Today's edition of quick hits:
* With NATO sending American-made air defenses to Turkey's Syrian border, the Assad regime is increasingly in an unsustainable position.
* Egypt: "Egyptian riot police fired tear gas Tuesday night at tens of thousands of demonstrators who were converging on the presidential palace here in Cairo to protest the country's new draft constitution, which was rushed to completion last week by an assembly dominated by Islamists."
* Iran claims to have captured an American drone, but U.S. officials are denying it, saying that all American drones are accounted for.
* What do Senate Republicans think of the one-sided House Republican debt-reduction plan? It's hard to say; Senate GOP leaders apparently don't want to talk about it. President Obama, meanwhile, has no qualms about criticizing the proposal.
* It's not official yet, but multiple reports suggest Sen.-Elect Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will get a seat on the Senate Banking Committee in the new year.
* The measure will need some Republican signatories to advance: "House Democrats on Tuesday filed a discharge petition that would force the House to vote on the Senate's bill to extend the Bush-era tax levels for the middle class, but allow rates to rise for the wealthy."
* Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden and Red Lobster, said it intends to cut workers' hours so it won't have to provide them with health insurance coverage, and it's now facing a public-relations backlash.
* One of these days, conservatives will realize ACORN no longer exists, and is incapable of stealing elections.
* On a related note, is it possible to have an opinion on an imaginary debt-reduction plan? For one-in-four Americans, the answer is apparently yes.
* And the Washington Post's Erik Wemple has some rather blunt thoughts on Fox News' political outreach to David Petraeus, urging him to run for president as a Republican before his sex scandal.
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
Leave a Comment:
Well, given that all the debt reduction plans are "imaginary" until enacted, then I guess everyone has an opinion on them.
:) :P
Seriously, though, it's all dog and pony show at this point...political theater...whatever you want to call it. I have no doubt they all already know exactly what they are going to do at the "last minute" to avoid "the crisis"...all this is just playing to the various "bases."
Well, given that all the debt reduction plans are "imaginary" until enacted
Actually they will always be imaginary in a sense. Anything that they pass (or not, letting the fiscal cliff hit) does not reduce any debt per se, it will just lower our deficits a tiny bit. We will still spend more than we take in, which in reality will add to the debt. The only difference is we will only add 1.0 Trillion instead of 1.3 Trillion next year. All of the theatrics and wrangling over the details and compromises is all for a small, small dent in our continually and probably permanent increasing red ink.
Our two greatest costs are the military and covering the costs of annual tax cuts for the rich/corporations. Things are further complicated by the fact that corporations have used their savings from tax cuts to move our jobs out of the country, thereby shrinking government revenues without decreasing war. We've been at war more often than not for the past century. It's just what we do, what we are. We won't change those two priorities. The US budget since the 1980s has been only about upward wealth redistribution. Waging wars and providing for our rich is all the US is still capable of doing, and this will continue until the US finally completely collapses.
No. Social Security and Medicare are. Defense is third. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2011.png
You've got that backwards. Corporations are moving jobs out of the country to get savings from tax cuts.
??? What does leaving the US for a better business environment have to do with war?
No it isn't. It's what you let Obama do, because he's Obama.
No, it has been about Asia competing for business. They won. The people that thought it remain 1950 forever were wrong. And yes, wealth trickles down.
Gad. Where are all the lefty war protests that defined Bush's terms? It's OK to escalate wars, kill Americans with no due process, and decimate civil liberties, now that Obama is Pres? IOKIYAD? Meanwhile the rich are providing for you. They pay most of the taxes, run most of the businesses, providing most of the jobs, and all the tax revenue.
Doom and gloom is bad enough, but when it's also wrong it's self destructive. Garbling talking points and denigrating the people who make the place run isn't going to help anybody.
Oh I see the righties have been very busy over at wikipedia lately.
Corporations are moving jobs overseas for any number of reasons, taxes is one of them, labor cost is another, "local production" models is another, resource availability is another. It is a vast oversimplification to say any one of these things is the sole cause, it's far more complex than that, includes far more reasons than these few, and every corporation is different.
But all these reasons come down to the same thing, maximizing profits. Which, by itself, is not a horrible thing. But when the sole motivation of a corporation (or a person) is money, that leads to ravening avarice and it's a bad thing.
And for those that seem to not know US industrial history, outsourcing and off-shoring jobs started in the 60s, not the 80s. The 60's mark a major turning point, not just in US history, but in industrial and world economic history. It's correct to say that it won't be the 50's forever, and thank god for that. But the best alternative is not government of, by and for the corporate oligarchy motivated soley by quarterly profit margins.
