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Media is the ultimate dumbing down of America. I am among 23 men over 65 who have morning get togetheres over coffee three times a week. The group is com[osed of close to equal proportions of liberal and conservatives. I think we all agree it's not about cookie cutter politicians with salesman personalities, nor about a lefty righty BS particanship. I think we all agree it's a Bernie Sanders thing. Bernie is the only candidate saying what we want to hear and the message is gaining mementum everywhere. During the last presidential election it was Ron Paul but now it's bernie even among conservatives because even conservatives are feeling the economic desparity and identifying the causes of it.
Your link to MSNBC Morning joe's broadcast of 06/17/2015 isn’t the best example, in fact, if you really listen to that segment with Hew Hewett, they covered politics, likability, servers, ISIS - stuff that Republicans like Hewett, like to yap and whine about all day long.
If you want a real example about media fluff, celebrity, shallowness of likability, cheerleading Hillary ad nausea, just tune into MSNBC Up with Steve Kornacki on any recent Saturday and Sunday mornings. Steve had the gall on one of his shows a few weeks before Hillary officially announced, that he didn't have a bias towards Hillary when covering the politics on his show.
Another hypocrite is MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes. He recently wrote an article about Hillary's double-face, questionable approach to Middle East foreign policy but he fails on a daily basis, to apply his same level of critique on his evening shows, rarely ever mentioning the many and real flaws of Hillary.
Why doesn't MSNBC have a banner behind each of the million-dollar salaries of each of the high-profile MSNBC commentators, starting with Chris Matthews, Lawrence O'Donnell, etc., screaming out what they really want to say, "HILLARY - the next COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 2016 and I also donated hundreds of dollars and attended several pricey fund raisers for her presidential campaign."
No, Hillary doesn’t not and will not be given a PASS, a BREAK, GOING EASY on the Democratic front-runner, and any other pleas you rambled about on your radio show the other day.
To solve the Supreme Court problems of leaning its ideology too far left or right, those so-called smart lawyers from Ivy League schools ought to be proposing and petitioning for a 20-to-25 year limit to serve on the Supreme Court -- making it the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
I'm sorry, Thom but what is it that YOU are giving us?
You made google news today with this:
Thom is a lefty progressive who agrees with Bernie Sanders more than he agrees with Hillary Clinton, but has something to say that progressives should probably heed.
“It’s unimaginable the damage a Republican presidency could do…I’m very concerned that a lot of progressives are beating up on Hillary Clinton…but wounding a cadidate with the base is a very dangerous business.”
The typos weren't too bad, Loren. None would cause any confusion, even if there are 3 Russias.
So somebody's dropping in to see what condition your condition is in? I remember that song by the First Edition.
Craig Ziegler
Ha! Here's an interesting answer to your math problem...
The original "thug" was a member of the 19th-century Thuggee cult in India (mentioned in passing in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) which worshipped Kali and supposedly strangled British tourists with yellow scarves.
So there's no reason why the term would indicate black people but not white people that engage in the same behavior. Then again, the black people called thugs by racists are usual non-violent even if they are criminals. And the people that liberals want to call thugs are mass murderers.
Long ago, I found the Democratic Party's charter and bylaws. I couldn't find the same for the Republican Party.
ARTICLE TWO – Democratic National Committee
Section 1. Duties and Powers. The Democratic National Committee shall have general responsibility for the affairs of the Democratic Party between National Conventions, subject to the provisions of the Charter and to the resolutions or other official actions of the National Convention. This responsibility shall include, but not be limited to:
...
(f) Providing for the election or appointment of a Chairperson, five Vice Chairpersons, three of whom shall be of the opposite sex of the Chairperson, one of whom shall be the President of the Association of State Democratic Chairs and one of whom shall be Vice Chairperson for Voter Registration and Participation, a Treasurer, a National Finance Chair, a Secretary and other appropriate officers of the National Committee as shall be determined by the Committee, and for the filling of vacancies;
...
