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Please read ther rant in the Western Journal "a presidential blunder: my response to obama's address at the national prayer breakfast". The company that has the site Western Journal is incorporated in Nevada but the principals are in Arizona. I wonder if the Koch Brothers are sponsoring/payen for this kind of rant.
I found not reference in Obama's talk at the Prayer Breakfast than would be considered to be in error. I heard the original publication on C-SPAN during the prayer breakfast and then yesterday listened to it again and then printed out and read Obama's talk. Interesting how some people can stretch things in order to try to paint someone different than what I think was the truth.
There are two other things about European conservatives that distinguish them from American neo-Cons. One, the social legislation that exists began with a Conservative, Otto von Bismarck. It was his idea that the the State is obligated to provide the basic services to the people on an equitable basis, rather than the volunatary system that existed prior to that that. Yes, it was meant to rationalize the services with the result of maintaining stability in the country.
The other factor is the notion of Noblesse Oblige, that the wealth they earn is meant to promote the general welfare. It wasn't "their money", but a public trust. Indeed, to this date, the Brits call their foundations "Trusts", benefits that are provided to support the various sectors in the nation.
The neo-Con approach can only lead to chaos, and disorder in the nation. It's not just the middle class, but the instability, that people don't know if they have enough to support their families creates insecurity, on a great level, as if . . . they are there to serve thier needs at the lowest cost possible.
Zev
There is a large community of minorities here that are French born formerly colonized people. They suffer terrible discrimination. She hates them too. Not so long ago, she said she was in favor of requiring all babies born in France to take "French" names.
::Whew::! I lost count of the # of times I told my computer 'WTF are you even talking about?!?' Pretty sure the poor machine is terribly confused and offended now--I'll have to spend some quality time apologizing to it tonight after work...
But I digress. The profound inability for your right-of-center guests to even imagine how the underpriviled--particularly the rural poor--in the US function in daily life is altogether appalling.
I bet they never even thought about the plight of Sam's poor dead great-aunt!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIoxLfS3pmw
They are the price we pay for a lot of things, I don't complain.
While I stand with progressives on many issues, fail to see their logic on illegal immigration.
How can it not be better for everyone if they stay in their own culture, and solve their own problems of employment and health?
Send them Peace Corp, send them water purifiers and solar tech, but keep them out of countries that already are incapable of giving decent employment to their own citizens.
ct
Dear AMosello2:
I am so sad that your child developed PDD-nos. As you know, most children who develop autism begin to show symptoms around age two-to-three. Because signs of autism appear around the same time that children receive the MMR (measles) vaccine, it's natural to wonder whether the vaccine causes autism. But vaccine safety experts at the Centers for Disease Control and the American Academy of Pediatrics say that the MMR vaccine just isn't the culprit.
It is not inconceiveable that the MMR vaccine played a role, but thermiserol did not. The MMR vaccine has never contained thermiserol or any other preservative. However, the CDC confirms a one in 3,000-4,000 risk of febrile seizures among children under age 7 about a week or two after they receive the MMR vaccine.
Here's a link to a page with information about the research that has been done by various organizations on a possible connection between the MMR vaccine and autism: http://tinyurl.com/6zkuhoe
I hope that you can find some comfort in knowing that many people have been looking into this question over the years.
The federal debt is just a bookkeeping number based on an obsolete law requiring the Treasury to issue T-securities in the amount of federal deficits. (Look up the Second Liberty Bond Act) The “debt” is functionally just the total of outstanding T-securities, not the total of deficits. In a Monetarily Sovereign nation, there can be deficits without debt, and there can be debt without deficits.
Let me explain.
When you and I spend more than we earn, we say we are running a personal “deficit,” and the total of these deficits is our personal debt. For us, debt and deficit are fundamentally connected. To have a debt, we must run a deficit. This is how personal finances work.
Finances for the U.S. government does not work this way. The federal debt and federal deficit are not fundamentally connected. The U.S. government can have deficits without having any debt, and it can have debt, without running deficits. The same words — “debt” and “deficit” — have different implications, when applied to federal finances and personal finances. Here is the difference: The government runs a “deficit” when its spending exceeds its tax income. The federal government runs a “debt” when it sells Treasury securities. The two actions are connected, not by fundamentals, but only by a law requiring their connection. (Again, look up the Second Liberty Bond Act) This law requires the federal government to issue T-securities in the same amount as the deficit. These T-securities do not pay for a deficit, do not offset a deficit, do not fund a deficit. They merely are issued in the same amount as the deficit. If the federal government wanted to it could double its spending, eliminate taxes, and create a monster deficit, without selling a single T-security. On the other hand the federal government could sell trillions in T-securities, while at the same time not have a deficit.
