kpete
kpete's JournalThe Dream Is Dead - Trump Pulls Out Of Newsmax Debate
http://twitter.com/#!/stevebruskCNN/statuses/146666883016437760Trump Pulls Out Of Newsmax Debate
CNN is reporting that Donald Trump has pulled out as moderator of a Newsmax Republican debate slated for the end of December. Only Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum agreed to participate in the debate.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/updates/2722?ref=fpblg
'Anonymous' hacks group leading boycott of Muslim show
'Anonymous' hacks group leading boycott of Muslim show
A little known Christian group that's been leading a boycott of a reality television show about American Muslims saw their website hacked and defaced last night by an unknown person claiming to be part of the hacker activist group “Anonymous”.
The hacker said they had obtained all of the Florida Family Association's (FFA) donor information, including credit card numbers, but weren't releasing them because it would hurt members of the 99 percent.
The hacker also said that a further investigation was underway into the group's supporters, threatening, “f I find information such as anyone being a part of other hate groups such as the Klan or anything similar all bets are off for those people.”
The FFA has come to infamy in recent weeks after home supply store Lowes decided to join their boycott, pulling advertisements from a show called “All-American Muslim”, which showcases the lives of Americans who follow Islam.
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/215497.html
David Axelrod Compares Newt Gingrich To A Monkey’s Butt
Axelrod continued:
In certain ways Gingrich fits the role for this, because as we pointed out earlier in the week he is the original tea partier. You know, he brought that kind of politics to Congress in the early 90s, he led three government shut downs in order to try and roll back environmental protection, roll back the Department of Education and education programs, he wanted to cut Medicare, he wanted to give more tax cuts to the wealthy.
These are all things that could potentially help Gingrich. But everyone knows Gingrich has a long and complicated past that could come back to bite him among Republican primary voters at any moment. And that’s where the monkey butt comes in.
“So the question is, can he sustain this over time?,” Axelrod said.
I told my colleagues yesterday a bit of homespun wisdom I got from an alderman in Chicago some years ago when one of his colleagues wanted to run for higher office and he was really dubious. He said, ‘just remember the higher a monkey climbs on a pole, the more you can see his butt.’ So, you know, the Speaker is very high on the pole right now and we’ll see how people like the view.
more:
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/in-which-david-axelrod-compares-newt-gingrich-to-a-monkeys-butt.php?ref=fpb
ACLU Sues Scott Walker Over WI’s Voter ID Law
Wisconsin’s voter ID law imposes the equivalent of a poll tax on individuals with out-of-state drivers licenses and discriminates against the poor, students and the elderly, according to a federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday.
ACLU lawyers argue in a 54-page lawsuit that the law “imposes a severe and undue burden on the fundamental right to vote under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution; violates the Twenty-Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution as an unconstitutional poll tax; and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in arbitrarily refusing to accept certain identification documents.”
The suit argues that the law would force individuals to “choose between surrendering their driving privileges to obtain a free Wisconsin state ID card, paying a fee for a Wisconsin driver’s license, or losing their right to vote.” They argue that the requirement to surrender an out-of-state driver’s license “constitutes a material requirement imposed on an eligible voter who refuses to forfeit his/her right to vote without paying an unconstitutional poll tax.”
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/aclu_sues_scott_walker_over_wisconsins_voter_id_law.php?ref=fpa
Gingrich-Helmsley 2012
today's Krugman:
December 13, 2011, 10:04 AM
Gingrich-Helmsley 2012
From the Tax Policy Center, the Gingrich tax plan:
Truly, it is amazing how our political landscape continues to be dominated by people who have been wrong about everything for years.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/gingrich-helmsley-2012/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/debasing-the-dollar-not/
........................
and
They Don’t Care About Deficits
But it’s not odd at all, once you realize that the GOP is not now, and never has been (at least not since the 1970s) concerned about the deficit. All the fiscal posturing of the last couple of years has been about using the deficit as a club to smash the welfare state, with the secondary goal of frustrating any efforts on the part of the Obama administration to help the struggling economy.
[h1]The entire debate has been fake. If you don’t understand that, or can’t bring yourself to admit it, you’re missing the whole story.[/h1]
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/they-dont-care-about-deficits/
How about you? Who you least like to drink with?
Who I'd Least Like to Drink a Beer With
by BooMan
Mon Dec 12th, 2011 at 09:52:00 PM EST
..............................
1. Rick Santorum- I don't think I could stand to be in the same room as Little Rickey, let alone belly up to the bar with him. Everything about him fills me with visceral loathing. Plus, there's the whole frothy mix visual that I can't escape. I was tempted to list Mitt Romney first because he doesn't even drink beer, but if I'm being honest, I'd hate spending time with Santorum more than with Romney.
2. Newt Gingrich- First of all, I like the sound of my own voice. When I drink, I like to pontificate in a pompous and didactic manner. The last thing I need is some dick who thinks it's his turn to talk. Plus, he's aggressively wrong about everything, which is not something I can tolerate in person, even when I'm sober.
3. Michele Bachmann- Not only does Michele talk too much, but she makes no sense even when she hasn't been drinking. I've spent a lot of time in bars humoring people who are basically insane and who never stop espousing juvenile conspiracy theories. If I want more of that, I can get it at almost any bar in the country.
4. Rick Perry- I don't want to sound like a jock, but I don't drink with male cheerleaders. I especially don't drink with male cheerleaders who appear more likely to commit date rape than the jocks. I also don't drink with big moronic Texans because it usually involves a fistfight with someone dumber than a bag of hammers.