Section 2. Membership. The Democratic National Committee shall be composed of:
(a) The Chairperson and the highest ranking officer of the opposite sex of each recognized State Democratic Party as defined by Article Nine of the Charter and of the Democratic Parties of Guam, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa;
(b) Two hundred additional members apportioned to the states on the basis set forth in Article Two, Section 5(a) of the Charter, provided that each state shall have at least two additional members;
(c) Two additional members, consisting of one national committeeman and one national committeewoman, from each of Guam, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa;
(d) The Chairperson of the Democratic Governors' Association and two additional governors, of whom at least one shall be of the opposite sex of the Chairperson, as selected by the Association;
(e) The Democratic Leader in the United States Senate and the Democratic Leader in the United States House of Representatives and one additional member of each body, who shall be of the opposite sex of, and appointed by the respective leaders;
(f) The Chairperson, five Vice Chairpersons, the National Finance Chair, the Treasurer and the Secretary of the Democratic National Committee;
(g) The Chairperson of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors and two additional mayors, at least one of whom shall be of the opposite sex of the Chairperson, as selected by the Conference;
(h) The President of the Young Democrats of America and two additional members, at least one of whom shall be of the opposite sex of the President, as selected by the organization biennially in convention assembled;
(i) The President of the National Federation of Democratic Women and two additional members selected by the Federation;
(j) The Chairperson of the Democratic County Officials and two additional members, at least one of whom shall be of the opposite sex of the Chairperson, as selected by the organization;
(k) The Chairperson of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and two additional state legislators, at least one of whom shall be of the opposite sex of the Chairperson, as selected by the Committee;
(l) The Chairperson of the National Democratic Municipal Officials Conference and two additional municipal officials, of whom, to the extent possible, at least one shall be of the opposite sex of the Chairperson, as selected by the Conference;
(m) Additional members as provided in Article Nine of the Charter;
(n) The President of the College Democrats of America and the Vice President, who shall be of the opposite sex, as elected by the organization annually;
(o) The Chairperson of the National Association of Democratic State Treasurers and the Vice Chair who shall be of the opposite sex, as selected by the Association;
(p) The Chairperson of the National Association of Democratic Lieutenant Governors and the Vice Chair who shall be of the opposite sex, as selected by the Association;
(q) The Chairperson of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State and the Vice Chair who shall be of the opposite sex, as selected by the Association;
(r) The Chairperson of the Democratic Attorneys General Association and one additional attorney general who shall be of the opposite sex of the Chairperson, as selected by the Association;
(s) the Chairperson of the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Committee, who is not otherwise a member of the Democratic National Committee and one additional member, who shall be of the opposite sex, as selected by the Coordinating Committee;
(t) the Chairperson of the National Democratic Seniors Coordinating Council, who is not otherwise a member of the Democratic National Committee and one additional member, who shall be of the opposite sex, as selected by the Coordinating Council;
(u) No more than seventy-five additional members of the Democratic National Committee may be added by the foregoing members.
Loren B -- Stalin destroyed the Russian revolution. The Reagan revolution destroyed the New Deal. Hope is hard to find.
2950-10K -- I see how sales tax is regressive. I have a harder time seeing how property tax is regressive (except in CA and the con job of Prop 13).
R J Schundler -- Most of the things you suggest have been tried to some extent and have destroyed our economy to some extent. I totally agree on the carbon tax, but with a rebate.
The number one policy that has been shown to help our economy is a top tax rate over 50%.
However, I think with our huge trade deficit nothing is going to work. Bring back tariffs. Incidentally, the top tax rate policy above 50% always had tariffs to protect it.
SHFabian -- How many times do I have to point out to you that economic inequality is measured by the ratio of the top 20% to the bottom 20%? There is no middle class involved.
E J Dodson #3 -- What was wrong with the policies of the New Deal and the Great Society?
Why try something new, when we have policies that stood the test of time (50 years)?
The main problem I see with the policies of the New Deal augmented by those of the Great Society, they were too effective and scared the fascists s&#$less.
reject TPP
Okay, one more time, just to make sure I got this right. One million billionares buy one million phones..........300 million millionares buy 300 million phones.........and so on and so on...........so having one million billionares pretty much defines a dysfunctional business environment..........now, what would 6 billion people with one hundred thousand each be able to buy........if I were a ruthless money means everything captilist kind of guy where is the most likely mega profit going to come from.........you can do it, all you financial wizards, I know it is painful, thinking through it.........but you can do it.........just a simple math problem.....think of it as supply and demand..........there you go your dam near there.........I love ya man........hugs and kisses Craig
Thanks, Alice.
Too bad there are at least three typos that make me look like a drooling idiot. These are the result of typing way too fast with entirely too arthritic fingers during a too-short break from a too-long housecleaning binge in preparation for the humiliating quarterly inspection intrusively inflicted on us denizens of senior housing to remind us our poverty defines us as total failures and utterly worthless pieces of shit.
I didn't have time to properly edit because "quiet time" -- no vacuum cleaning, no destruction tests on stereos, no sustained operation of unlubricated bedsprings etc. -- was only 30 minutes away (9 p.m. to 8 a.m.), and I still had to Hoover the living room and the bedroom. (Impertinent question: since senior housing is the last stop before the grave, isn't the"living room" inappropriately named?)
In any case, because of the peculiarities of this website, I can't go back and correct the errors without destroying the dialogue.
Ergo:
Yes, I know the correct spelling of "euphemizsed" (fourth graf) is "euphemized." (No I was not being a Liberal and trying to defuse controversy by combining both British and American spellings.)