Let me further expand on the so called “debt” and T-securities and how they actually work.
If you are a “lender” (i.e., buyer of T-securities) to the federal government, you have taken dollars from your bank checking account and deposited them into your T-security account at the Federal Reserve Bank. A T-security account essentially is a bank savings account. Your deposit has increased the so-called “debt,” but has had no effect on the deficit. You simply have made a bank deposit, but rather than calling it a “deposit,” the media, politicians and mainstream economists misleadingly call it “debt.” To “pay off” the federal debt, the Federal Reserve Bank does exactly the same as any bank does when “paying off” your savings deposit: It transfers dollars from your T-security savings account to your personal checking account. Period. Done. The entire “debt” could be paid off in an instant by merely transferring al the dollars from the savings account back to the checking accounts of the “lenders”. All the BS you read and hear about the federal deficit and the federal debt merely serves to confuse the public and to blur the line between personal finances and federal finances.
The American conservatives Thom refers to, the ones who want to roll back the New Deal, are most certainly a very small group of Economic Royalists, because polls indicate that by far a vast majority of citizens are in favor of social safety net programs like the Social Security Act. In fact an overwhelming majority favor lifting the cap. Even among Teabaggers, it's still only 20% that favor cutting Social Security benefits over lifting the cap. The Economic Royalists seek to overturn the existing order by disregarding the existing will of the vast majority.
I agree that by spending massive amounts of money on elections, the Economic Royalists corrupt our political system, but we still need to consider how that money creates the problem. It creates the problem by enriching corpse media like FOX, who in return broadcast falsehoods, convincing at least 51% to vote against the best interests of the 99.9 %. Despite the corruption of money, at the end of the day it still takes voter belief in the misinformation to place the wrong people in power. This is where I get completely frustrated.....For example, it's a fact that the first thing the Teapublicans did after the midterms was to pass a House rule aimed at cutting Social Security. Very few including the Teabaggers who voted for guys like Tom Reed are in favor of these cuts. The Teapublican lie, this rule was implemented to save the Social Security program. The truth, the vast majority including Reed's Teabaggers want the cap lifted and Reed damn well knows this. How could it be more god damn clear who these wingnuts are working for? I don't care how much money the Kochs are spending, at some point voters just need to spend ten seconds on the truth and pull their heads out of their asses.
ATTN: Thom Hartmann!
How about introducing some facts about the true state of our economy? This 'agenda' continues to devastate the middle class, and pad the pockets of the rich. I challenge anyone to dispute these facts!
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/16/more-proof-conservative-ant...
So I guess I'm confused. If people that LIVE in France don't want people from other countries to enter their borders and live off the FRENCH safety net, why is that racist? Exactly how many people from third world countries must France take in?
It seems conservatives are universal haters, but here in America they are even more hateful,madding poor people to their shit list.
"Conservatives ", what do conservatives want to concerve? Taxes? Perhaps all conservatives want to pay lower taxes or no taxes but conservative lawmakers only help the wealthy with taxes. Social programs? Conservative lawmakers want to tell us that social programs are being widely abused and draining us of our tax money while not being conserving at all when it comes to military spending. There are two types of conservatives, one is the conservative lawmaker and the other is the conservative voter. The agenda of the two is very different. The conservative voter wants gun rights, no abortion rights. to be protected by our military , welfare abusers punished, and Christianity in our government. On the other hand the conservative lawmaker wants to make money, and help the wealthy make more money and they will help the conservative voter with some of those other issues as long as they keep those votes comming in.
My son received the MMR vaccine when he was 15 months old in 1984. That night his fever spiked, he had a feibrile seizure, and was rushed to the emergency room where they administered a spinal tap. My son was diagnosed PDD-nos when he was two and a half years old. Up until the time of his vaccine he hit every milestone on time or early. No one will admit that the vaccine had anything to do with his subsequent diagnosis. So sad.
How about we drown Grover in the ' bath tub' I am so disgusted with greedy anti middle class goons like Grover , Boehner, Ryan, Mcconnell, DeMint, GOP GOV's Rauner-Scott Walker, Fla Gov who suck up to billionaires, ' Rape ' families of decent wages and benefits Our new IL Gov Rauner at first wanted to DROP MIN WAGE till folks got angry and he BACKED DOWN Thats how we get our country back Scream Holler E-mail- Call -Sign petitions, Demand action.