Good post.
Is it really true that ACORN no longer exists? Or has it just gone so far underground that people just don't recognize its existence even as its criminality runs rampant? You know, like the Tong. Or Kaiser Soze.
In less frivolous news, my suspicion is that most of the people who commented on the fictitious debt-reduction plan were simply embarrassed that they knew nothing about what was implied to be an issue of national importance, so they guessed at a response based on the other questions asked. And to be honest, I myself once answered phone poll questions about issues about which I knew absolutely nothing because I quickly realized that it was a Republican push poll and so I deliberately gave responses that I thought would be contrary to the GOP line even about things like "power plants on the Mississippi Gulf Coast" some 700 miles away.
I suspect that ACORN has enlisted members of the Muslim Brotherhood to steal identities of CEOs and use them and their power to ...
I need more time to formulate a good scenerio worthy of FOX.
i wonder if he gave an opinion on the Blunt-Grassley amendment to regulate marijuana?
ok, i stole that. it's just too good to not recycle.
Good one temporary! Definitely too good to not recycle!
There's probably a poll with people answering I oppose/support this amendment.
Hahahahaha!
I found out what a blunt was a few years ago as an alternate juror. I was glad someone explained it, because even though I came of age in the 60's and I did partake of the gangia, I had never heard of a Blunt until around 5 years ago.
The fact that ACORN no longer exists is, like most facts, irrelevant to the public discussion today. I figured that one out years ago, listening to the public discussion about welfare (and incredibly, there are still people who swear they saw someone today who was cashing in an AFDC check, just to jump back in her Cadillac and drive away). We saw a massive overhaul of social policy resulting from years of disinformation to the public (and indifference from a liberal class that grew increasingly elitist, shunning the poor). Reality just doesn't sell like it used to. So yeah, ACORN is a massive group of radicals financed by rich welfare queens infiltrating government with their socialist agenda to teach homosexuality to our children while burning a flag to light their marijuana joints. Don't believe it? Just ask Sarah Palin.
when will prez obama deal with sharia law in the middle east ? He ran on wemans right issues . sharia law makes a woman feel like a 3rd class citizen . Sharia law better not become law in US . This is what is not being reported in egypt , saudi arabia , iran , palistine , tunisa get the point . obama wants US out of afganistan also . obama is running and liberal media is under reporting this , ohh excuse me in pakistan . a 14 yr old girl was shot in the head becasue she wanted and recived an education .
Why is Sharia law in the middle east our problem?
It's not an american problem it's a human society problem. It is an human rights and that transcends any and all national or political boundaries. This is something that is never excusable like slavery.
Right after Reagan sold weapons to Iran and no president since has ever worked to end mid east sharia law and no president after Obama will either. If Iraq and Afghanistan haven't taught you that America does not have the power drop democracy in a box....you're delusional. There is no "poof" or "fairy dust" when the box hits the ground. That's the problem with you neo-conservatives, you don't seem to understand that we can't go around the world and nation build using military force. We may assist when asked but we can not go around the world and invade to bring regime change. The GOP boots on the ground policies are stupidity on a gigantic level.
But since you're so wise I take it you actually have a solution to do what you talk about....we're all ears. I'm sure we'd all love to hear what that plan is...do tell...
Sadly we can simply wash or hands of the problems we've created in the mid east. We got into Iranian politics, GOP presidents have advanced a cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, etc. all nations with sharia influenced law. It would be nice to go back and push us away from that, we should have never gotten involved with the Al Sauds for example to begin with. But we did, that means we can't pretend it didn't happen or that things are going to get done by wiping all the gov't with our military. It's messed up but that's how it is.
By the way wasn't it you people who claimed we should have supported Mubarak and Qaddafy to keep them in power for the sake of "stability". You GOP apparently believe that as long as a foreign leader says they will be friendly to America we can overlook there oppression and dictatorship. So don't pretend you care now.
Well if the extremists are as proficient with destroying our gov't as you are with spelling and grammar I don't think we have much to worry about.
Sharia law has been over there under every president of recent memory, funny you guys were silent then. Again stop insulting the victims by pretending you care. It's never talked about largely because of the right and its easily bought friendships with the "pro-american" dictators.
That sentence barely makes since, are/were you high when you put this together..no judgement...don't worry I'm all for legalization in fact I'm proud to say that I and many other WA voters succeeded in passing gay marriage and legal marijuana. Everyone said it couldn't happen but we did it. But I digress.....
Back to the point have you served in combat anywhere if not you have no mind to make any such statements. That is unless you want more american soldiers to die for afghan problems. Explain how putting troops makes us safer when al qaeda uses our very prescense as a recruitment cry. You will never destroy a movement through bullets and you will never build a nation through foreign intervention.