"Powernessness" (sixth graf) should have been "powerlessness." (I wanna make that point especially clear as some syntactical PollyAnna might try to argue "powernessness" is the diameterical opposite of "powerlessness.") (In which context note that an entomologist is somebody who writes about bugs while an etymologist is somebody who can bug you about writing.)
"Russias" (last graf) should have been "Russians." (No further comment comes to my alleged mind.)
Such is the condition of my condition on the eve of the quarterly inspectuion. (At least in the service we who stood especially tall in inspections were often rewarded with three-day passes.)
Alas there is no three-day pass from old age. Nor is there any R and R (rest and recuperation) from poverty.
As it should say atop the U.S. version of the Crucifix -- the proper capitalist replacement for the Roman execution order (Iēsus Nazarēnus, Rēx Iūdaeōrum) -- "have a nice day."
Complete with a big grinning yellow smiley face, of course.
Carpe diem...
The cause of wealth inequality has many facets. One cause is the loss of manufacturing jobs. This could have been prevented by our lawmakers but they did nothing. The jobs the displaced workers got did not pay very well. Another facet is the decline of unions and stagnant wages. The wealthy business CEOs are like the asian monkey that sticks his hand in a cage and grabs a piece of fruit. His greed will not allow him to see the benefit of letting go so he can pull his hand out and escape before the human catches him. The CEOs greed will not let them see that if all workers are paid more, they will spend more money, the economy will get a boost and the CEOs companies will make more money.. .The workers will also pay more taxes. If the extremely wealthy and extremely profitable corporations pay more taxes, the government can create good paying jobs. Narrowing the wealth gap will not hurt business. It will help business.
BRAVO, Loren! I concur.
Actually the "defining issue of our time" is whether life as we know it -- including our own species -- will survive capitalism. -
As evidenced by our capitalist masters' escalating efforts to provoke an extinction-level war with Russia and their ongoing refusal to act against terminal climate change, they have already concluded we are a dead species on a dying planet.
Indeed it is an Occam's Razor moment of the most terrible sort: no other hypothesis explains the totality of Ruling Class behaviors, including the no-tomorrow savagery of their run-amok greed -- a global orgy of exploitation, oppression, contractual theft and outright armed robbery with no precedent in human experience.
That said, such an uncharacteristically humanitarian conclusion from the Imternational Monitary Fund, which is one of capitalism's chief economic executioners, indicates the Ruling Class is finally awakening to the fact the global proletariat -- even broken as it is by the One Percent's imperial omnipotence -- is not so subjugated as to plod submissively into the grave. And it makes no difference whether the genocidal intent is obvious (as when the killing is done by soldiers and police), or whether it is disguised by rhetoric (as when the mechanism of murder is euphemizsed as "austerity").
Obviously the real message of the IMF study is that the Ruling Class is becoming terrified.
Ninety-eight years ago, faced by the same sort of hopeless inequality and abject powernessness that has been inflicted on us all by the One Percent of today, the Russian people rose up in a revolution that truly changed the world. Though that revolution was later betrayed and undone, its triumphs remain part of Russia's collective consciousness, the wellsprings of a yearning as profoundly heartfelt as Dark Age Britian's folk- remembrance of Arthur and their desperate longing for the rescue-from-chaos they symbolized as "the return of the king."
Foolishly we regard our overlords as stupid, and in so doing we commit what to Sun Tzu was the warrior's ultimate and ultimately fatal error: we underestimate our enemy. We fail to acknowledge the horrid truth the One Percent is brilliant -- diabolically so -- and in its Machiavellian wisdom it no doubt recognizes that as the Russians once rose to fling off the shackles and hangman's-knots of capitalism, so might they rise up again.
And if it is not too late for our species -- if it is not the ultimate absurdity of revolution by a doomed species on a ruined planet -- this time the revolution might go as global as the malevolence of capitalism has already gone.
If our species survives -- or maybe as the very fulcrum of our survival -- that is surely the legacy of the inequality thrust on us by capitalism. That is its teachable essence.
And because the Russias have already learned that lesson so well they were able, for a time, to teach it to the rest of the world, that is perhaps why the One Percent in the person of the United States government is now trying to provoke a war with Russia: anything to maintain capitalism's imperial power, anything to perpetuate its signature inequality, anything -- even the dying gasp of one triumphant Kochroach to another,"we had to destroy the planet to save it."
Interesting audio interview about the Federalist Society and their power.
After being fooled in 2008, 'like alot of people' I will never vote for just a party, because they are both corrupt, I vote for the canidate not the party, so the party better get its --- in gear and not the other way around.