Speak out @ www.whitehouse.gov 202 456 1111 www.congress.gov 202 456 3121 MOST LY GET OUT AND VOTE EVEN IF U R DISGUSTED as millions are If millions more vote WE can TURN THE TIDE FOR WORKERS- FAMILIES- OUR KIDS EDUCATION Screw corp tax cuts- loopholes- subsides that cost US trillions Cut bloated war budget ' Raise SS TAx Cap - Bring back Glass Steagal - No TPP NO Keystone pipleine Tell Obama USE VETO PEN Put back regs on Wall St crooks that GOP just gave them in 2015 ! Raise Holy Hell
I truly believe the Republican party is trying to kill off as many poor people as they can get away with.
LysanderSpooner -- What?
What system do you think Mark endorses?
I don't understand that platform of small federal government when Thomas Jefferson specifically argued for stronger and bigger government in First Inaugural Speech 1801.
kipopp -- Interestingly, I thought I was describing money exactly the way you are describing it.
What do you mean by the so called "Federal Debt"? Do you mean the value of the debt clock? I thought that debt clock was the difference between the credits to the "Taxes" account and the debits to "Spending Account".
I thought the charter of the Fed was to do the delicate balance between inflation and unemployment (AKA negative effect on the aggregate demand).
With regard to inflation, I live on a fixed income, and even I think inflation is too low. We need 4% not 2% to keep this economy going.
Any unemployment rate above 3.8%, in my opinion (based on the US history of the economy) means the aggregate demand is too low. Since our unemployment is around 6%, I think one can conclude the states cannot do enough.
Golden Dawn's geometric insignia is a pattern called Greek key. It comes from ancient times, but I wouldn't be surprised if they chose it for its resemblence to the Nazi swastika (although they probably would have had it twist the other direction).
Mark,
You endorse the system. Don't complain. Taxes are the price we pay for civilization. Blah Blah Blah.
Hephaestus, I gotta better one, progressive taxation based on the ability to pay without undue sacrifice - like Thomas Jefferson suggested. Who cares who doesn't like it?
Everybody works hard Hephaestus, but not everybody gets paid hard. What the rich don't pay in wages let them pay in taxes. Also, it's better to hold most things in common. Usually more cost effective that way and builds community.
If you can afford your own fire department, great, but not everybody can and they deserve a good one too so you're gonna help pay for it. If that doesn't leave you enough for your own you can just use the common one - but don't imagine it's yours any more than anyone else's.
Why do you think you deserve all that loot anyway? Everybody works hard. Did you "steal it fair and square"? Did you forget all the people who worked so hard to make you rich?.
Maybe you should have your own planet. You can have Uranus.
No bank; no corporation should either be to big to fail not should its officers be to rich or to powerful not to proscuted and and jailed. I would that no corporation, be it a bank or whatever, should be bailed out using taxpayer's money. The people of the United States should not bear the weight or the responsibility of mismanagement by a group of officers as a result of incompetence, greedy, bad business decison, or simple "bad luck". Investors knowingly take that risk everytime they invest their money. However, rewarding failure is not what the American free enterprise system is about. Then again, in today's oligraric political system, certain corporations are defacto parts of the government; at least in so much as they determine much of the policies affecting their industries, and finance the elections of most members of Congress, the President, and the Judicary System, as well as provide much of the senior bureaucrats---the nomenklatura of the government and lobbyists.
Personally, any corporation which is "to big to fail" and/or is that vital to the national economy or national security (ie: oil companies, military aircraft manufacturers) should be nationalized or forcefully broken up with all of its senior management replaced. Any industry along those lines should also be regulated by outside parties not associated with either that industry or any of the companies or its subsididaries in that industry. Along the same lines, any industry which, by nature of its business, pollutes or damages the environment, should be mandated into funding its own cleanup pool rather than have US taxpayers foot the bill.
Because the cheerleaders for "The American Way" want to pretend that MLK brought about what we have of Civil Rights peacefully without admitting that Malcolm's latent threat of violence played a very big part. Likewise for Gandhi and the Dervishes.
Roland
I think the people who avoid paying taxes purposely should be treated the same as drug dealers. All their assets should be seized. Then the government should use that money to go after more of them.