Saturday, October 15, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
999: A vicious assault on the working poor, and a lavish giveaway to the rich (VIDEO)
"The most vicious assault on the middle class and the working poor, and the most lavish giveaway to the rich, that has ever been proposed by a presidential campaign frontrunner."
-Lawrence O'Donnell
October 13, 2011
From Ezra Klein:
Herman Cain has not proposed three entirely separate taxes -- one a 9 percent corporate income tax, another a 9 percent consumption tax, and then a final 9 percent personal income tax. Rather, he has proposed an 18-9 plan: an 18 percent consumption tax and a 9 percent personal income tax. Or maybe he has proposed a 27 plan: a straight 27 percent payroll tax on wage income. Depends on which tax professor you ask and how deep into the details you want to go.
As Daniel Shaviro, a tax professor at New York University, notes, “a key part of 9-9-9’s intuitive appeal is the idea that, not only is 9 a low number, but the plan’s three 9’s appear to be spread out.” The only problem? The business tax and the sales tax are “effectively the same tax.”
The business tax is not a corporate income tax. It’s essentially a value-added tax. And a value-added tax is simply a form of a consumption tax. To tax wonks, this is comedy gold. Here they have spent years arguing whether a sales tax or a VAT tax is the better way to tax consumption, and Cain just went ahead and put both taxes in his plan. “So two of the 9’s in the Cain plan are simply redundant versions of almost the same thing,” writes Shaviro. That’s how you get to an 18 percent consumption tax.
From Glenn Kessler (whom I'm not quite as fond of, but always worth monitoring):
Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan administration official who now calls himself an independent, also offered a critical examination this week on the New York Times Economix blog. He (as did Kleinbard) noted that the business tax allows for no deduction for wages, which he said “is likely to raise the cost of employing workers, even with abolition of the employers’ share of the payroll tax.”
Cain, in his television appearances, glosses over such details. “The fact that we are taking out embedded taxes that are built into all of the goods and services in this country, prices will not go up,” he asserted on MSNBC. “They will not go up.” He then gave an example of a family of four earning $50,000.
“Today, under the current system, they will pay over $10,000 in taxes assuming standard deductions and standard exemptions. I've gone through the math, $10,000. Now, with 9-9-9, they're going to pay that 9 percent personal — that 9 percent tax on their income. So that's only $4,500. They still have $5,500 left over to apply to this sales tax piece. …They are still going to have money left over.”
We’re not sure how Cain calculates that this family now pays $10,000 in taxes, but the reliable Tax Foundation calculator comes up with a much more reasonable figure: a total tax bill of $3,515 — $690 in federal income taxes and $2,825 in payroll taxes. (The family gets a big income-tax savings from the child tax credit, which Cain would eliminate.)
So, in other words, under Cain’s plan, this family would instantly pay $1,000 more in income taxes. They would also pay additional sales taxes, probably more than $3,000, on their purchases. It’s unclear how the business tax would affect the family’s tax bill but it appears this theoretical family would get no tax cut but instead a 100 percent tax increase.
(The picture changes somewhat if you assume that all the employer-paid payroll taxes automatically would revert to the employee. We’re not sure that’s a good bet given the design of Cain’s business tax, but pro-Cain advocates make that assumption with their own tax calculator. But even under this scenario, the family appears stuck with at least a $2,000 tax increase.)
We take no position on whether it is good or bad to make the tax code less progressive. Perhaps in response to questions, Cain appears to still be tinkering with the plan. In Concord, N.H., he said on Wednesday that, among other changes, he would preserve the deduction for charitable donations and would exempt any used goods, including previously owned homes and cars, from the new 9 percent sales tax.
The Pinocchio Test
We can excuse Cain inflating his adviser’s resume, but his campaign needs to do more to address the fuzzy math behind his tax plan. (We asked the campaign for a copy of Lowrie’s analysis but did not receive a response. UPDATE: The documents are posted below.)
Give Cain credit for thinking boldly, but he’s not talking clearly. As far as we can tell from the limited information Cain has provided, the plan he touts as a big tax cut would actually increase taxes on most Americans. Just like it would be wrong to claim pizza is a low-calorie meal, Cain’s description of the plan’s impact on working Americans is highly misleading.
Three Pinocchios
Oh, and in case you missed it, Glenn's definition of what Three Pinocchios means?
Significant factual error[s] and/or obvious contradictions.
Bruce Bartlett took a moment to note its effect on business...well, certain businesses:
Little detail has been released by the Cain campaign, so it’s impossible to do a thorough analysis. But using what is available on Mr. Cain’s Web site, I’m taking a stab at estimating its effects.
First, the 9-9-9 plan is actually an intermediate step in Mr. Cain’s plan to overhaul the tax system and jump-start growth. Phase 1 would reduce individual and business taxes to a maximum of 25 percent, which I assume means reducing the top statutory tax rate to 25 percent from 35 percent.