............................
7. Mitt Romney- Since he doesn't drink and he's fabulously rich, it would just be more free beer for me.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/12/12/21520/770
The mainstream German magazine Spiegel asks has the United States of America become an Oligarchy?
TUE DEC 13, 2011 AT 01:42 AM PST
The mainstream German magazine Spiegel asks has the United States of America become an Oligarchy?
byDemocrats RamshieldFollow
Der Spiegle quote:
The Occupy Wall Street movement is just one example of the sudden outbreak of tension between America's super-rich and the "other 99 percent." Experts now say the US has entered a second Gilded Age, but one in which hedge fund managers have replaced oil barons -- and are killing the American dream.
................
"A generation ago, the United States was a recognizable, if somewhat more unequal, member of the cluster of affluent democracies known as mixed economies, where fast growth was widely shared. No more. Since around 1980, we have drifted away from that mixed-economy cluster, and traveled a considerable distance toward another: the capitalist oligarchies, like Brazil, Mexico,
Der Spiegle quote:
Nearly two-thirds of net private assets are concentrated in the hands of 5 percent of Americans. In comparison, the upper 5 percent of Germany hold less than half of net assets. In 2009 alone, at the same time as the US was being convulsed by mass layoffs, the number of millionaires in the country skyrocketed.
.................
Der Spiegle quote:
Differences between rich and poor are tolerated as long as the rags-to-riches story of the dishwasher-turned-millionaire remains theoretically possible. But studies show that increasing inequality and political control concentrated in the hands of the wealthy elite have drastically reduced economic mobility and that the US has long since fallen far behind Europe on this issue. Indeed, only 4 percent of less-well-off Americans ever successfully make the leap into the upper-middle class.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,793896,00.html
Consider the symptoms: Bouts of grandiosity-megalomania, irritability, impulsiveness, spending spree
On one legal pad, Gingrich scribbled out his own "primary Mission."
—Advocate of civilization
—definer of civilization
—Teacher of the rules of civilization
—arouser of those who form civilization
—Organizer of the pro-civilization activists
—leader (possibly) of the civilizing forces.
Nearly two decades on, Gingrich is still prone to lapse into this kind of egomaniacal spree. A few days ago, he told Sean Hannity, “I helped Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp develop supply-side economics. I helped lead the effort to defeat communism in the Congress.” In this self-regarding state, the new Republican front-runner benefits from immunity to contradiction—gliding effortlessly from advocate to opponent of health insurance mandates, amnesty for illegal immigrants, or action on climate change. Gingrich is every bit the flip-flopper Romney is, but so confident in his views at any given moment that he comes off as steadfast instead of malleable. Bullets-can’t-hurt-me Newt can depict his work for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as his warning that they would destroy the financial system. He can lobby without being a lobbyist, divorce multiple wives while advocating traditional values, and denounce political corruption while epitomizing it.
Is Newt bipolar or unipolar? Does he ever crash? In fact, he has described what sound like episodes of depression, though it’s hard to say for sure. Describing the dissolution of his first marriage, he told the Washington Post in 1989, "You talk about crying! The spring of 1988, I spent a fair length of time trying to come to grips with who I was and the habits I had, and what they did to people that I truly loved. I really spent a period of time where, I suspect, I cried three or four times a week.” Every so often he is glimpsed in full sulk, such as in 1995 when he blamed the government shutdown on his rage at being given a bad seat on Air Force One. Overthrown by his own caucus in 1998, he said he had no interest in presiding over a bunch of “cannibals.” The extra-marital affairs, the Tiffany bills, his disappearance at key moments—all are possible hints about Newt’s darker side.
the rest:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_big_idea/2011/12/is_newt_gingrich_nuts_consider_the_symptoms_.html
SF becomes first US city to top $10 minimum wage
SF becomes first US city to top $10 minimum wage
By BETH DUFF-BROWN, Associated Press – Mon Dec 12, 9:21 am ET
SAN FRANCISCO – David Frias works two minimum-wage jobs to squeak by in one of the most expensive cities in America.
Come New Year's Day, he'll have a few more coins in his pocket as San Francisco makes history by becoming the first city in the nation to scale a $10 minimum wage. The city's hourly wage for its lowest-paid workers will hit $10.24, more than $2 above the California minimum wage and nearly $3 more than the working wage set by the federal government.
It won't put much more in Frias' wallet. But it gives him a sense of moving on up.
"It's a psychological boost," said Frias, who is a 34-year-old usher at a movie theater and a security guard for a crowd control firm. "It means that I'll have more money in my wallet to pay my bills and money to spend in the city to help the economy."
http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111212/ap_on_bi_ge/us_sf_minimum_wage
Limbaugh Calls Poor Children Receiving Free School Meals "Wanton Little Waifs And Serfs
Limbaugh Calls Poor Children Receiving Free School Meals "Wanton Little Waifs And Serfs Dependent On The State"
December 12, 2011 2:43 pm ET
Listen to this all the way through. When I saw the headline I thought he must be trying one of his lame attempts at satire, but he's not. He's clearly of the very serious opinion that feeding needy children is wrong because they won't learn how to feed themselves. He especially objects to feeding them during the summer time, but says that this is to be expected because by feeding them during the school year they have become "wanton little waifs and serfs dependent on the state."
I guess he thinks poor second graders should get jobs so they can buy food. Apparently, he's now supporting Newtie.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/somebody-has-issues-rush-limbaugh.html
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201112120011
Profile Information
Member since: Fri Sep 17, 2004, 03:59 PMNumber of posts: 71,986