Thom, I disagree! Until we get the dark money out of politics’ how do we know that this corporate democrat has not already appointed someone that is in line with his corporate view in expanding the NWO. I believe that this 5-4 stance is meant for just appearance where someone will always be there to rotate on that 5th vote in favor of big business. The corporate strategist use the supreme court like a carrot and stick to secure a section of a populate vote. If you disagree with my analysis then ' Why has not Ruth Ginsburg retired under the Obama administration? Can you answer that? I believe we cannot trust either the corporate run Democrat or Republican leadership to appoint someone not in line with their corporate view of the world as it must be. In fact our only hope for survival is too stand behind and go all out for a true honest candidate such as Bernie sanders who is not controlled by lobbyist representing dark money
The findings of the IMF study were surely predictable. Increase the income share of the bottom 20% and the GDP grows. It's pretty obvious that the bottom 20% will spend virtually all of the increase in their income, and create jobs by doing so.
The IMF's solution, "progressive taxation," should include abolishment of all regressive taxes such as property tax, and replace them with ability to pay taxes, such as income based ones.
I've said it before, and I'm confident most participants on this blog would agree, tax laws are the best immediate solution to the mushrooming problem of concentration of wealth.
It's in America's best interests to shine a light on H. Clinton's own record. We don't need lies or "misrepresentations" to appropriately dismiss Clinton. An equally interesting issue is that of why certain media marketed to libs went into over-drive to sell Clinton, with her consistent record as a neoliberal -- pro-war, anti-poor, pro-corporate empowerment, anti-New Deal.
Economic issues drive social policies. H. Clinton has consistently been on the right wing -- NAFTA, the TPP, corporate tax cuts, finishing off Social Security, etc.
That said: Normally, the VP goes on to run for president, and VP Joe Biden will be launching his campaign later in summer (check his website). Any Dem pol can then challenge him for the nomination, and the primaries will determine which one goes on to run for president on the Dem Party ticket. This is how the system works
"They suggest more progressive tax policies, which means higher taxes on investment income, and better living standards for those at the bottom of the income ladder." ..... These suggesttion are not based on good economics. Lets but good economics to use. First, lets have some pro employment policies. Repeal all labor/employment base taxes .... That means repealing the FICA taxes on both the employee and their empoyers. After all we want people to have jobs and we want they to take home as much as possible. Repeal the FUI taxes and the Income Tax based on employment/work). Next, we also want to keep businesses here in the USA and not to drive them overseas ... Lower all business taxes. We want investments so repeal all taxes on investments made in the USA. Now, for people to earn more they have to be more productive, so education should be paid for at the state level (all children children of the same age should get equal funding) and parents should be free to send their child to any school that the parent feel meets the needs of their child. Give all Businesses a 100% tax credit, for funds they donate to local colleges, department, and students up to a fixed credit. To keep the cost of education down, no credit for colleges that are listed as the top 20% or the most expensive schools. .............. Now we cannot cut taxes and give tax credit without making up for lost revenue somehow. We pass a progressive carbon tax, those who use more pay a higher rate, big business use more carbon fuel, than small business that may use less that homeowners. This would promote energy conservation (not a bad thing). Then, we should also pass the FAIR TAX on all goods (labor/service are not tax). This would make domestic producers more compeditive with foreign producers, by taxing both the same. ... By the way, the supper wealthy do not make thier money by working .... Having a very progressive income tax at the higher income levels just tax the workers, and enable the super wealthy protection from the up and coming, same is true for companies that are growing .... we want them to grow and to employ more people ....
No, the "inequality" discussion we've heard from Democrats and most of the media marketed to libs has been a false discussion, limited to the gap between the better off and the very well off, working class and rich. This reinforces the notion that our corporate state is so successful, everyone is able to work and there are jobs for all. Put bluntly, it's a lie. In reality, America has been growing a poverty crisis since the 1980s. Do some research. The US shipped out a huge number of jobs since the 1980s, ended actual welfare in the 1990s, leaving a portion of the population with no means of providing for themselves. Have you ever wondered what happens to those who become ill/lose their jobs? Keep wondering -- media won't touch this issue. When it's your turn to be bumped out, becoming one of the jobless poor, you'll find out for yourself.
We've created a huge surplus of job-ready people who are absolutely desperate for any job at any wage. US corporations are no longer dependent on US consumers OR workers, We have made ourselves dispensible. Our own modern history shows why it is impossible to save/rebuild the middle class without shoring up the poor, putting the rungs back on the ladder out of poverty. We won't do that. Overall impact: When Reagan was first elected, launching the long campaign against our poor, the overall quality of life in the US was rated at #1. Bythe time Obama was elected, this had already plunged to #43, and we can no longer adequately compete in the modern world market. All the banner-waving for the middle class can't change any of this.