No mention is made on the site of a tax cut for those now in the 10 percent, 15 percent or 25 percent brackets. This means that the only people who would get a tax rate cut are those now in the 28 percent, 33 percent or 35 percent brackets. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, only 4 percent of taxpayers pay any taxes at those rates.
As for corporations, Mr. Cain’s proposal is primarily going to benefit those with revenues of more than $1 million a year, because they account for 98.7 percent of all receipts by C corporations. (A C corporation is a legal entity separate and distinct from its owners that is taxed as a corporation; its shareholders pay taxes individually on their gains.) Those companies with receipts over $50 million account for 88.8 percent of total receipts.
Other business entities — sole proprietorships, S corporations (which have between 1 and 100 shareholders and pass through net income or losses to shareholders) and partnerships — would not benefit because they are not taxed on the corporate schedule. But they represent 92 percent of all businesses.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Lawrence O'Donnell: When Obama starts campaigning...watch out! (VIDEO)
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
At the heart of #OWS is a Civil War between Main St. and Wall St. with both sides shooting at Obama...
Ezra Klein recently went to he Cleveland Clinic’s annual innovation summit where Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric and chairman of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, delivered the keynote and sat for a Q&A.
It was a Q & A that if you were inclined to dislike or distrust Immelt, what he said there was hardly going to change your mind about him. (My own view got dramatically worse):
The President has reached out to these people, and this is the thanks he gets from them.
My own first reaction is say "@#$^ you" to Wall Street. (You can now see what side I'm on).
The President steps up, defends the Wall Street Protesters, telling the world he understands why they're pissed, and a lot of reaction from the Professional Left, as well as from some of the Wall Street Protesters has been to say "@#$% you, Mr. President. You've sold us out to the Banks."
I'm left wondering why the hell President Obama wants to bother. Why not just let the Professional Left run their dream candidate; let the Wall Streeters run Mitt Romney, and watch America pay the price.
Meanwhile, this second part from Ezra highlights what's really going on here, a Civil War between Wall Street and Main Street, with both sides feeling they're the most important thing in America, and both sides pissed off that the other side doesn't get it.
It was a Q & A that if you were inclined to dislike or distrust Immelt, what he said there was hardly going to change your mind about him. (My own view got dramatically worse):
Business types really hate Barack Obama. Everybody sort of knows that, but it’s hard to get a sense of it if you’re not in the room listening to them laugh bitterly at questions like, “Does Obama understand the damage regulations are doing to business?”
In fact, this audience is so down on Obama that Immelt, who you have to assume is one of the more pro-Obama CEOs out there, is not willing to defend him or his policies before this audience. At all. Even a little. His only comment is that people need to roll up their sleeves and help rather than complain. And his answers to Maria Bartiromo’s questioning slyly suggest sympathy with the audience. Asked by Bartiromo how he’ll make the White House listen to him and the business community, his answer, with a smile, is “repetition.” Everyone laughs. “Our job is to make our ideas his ideas,” Immelt says.
This is the sort of audience that makes you think the White House is going to have a lot of trouble meeting its fundraising goals next year.
“When you criticize Wall Street, they don’t care. You’re hurting the guy in Illinois who wants to build a factory.”
I should say that this is more a comment on the conference and some of the other panels than on Immelt himself, but these folks really, really feel persecuted and unappreciated. The common response to this, of course, is that corporate profits have hit record levels in recent years and the top 1 percent has never been richer. But if you need more evidence that money doesn’t buy happiness, you should sit with some CEOs for an hour.
The President has reached out to these people, and this is the thanks he gets from them.
My own first reaction is say "@#$^ you" to Wall Street. (You can now see what side I'm on).
The President steps up, defends the Wall Street Protesters, telling the world he understands why they're pissed, and a lot of reaction from the Professional Left, as well as from some of the Wall Street Protesters has been to say "@#$% you, Mr. President. You've sold us out to the Banks."
I'm left wondering why the hell President Obama wants to bother. Why not just let the Professional Left run their dream candidate; let the Wall Streeters run Mitt Romney, and watch America pay the price.
Meanwhile, this second part from Ezra highlights what's really going on here, a Civil War between Wall Street and Main Street, with both sides feeling they're the most important thing in America, and both sides pissed off that the other side doesn't get it.
The Council on Jobs and Competitiveness is the Obama administration’s answer to the charge that it doesn’t listen to the business community. It includes not just Immelt but executives from Xerox, DuPont, American Express, Kleiner Perkins Caufield &; Byers, TIAA-CREF, Southwest Airlines, Procter & Gamble, Boeing, Intel, Citigroup, Eastman Kodak, Facebook, Comcast, BNSF Railway and UBS Investment Bank. And today it released its interim report (PDF).
