the best solution is a private/public partnership creating an open access network available to all service providers which creates competition. What I've been proposing for years is taking a lesson from Native Americans and creating a community development co-operative made up of local residents, businesses, associations and institutions. That co-op, essentially a tribe, would have controlling interest in either a non-profitable or profitable enterprise, which could create the necessary community networking infrastructure, and considerably more. The remaining 49% could be used for equity positions of current incumbents.
This proposed community methodology essentially instills community democracy and bypasses the politicians, bureaucrats and lobbyists. I have referred to this methodolgy as the "Community Ark of the Covenant", http://communitydevelopmentcooperative.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/community-ark-of-the-covenant/ to get back to basic moral values and sense of community.
I think Thom is right in saying that the Tea Party just might cause a government shutdown. From a common sense citizens point of view, the Republicans seem like a first born child that always wants its way. The Tea Party is the younger sibling that is throwing an all out fit just to draw its own attention away from their big brother. The democrats are unfortunately the middle sibling who has lost his voice. It's too bad and just like any dysfunctional family there is an intervention needed. Stand up and get active. -WJM
Didnt conservatives cause a govt shutdown with Clinton? Every time there is a DEM in the white house it seems CONS shut down the GOVT.. I think they do it bc they like chaos, and bc they feel they can somehow lay blame on DEMS..
I couldnt agree more dnarnadem. The republican agenda is ruthless and take no prisoners mind set . 100,000 protesters with signs didnt even make them flinch. I am afraid its time to replace those signs with something more intimidating ... WE GOT TO LIVE FREE FALL OR FIGHT !
There is a big smoking pyramided 50-yr. railroad bond due this May.
Every 5/15/ of every year, the "North American group" (aka the Standard half of BP) oil lease interest turns over, which was originally synchronized to turn over with the interest payments of the Second Liberty Loan Bonds.
The Kryder Liberty Loan Bond interest was never accounted for because it is held in G.H. Walker & Co.'s underground pool with interests of other families which have been pooled since 1902.
In 1960, the Pennsyvania RR first consolidated mortgage became due as did the Central Bank for Agriculture, Berlin; sinking find gold 6s due 7/15/1960. G.H. Walker & Company redeemed Pennsy stock held by Credit Suisse through Lincoln National Bank and Trust Company in Fort Wayne as the RR was slated for bankruptcy in 1970 as soon as the new multi-bank holding companies would be legislated.
5/15/1960 "The large block of leases is in the southwest part of the province. Zapata, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Zapata Canadian Petroleum Corp., secured the acreage in a farmout deal with British American Oil Co."
And from Drew Pearson in 1960, "However, it was Senator Bush who pulled the rug out from under the man who had bucked the big four, Commissioner Connole. Senator Bush's son, G. H. W. Bush, is president of Zapata Oil, which in turn holds various leases from the four Catco companies."
Note:"Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC operates as a securities broker/dealer in the United States and internationally. It provides executions for broker-dealers, banks, and financial institutions. The company was founded in 1960." and
In 1961 the Gary, Indiana corporation MacLennan and Guffin (1919) became MacLennan,Guffin, and Bain, Rose Bain VP, address National Bank of Gary. - Origin of MITT ROMNEY Dough.
("As of December 15, 2008, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC is in liquidation."
NIC 2008-12-31 BAIN CAPITAL LLC located at NEW YORK, NY was established as a Domestic Entity Other. )
7/27/1961 "Two groups of Zapata citizens have announced plans to organize new banks here. This city's only bank, the privately owned Bank of Zapata, closed Juiy 18 and has been placed in receivership."
1961 West India Fruit and Steamship Company, Norfolk, Virgina, continued to receive exports in unmarked trucks from Cuba at West Palm Beach Port
1961 Norfolk Terminal Ry 1st. mtg.due;
Murchison Brothers Dallas wrested control of Alleghany from F.W. Kirby in proxy fight; 1st mtg $22,500,000 given by FEC to Barnett Bank (BA) and 2nd Mtg of same amt to Manufacturer's Hanover Trust;
Lincoln Life & Annuity Company of New York created with NORTH AMERICAN VAN LINES 1/05/1961 5101 UNRUH ST PHILADELPHIA Pennsylvania.
A multi-bank merger: 5/15/1969, Loaded with Kryder Real Estate: SUMMIT BANK: ONE SUMMIT SQUARE , FORT WAYNE, IN 46802: Status: Merged Creation : 05/15/1969 Inactive : 04/16/1993 (in 1984 Summit Bank was a merger of Anthony Wayne Bank, 215 East Berry Street, and People's Trust,Trustee of record for Waynedale 1)
So what will happen on May 15? G.H. Walker & Co. could become the transfer agent for a number of chips and take the final steps in returning the Federal Reserve to the Queen and her rellies in Liechtenstein since most of the plan has been so neatly accomplished anyway.
Then, in return for casino favors, Donald Trump will be elected our next President.