Odd how you claim the liberal media is hiding things for Obama when you wouldn't know anything about the story if it wasn't for the liberal media. Conservative media didn't even cover it.
A young man was shot to death over an alleged argument in a parking lot about loud music. Somewhere in the country some sex offender is using native reservation tribal laws to rape with impunity because you can't prosecute on the rez. Somewhere out there some american child is going to bed hungry. See we can make up sad stories too but forgive those of us who think we've got enough problems of our own let alone anyone else's.
On the point about the economy needing stimulus: The reality is that stimulus was exactly what our former welfare system did (while saving lives and enabling people to get back on their feet economically). Each month, welfare recipients - by necessity - used their money to purchase basic consumer goods at local businesses, rolling those federal dollars into local economies. Check the records to determine how much money that actually was. When Clinton repealed welfare, that abruptly ended those dollars going to local communities. It also caused more people to become trapped into deep poverty (how do you get a job without a home address, phone, bath/clean clothes and bus fare?), while workfare replacement labor serves to pull down wages, block unionizing efforts, and push more workers out of their jobs, increasing the workfare labor force. At the moment, Democrats and liberals are trying to figure out how to address America's grave economic issues while utterly ignoring poverty, and it's simply not going to work. Too bad.
replacement labor serves to pull down wages,
In the global economy, countries like China are now the replacement workers. We can't put the genie back in the bottle. The reason we have so few manufacturing jobs is because we as a country demand higher wages and benefits (even non-union labor in the U.S. is a lot better than workers in China or elsewhere). The only way for global labor equality would be to drastically raise the wages/benefits of all the workers across the globe while at the same time taking a pretty big decrease in our own wages and benefits. Neither of those steps will happen - at least not in our lifetime. In a way we (the U.S) could be seen as the "2 percenters" by developing nations (the global 98%).
Public Outrage is exactly what it will take to finally get us to a national healthy care system where having insurance coverage is not dependent on where one works.
Darden's is amazing in that they will never allow a downgrade in profits to cover benefits for employees. They consider that a loss. If my expenses are $10 and my profits are $30 and it will cost me $5 more to provide health care... it will have to come from cutting my expenses more not by allowing profits to shrink.
"I only make $3mil a year and that's what it takes for me just to get by so you'll have to find some other way to cover increased expenses since I can't survive on less". Sound familiar. This corporatist nation will end up destroying democracy if we don't stop it by regulating its greed.
That's a point that needs to be hammered home at every opportunity.
Corporate profits are at record highs, executive compensation is at record highs, average workers wages has remained stagnant or dropped. We'll never be able to fix the problems of our society until we get some semblance of balance back in our economy.
The rich "corporations are people, too" have been making record amounts of profit all along while the average American working has been making record amounts of less even as costs have gone up. The problem is, that's exactly the way the rich corporations want it.
You two should read Skip's comment above. Labor here isn't competing against the rich, they're competing against the Chinese.
shooter skip doesn't appear to know anything more about the economic mess then you or any other rightie knows. Here is a clue, the US has been off the industrial economy since Reagan lost his mind and decided to put the US on a service economy which started the out sourcing of industrial jobs. You two are 35 years to late on your fake outrage.
For anyone who may have missed this recent brief (1:17) animation by Mark Fiore, sometimes, attention must be paid.
And, on a lighter note, on this date in 1892 Spanish dictator Francisco Franco was born. In other news (even for the hard-of-hearing), he's still dead!
Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow!
The trouble with ignorance is that it picks up confidence as it goes along.
- Arnold H. Glasow
;-)
Elizabeth "Cherokee Princess" Warren speaks with forked tongue.
Well, let's see. Senators can be on more than one committee, but if Princess Warren is not also on Indian Affairs, then she is a proven hypocrite and liar. If you really believe her lie that she is Native, then this is a no-brainer. As a Native person from the northeast, she is needed on Indian Affairs. Her membership is vital, and will demonstrate to one an all that she really is (at least in her own fantasy world) Cherokee (even though she's not enrolled in the tribe).
If she's not on Indian Affairs, and does not ask to be put on it, then she is exposed by her own words and actions as a liar, fraudster, and Racist.
So if you think she's really Native, write/email/text/tweet her and Harry Reid, and plead with her to do right by her people and apply for Indian Affairs as another of her assignments.
/facepalm
In your case, apparently, that should be
/palefacepalm
One can onlyhope your school work is more original than your blog posts.
Methinks you speak with a fork in your brain.