This is, in other words, the big moment: This is the business community trying to make its ideas President Obama’s ideas. But here’s the thing: Its ideas don’t seem to differ much from Obama’s ideas.
The report proposes “five common-sense initiatives to boost jobs and competitiveness.” Initiative No. 1 is more infrastructure and energy investment. The White House would happily check that box. Initiative No. 2 is a grab bag of proposals to help “high-growth enterprises,” ranging from more visas for skilled immigrants to patent reform, to amending Sarbanes-Oxley to make it easier to go public, to tax changes to make it more appealing to invest in start-ups. Then there’s the “National Investment Initiative,” which might as well be called “winning the future.” Fourth on the list is streamlining regulations. And then there’s worker retraining, educating more engineers and a second high-five for high-skills immigration.
I’m sure if you dug into the details of the policies on this list, you would find items the administration doesn’t support. Perhaps the business community would deregulate beyond White House regulatory chief Cass Sunstein’s comfort level, for instance. But all in all, you could lift most of these items out of Obama’s speeches. Judging from this report, business leaders’ thinking is substantially his thinking already. Which makes sense: Like many of them, Obama is an Ivy-educated datahead who likes reading boring reports. But sitting with a group of CEOs, you would never know that. In those gatherings, he’s often presented as a naive Marxist who is one bad day away from trying to throw everyone with a corner office into jail.
Perhaps the distance is greater than this report suggests. Perhaps the CEOs have a much more dramatic agenda than they were willing to put on paper. But I haven’t seen much evidence for that view. Most business leaders I talk to would love to see something along the lines of the Simpson-Bowles deficit plan pass, and at this point, so too would the White House.
Another possibility is that the gulf between the business community and the White House is more cultural and personal than it is substantive. Matt Yglesias had an interesting take on this last week. “A lot of what you have is . . . a kind of bitter feud between businessmen and the kids they went to college with who didn’t go on to become businessmen. What did they do instead? They became teachers or doctors or nurses or professors or lawyers or scientists or nonprofit workers. . . . The business coalition sees the service coalition as composed of useless moochers, and the service coalition sees the business coalition as greedy bastards.”
“If it were merely a clash of objective interests, it really wouldn’t be much of a clash,” Yglesias wrote. “A healthy business environment needs schools and hospitals and public infrastructure to backstop it, and nobody is made happy by a business cycle downturn. There’s tension at the margin, but it’s not a zero-sum world. Layered on top is, I think, a raw level of gut-level dislike — both kinds of people think the other kind of people are clueless about what really matters in life.”
Increasingly, I’m coming to agree with that analysis.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Why I don't need Andrew Sullivan's or anyone else's permission to come down hard on Herman Cain (VIDEO)
Following up on Lawrence's interview with Herman Cain:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Andrew Sullivan was just a little insulting this morning with his Moore Award Nominee:
Horrifying?
Yeah, he said horrifiying.
First off, to be clear, let me give you the definition of the Moore Award. This is from Andrew's own site, now. It is named after film-maker, Michael Moore - is for divisive, bitter and intemperate left-wing rhetoric.
Hm.
I'm personally horrified at how horrified people are at Lawrence's interview with Herman Cain. He treated Mr. Cain far more politely than I or virtually any other African-American I know would have given the circumstances.
And the circumstances are these. My Father attended the University of Texas roughly during the same time period. UT was desegregated at the time, but he has no fond memories of the school. The atmosphere was such that a Professor at Texas publicly vowed that any Black Student who enrolled in his class would start at a "C" and head downward.
My Father never suffered the physical jeopardy that other African Americans suffered in trying to get their due rights. He had a beer dumped on him during a Texas-Oklahoma game while sitting in the burnt orange section, but that was it. Mostly everything he experienced was delay, resistance and frustration.
Maybe that's why he thought it was important to find the time to test Restaurants during his stays at both Texas Schools. In the end, he knew it was his about him and his children, when he had them. So even though I wasn't even in glimmer in his eye, he was doing it for me.
He also met another student at the time who was also testing restaurants while attending Texas Southern University. Her name was Claudette Smith. I know her today as Mom.
One may argue that Herman Cain had a right not to participate in the Civil Rights Movement, and that may be true. But here's the problem, he's holding himself up as an example of, if not the very pinnacle of, the black community. (Just ask him, he'll be glad to tell you). He has gone so far as to suggest that Black People who do not support him (not give him a fair hearing, mind you, but out and out support him) have been brainwashed by the Democratic Party.
May I suggest that my Father and Mother were not brainwashed? May I suggest that they saw with their own eyes who was supporting Civil Rights and who wasn't; and their allegiance forevermore was aligned with the Democratic party.