XXXXX
If the internet and other networks were truly a privatized entitiy as Kelly claims, then why are tax payers paying billions of dollars of taxes to protect it with military personnel, equipment, and other government agencies. why aren't corporations footing the entire bill? Whenever a corporation is hacked the FBI investigates, etc.......
You want to know the truth? I am a disabled combat veteran and I can tell you that those in charge of our country are destorying it.
First of all, we went over to Iraq for oil, exploited the Iraqi people by killing them and seperating them from their families and pushing democracy on them. The Iraqi people are led by their spirtual beliefs, Americans are led by dollar signs. Although this shouldn't come as a surprise look at our history, murdering Native Americans, enslaving African Americans, putting asians in concentration camps, and killing thousands or arabs for no legitimate reason.
Do you really think that our government officials are looking out for the American people? NO WAY! I don't know about them but I have walked the streets of Iraq and seen dead bodies up close and personal. People in America think it's only something that happens in action movies.... I guess Zyklon B was just something Walt Disney pulled out of his magic box of tricks too huh? Wake up people.....the ones who run this world have money and they don't care about us....we are only cattle. Waiting to be mind controlled and used as pawns in a much bigger game. Dont believe in mind control? Check this out....
MUSICAL CULT CONTROL: THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION’S WAR ON CONSCIOUSNESS THROUGH THE IMPOSITION OF A=440HZ STANDARD TUNING
Thom - We, or most of us know this already, and have known this for years! Call your elected representative? Kidding right? I do that until I am blue in the face. Bottom line, they will vote whatever their political options tell them to. Elect another one? They do the same!
And then you have the Nut-jobs, the tea-baggers, the true believers. They will NEVER vote for what would be in their best interests. Proof - look at the election last November - their representatives, the nut-jobs, now want to shut the government down! And these very voters are cheering them on!
Obama and the Democrats cannot wake up one morning and at the stroke of a pen and just simply eliminate the tax-cuts for the rich! THERE are laws! There is Congress! There is the Senate! Even the Supreme Court for God's sake. All owned by the robber corporations who spend Billions on the whole process to control the government and eliminate corporate taxes. Don't you think that if there would of been Democratic majority after 2008 that this wouldn't have been done? What about the Supreme Court decision on Citizen's United? Do you actually believe that Obama and the Democrats can overrule and ignore this also?
It’s the voter. Some are smart and some are just downright Not Smart! Just look at Wisconsin, the Supreme Court vote. Technically, after what has happened in Wisconsin in the last couple months, you’d think that Miss Koppenback would of won in a land slide, right? Yet in 1.5 Million votes cast, she won by 250+ votes!! That means that ½ of the voters, 750,500-, STILL VOTED FOR THE WALKER REPUBLICAN pick! What does that tell you? Simple. This no longer has anything to do with reason or self-interest, but everything to do with ideology, fundamentalism, indoctrination and the unwillingness to grasp reality. The neo-cons and their fascist paymasters have over the last 60 years, bit by slow bit, piece by piece, year in year out, carved themselves a plutocratic political empire that will in the near future implode on us all if not stopped. They, however, will never stop.
The only way this will ever end is when we, the American people, regain the control of the corporate held media propaganda machine and either regulate it or eliminate it. If we don’t, we, as Free nation, are doomed, and will just become just another failed civilization, like all the rest that lie in the bone yards of history.
Who are we kidding here? All at once we need a Progressive President, a Democratic Congress with 2/3 REAL Democrats, 62 REAL Senators, and a LIBERAL Supreme Court. If we had all these, we could technically fix ALL what the neo-cons have wrought over the last 60 years! We could. But it will never happen in my lifetime. What we see today is, unfortunately, the status quo for the coming 50 years, if not more. By then it will be too late.
We need a better way to fight the Corporate Media propaganda machine. We need something to replace it. We also need a better way to educate our young to think critically. It is no accident that fundamentalism of any stripe, is willing fodder for the neo-con fascist propaganda machine, simply due to the fact that un-critical minds are easy to manipulate, instill fear, and then mobilize to do stupid things at the expense to themselves and their families, like lemmings going over a cliff just because the one next to it is doing it.
This is sick! Next thing you know this nut-job will be selling public office jobs on the open market!
This is what is called blatant arrogant contemp for Americans, The Constitution, our system of laws, and the United States. This man is not an Ameirican. He is a traitor to our American ideals and way of life. There are many other things I would like to call him, but I would guess that most of you reading this know what they are.
And he is the poster boy for the neo-cons and the the robber corporations he stands and gets paid by - THERE IS NO LONGER any SHAME of PATRIOTISM involved here - IT IS ALL about MAMMON and money and power. They are all TRAITORS! Sick!
If It takes a government shut down to allow John Boehner the time he needs to cry a few tears and drink himself to death, then I'M ALL FOR IT! Moonshine for all of my Republican buddys please.