She/he is still fighting to keep Brown in office, she/he hasn't heard Brown lost the election almost a month ago.
Just keeping the spotlight on racist democrats. We don't need our versions of Trent Lott or Strom Thurmond in the Senate.
Angeleno,
Like most descendants of early colonists in Virginia and Maryland, I am also part Cherokee. Since the colonies grew rapidly despite the vast majority of the colonists being men, there are many Anglo-Americans with Native American ancestry.
I am also not a registered member of the Cherokee Nation. In order to be 'registered' -- have a BIA number -- one's ancestors had to have been caught and forced onto a reservation. My ancestors integrated with English settlers and were never 'caught'.
However, having Cherokee ancestry does not make myself or anyone else an expert on reservation life or Indian Affairs in general. To believe so, that is to believe that ancestry determines thoughts or interests, is racist.
John,
Sigh! Where to begin . . . . ?
1. If your ancestors are from Maryland it is pretty much impossible for any Native ancestry you might have to be Cherokee. You see, the Cherokee were down in what is now the western Carolinas and a bit of Georgia. Since your knowledge of Native geography is so far off, everything else you say is highly suspect.
2. Your experience is irrelevant to the issue. Princes Warren asserted her Native identity very forcefully and firmly in the second debate and thereafter (you did watch it, right?). To be that sure of herself (charitably assuming she was not lying as a pander play to the crowd) means she does in fact know something about being Native (her word, not "Cherokee"). In fact, she said she felt that being Native was a major part of who she was. Her assertion, not mine. Review the tapes.
3. In asserting her Native identity so publicly, aggressively, and fully, she takes on the obligation of doing something with that identity (unless you're making her a liberal Clarence Thomas). What she can do that will bring good to Native people (whose identity and culture she used flagrantly as a political tool to help get elected) is represent. The Indian Affairs Committee is the best place she can represent for her people.
As I stated, my ancestors lived in the Maryland AND Virginia colonies.
At that time the Virginia Colony included much of present day North Carolina, and the colonists had regular contact with the Cherokee before 1700.
My ancestors may have intermarried with one of the Algonquin tribes as well, but after 350+ years it is hard to be sure.
Also, I seem to remember it was Senator Brown who repeatedly brought up Ms. Warren's ancestry, obliging Ms. Warren to respond.
Again, prejudging a person's interests and expertise based upon ancestry is racist.
John, do you have high cheekbones or deep brown eyes? Also, they have an uncanny sense of humor.
John is just being silly. Turning maybes into historical realities is good fodder for some extended jokes, but not much more.
And notice how he deflects Princess Warren's own very strong public statements into Brown accusations? Pure hilarity.
And then notice how he completely ignores Princess Warren's repeated assertions that she knows a lot about her ancestry from "family stories"? So it's not just her genetics that make her (at least in her own mind) an expert on Native stuff, its a long, rich history of "family stories."
I say, OK, let's take her at her word (all her words). She's Native, knows a lot about being Native, feels she's Native as part of her core identity. Check the biographies of the other Senators. Since the retirement of Ben "Nightmare" Campbell, that makes her the best qualified candidate for a place on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
Give the Indian her rightful place in the Senate. A place on the Indian Affairs Committee.
And calling my comments racist is so ignorant that, along with your weakness in geography (the western Carolinas were never part of the Virginia colony) you really don't have any grounds to be taken seriously. You don't know anything about Native America and Federal Tribal Law, do you?
Native identity is a legal and cultural identity first, and racial second. Legally, like it or not, Native identity is based on "blood quantum," which is a slimy way for the Federal government to say ancestry, which means genetic heritage. The Federal government and the tribes say that, I just report.
And culturally Princess Warren qualifies on two counts: 1) her family stories that pass down the family heritage, something recognized throughout Indian Country, and 2) growing up around Cherokee families in northeast Oklahoma.
She is also a Harvard law professor, and so has to have at the minimum a passing familiarity with Federal Tribal law.
On all these counts, if you believe she really is Native, you must agree that she is qualified for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Check the biographies of the other members of the committee. How many have Native credentials as good as hers?
Give the Indian her rightful place in the Senate. Place her on the Indian Affairs Committee, too.
ThinkProgress notes some remarks from Jennifer Morse of NOM in which she said that one reason same-sex couples shouldn't be allowed to marry because the can't have kids (and therefore are promiscuous). The idiocy is many-layered. First...of course same-sex couples can have kids. Just not with each other (yet). And, of course, she is also basically arguing that infertile people should not be allowed to get married, even if they are in different-sex relationships. And if people are promiscuous if they don't have kids, that creates the bizarre notion of promiscuous aces.
I swear, these people aren't even trying any more. They just throw crazy at the wall just to see what sticks.
They appear to be stuck in some kind of a time warp. I don't even know if they have the basic skills to get out of it. Were they living under a rock for the last 11 years? I think they're suffering from PTSD. People should be free to marry whomever they choose. I have my eyes on a frog, right now.
I have come to the conclusion that NOM folks (and those of that mindset) are just looking for ways to make the laws fit their assertions by some tiny thread, none of which makes any sense to those that read equality and non discrimination in our Constitution.
They are trying everything that is not "it's against my religious beliefs". But all those other tiny threads are easily broken with equality. Discriminating based on
1. against my religious beliefs/ counter: others believe it's OK
2. no offspring/ counter: what do they mean? Anyone that needs fertility assistance or cannot conceive cannot marry? Not even to mention those folks that adopt children, or Foster Parent.
3. the way things were, does not dictate how things will always be.
Not that I am wishing for this, but I am just wondering how they will proceed when they lose again.
The pursuit of happiness is one of the fundamental freedoms.
Nobody has to marry anyone to pursue happiness, but people have already been told that Marriage is a fundamental right in Loving v. Virginia.
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/loving.html
Also, they decision cites the 14th Amendment "equal protection", which should extend beyond race.
I am eagerly awaiting news from SCOTUS on these related cases.
They were pushing ballot initiatives because courts in various places were ruling in favor of equality. They pursued the one and trashed the other, praising democracy while also tearing down the rule of law. Now for the first time they're losing the popular vote. And they are losing state legislatures as well.
What's left? It's kind of curious that the filed lawsuits against California's ban on quack anti-gay 'therapy' for minors. That seems very hypocritical, considering. Unless I've missed something (always possible), there's not even a hint of movement toward using the state's initiative process. Do they think things have changed so much on the political front that the judicial front is looking better?
On the other hand, they haven't been having much luck in the courts with Prop 8 and DOMA, so I imagine that it will be very interesting to see just which way they will turn because they are rapidly running out of political and legal space to maneuver in. I suppose that's why they've been sounding more incoherent than usual lately. They've lost their mojo and on some level they know it.
Yeah, what grounds do they have? I try (briefly) to look from the NOM angle, but I can't see any real standing for their assertions. Maybe we can plead to the court that these suits should be declared baseless and possibly "frivolous" waste of court resources?
I know the thinking will remain for some time, but legally, it's going the way of the dinosaur. Like the Civil Rights times were filled with animosity and loud arguments, but the law settles in and folks are left with their own beliefs and thoughts, still angry and/or bitter. But the court will not take many such cases. There may be some filed, but it's hard (in my mind) to think that someone has had religious discrimination or the public harmed by other people being on equal status.
They think they have the power just by being majority to determine what happens to minorities, if it goes against their beliefs. But the majority is now the other way. Are they now going to claim discrimination because their beliefs are in minority?
I just don't understand what the "harm" is, which courts determine. How can they be harmed by seeing others get married or be accepted?
It would be then like ethnic or otherwise minority saying I am harmed that the majority has other beliefs of marries someone of the opposite sex. Well, that makes no sense, either.
I agree, I think they see it and don't know how to deal with it.
There was something on that link where they advocate for separatism, not associating with LGBTQ folks.
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/11/26/1233911/nom-now-warning-against-young-people-having-gay-friends/
That's the kicker, isn't it? They're fighting as if their lives depended on it, but what actual threat are they under? That they have to live in a world where not everyone conforms to their way of thinking and living? Poor babies!
Ed Asner cartoon
http://www.caintv.com/ed-asners-despicable-anti-capi
Something from Politics Nation that Rachel's audience should note, especially any near Kentucky...
Ashley Judd mulling run at Mitch McConnell's Senate seat
Consider the commercials... Narration by Al Pacino (Heat), Robert DeNiro (Heat), Tommy Lee Jones (Double Jeopardy) and Morgan Freeman (Kiss the Girls and High Crimes)...
I'm bored with violence on T.V. or in the movies. They need to continue making movies that make you think and stir up emotions in people so, we can once again cry.Crying is very healing. Violence is very boring.
I'm not fond of violence, either. But Ashley Judd has quite a few movies with violence in them.
She would make an awesome Senator.
Her sister is also awesome singer/musician. I saw her in Cheyenne, WY at the first rodeo (and only rodeo) I ever attended. Frontier Days. So fun, then we found out Wynonna was going to be there and bought tickets. It was a great bonus after traveling from the Denver area to see the Frontier!