I am writing to you from Canada. Concerning your anticipated U.S. Government possible shut-down I can only say that you Americans are hanging youselves at the end of your own self-manufactured noose when you struck an agreement into law allowing the European-based bankers to set up a "Federal Reserve" for you, irrespective of the fact that Congress has the constitutional authority to create all funds necessary for an orderly exchange of goods and services on the basis of its own power.
Have you forgotten that the element which makes the bond good is the same as the one which makes the Dollar good also? So here you are now, paying the banker (in your case the Federal Reserve) usury for the money you ask him to create by the stroke of a pen, whereas the same funds Congress could legislate into existence WITHOUT the banker as the profiteering middle-man! That is not to say that we here in Canada are any better off than you Americans, however it behooves the people, whether in the States or in this country, to strike out all public debt the same way the banker will write more of it into existence when after Friday he parades up and down the isles of Washington as one who saved the day once again.
On target as always. I will call my congressman and ask my wife and friends to do the same. But what else can we do? I don't have much confidence that the newbie Republican (Dold-IL) who may lose his seat due to redistrictiing will care. He doesn't seem open to any compromise. But I'll call.
What if anything can we do about the corporate media? If it is to be our constant headwind so be it, but what strategies would help for bypassing them? Note that I don't think that there are any remote chances of "reforming" them. They have their interests and they have their orders.
In my opinion the lot of them should be tossed out on their ear. These guys(gals) have convinced me that they all failed kindergarten. Debating over 40 billion when they freely spend trillions on the various wars and the banksters is just plain stupid. When will the American voter wake up?
David
American politics have become nearly completely corrupt and bastardized to benefit the haves and to tax the have-nots.
There needs to be a revolution.
The question is, can the revolution be successful without a shot being fired?
All the Republic behaviors begin to make sense when you remember that their goal is to defeat Obama, nothing else. They are trying to accomplish this by NEVER allowing anything successful or advantageous to happen during Obama's watch...NOTHING good can be allowed to be attributed to Obama. As a result, they only do what makes nothing or bad things happen. We need to start taking a good look at what the Republics are doing in this regard, because there most certainly must be examples of treason in their behaviors. They don't do what's best for the country, they do what they think is bestfir the 2012 election and their chances of winning in it.
They are traitors who care none for our nation and everything for their party and their party's masters.
I am so upset today. I can't help but feel overwhelmed by the radiation spilling into the sea and the news that 50 times more whales and dolphins may have been killed in the Gulf oil spill and the hydrofracking violations in PA. I can't beleive what these lunatics are doing to us and the planet. Like King Midas they are turning everything into gold for themselves. We are left with the poisoned scraps. We lived in a magical place with unbelievable beauty and diversity of life. Capitalists have destroyed it. It will take centuries to fix this. Let's agree to be the warriors that make them stop. To recycle the Greenpeace slogan, "No compromise in defense of Mother Earth and all life on it, including human life.
The reason for the resistance of higher taxes in this country is obvious. It’s NOT the Keynesian multipliers that say for every dollar taken out of the economy in taxes results one-plus dollars taken from economy in growth. Diane Romer and the Fed both maintain that the difference is nominal. It not the monetization issue slowing the velocity of money. The problem with raising taxes is the economic exploitation of the tax paying citizens. Basically it's trust. The Billions that are handed out, not just as corporate welfare, but as part of the warmongering effort, mismanagement, earmarks, prisons, foreign aid, collusion etc are all falling on the backs of the (more and more) distrusting American taxpayers. If that’s not enough, entitlement tax/payments (SS,Medicare, Pensions, VA) have all be collateralize into $41 T in internal debt. If that’s not is not enough we’ve accumulated $15 T in Public debt. If that’s not enough we have about $3 T on the Fed’s balance sheet. When do we say “when”. You can’t keep financing incompetence. I, for one, loath the concept that of every tax dollar I pay most of it goes to procuring new debt, mismanagement or war. I would much rather take that dollar to the store and buy can goods for the food bank. But that’s just me.
I believe the republican strategy is to close government and hit our debt ceiling, then they will blame it on Obama and say he cant get anything done.
Après Moi Le Deluge, Louis XV of France before the revolution
So seniors….. let’s see how long you can survive without social security (which is not bankrupt by the way), medicare, medicade and health insurance, you are about to be raped and it is all going to be taken away from you by the whores, parasites, psychopaths, corporations, and repignicans. But you in your infinite stupidity and laziness decided to elect them. You drank the kool aid. Of all the industrialized nations American is no shining beacon. It is a backward, ignorant, destructive, corrupt, bankrupt, inept, and incompetent country; you can’t run a country with those kinds of people in charge. So, wake up and let the scales fall from your eyes, stop the self-delusion. What are you going to do about it?
Here"s Senator, Sanders >>>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfHL3mxnWBk&feature=player_embedded#at=160
The Tea Party (which is just an anti-government corporate front) WANTS the government to shut down. They want chaos because it causes fear and drives up prices so they make more money - from gas and oil, gold, guns, you name it. They are driving a giant wedge between the upper class and everyone else and this is meant to hammer it in deeper.