And for the record, yes, there were Southern Democrats who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They long ago switched parties and joined Herman Cain's party, the Republicans. I'm sure even Mr. Cain remembers Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, and saying he was delivering the South to the Republicans for the next 40 years. He was wrong. Try 60-70.
The horrific part of the interview which apparently did not catch Andrew's eye, was Lawrence's first asking Mr. Cain if he wanted to back off that "brainwashing" statement. Mr. Cain did not. With him questioning my intelligence as a African-American, I had a a right to know where he stood in relation to the community he was questioning. I had a right to know what kind of African-American he was, and yes that is something I can judge given the questions Lawrence O'Donnell asked rather haltingly. I had a right to know what he had given to the cause. Because if he had stood with my parents, if he had marched with my parents, then African-Americans as a whole would have shrugged when he called us "brainwashed". At least, he earned the right.
But he didn't. He didn't march. He didn't sit-in. He didn't test. He didn't want to get involved, because frankly, it was probably more important to him to ingratiate himself to the white community, and if you look, it certainly paid off for him. I'm sorry to come off sounding like a member of the Black Panther Party, but African-Americans see people like Mr. Cain all the time. They're the ones who think they're better than the rest of us, smarter, and the only ones fit to lead, the only ones fit to be heard from. You know this because they spend a lot of time shouting down the opposition. These people ars not a symptom of ideology, it happens in both left-wing and right-wing circles. It comes from a life spent in front of, or behind the pulpit, where the Preacher was the most powerful man in our community.
In the end, Herman Cain is not powerful, he is a parasite. He is a man who will twist himself into any shape required to make his money, to ingratiate himself to the white community, and more importantly to show himself superior to the African-Americans that frankly he despises. Yet, with equal lack of character, he will do the same to ingratiate himself back with his fellow African-Americans because he suddenly needs their votes. Remember, though Mr. Cain wants those votes, he still feels those voters inferior to the greatness that his "him" and will let that attitude slip out on occasion; like he did when he called a great many of us "brainwashed".
Andrew is wrong, and just a little bit insulting. The African-American community will call Herman Cain out on his past. It may be regrettable that Lawrence O'Donnell a white Irish-American face was the one asking him the questions, but make no mistake, African-Americans wanted those questions asked, and we don't need Andrew Sullivan's permission or anyone else's approval to have it so.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Andrew Sullivan was just a little insulting this morning with his Moore Award Nominee:
"Mr. Cain, you were in fact in college from 1963 to 1967, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, exactly when the most important demonstrations and protests were going on. You could easily as a student at Morehouse between 1963 and 1967 actively participated in the kinds of protests that got African Americans the rights they enjoy today. You watched from that perspective at Morehouse when you were not participating in those processes. You watched black college students from around the country and white college students from around the country come south AND BE MURDERED, fighting for the rights of African Americans. Do you regret sitting on those sidelines at that time?" - Lawrence O'Donnell, in a pretty horrifying interview.
Horrifying?
Yeah, he said horrifiying.
First off, to be clear, let me give you the definition of the Moore Award. This is from Andrew's own site, now. It is named after film-maker, Michael Moore - is for divisive, bitter and intemperate left-wing rhetoric.
Hm.
I'm personally horrified at how horrified people are at Lawrence's interview with Herman Cain. He treated Mr. Cain far more politely than I or virtually any other African-American I know would have given the circumstances.
And the circumstances are these. My Father attended the University of Texas roughly during the same time period. UT was desegregated at the time, but he has no fond memories of the school. The atmosphere was such that a Professor at Texas publicly vowed that any Black Student who enrolled in his class would start at a "C" and head downward.
My Father never suffered the physical jeopardy that other African Americans suffered in trying to get their due rights. He had a beer dumped on him during a Texas-Oklahoma game while sitting in the burnt orange section, but that was it. Mostly everything he experienced was delay, resistance and frustration.
Maybe that's why he thought it was important to find the time to test Restaurants during his stays at both Texas Schools. In the end, he knew it was his about him and his children, when he had them. So even though I wasn't even in glimmer in his eye, he was doing it for me.
He also met another student at the time who was also testing restaurants while attending Texas Southern University. Her name was Claudette Smith. I know her today as Mom.
One may argue that Herman Cain had a right not to participate in the Civil Rights Movement, and that may be true. But here's the problem, he's holding himself up as an example of, if not the very pinnacle of, the black community. (Just ask him, he'll be glad to tell you). He has gone so far as to suggest that Black People who do not support him (not give him a fair hearing, mind you, but out and out support him) have been brainwashed by the Democratic Party.
May I suggest that my Father and Mother were not brainwashed? May I suggest that they saw with their own eyes who was supporting Civil Rights and who wasn't; and their allegiance forevermore was aligned with the Democratic party.
And for the record, yes, there were Southern Democrats who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They long ago switched parties and joined Herman Cain's party, the Republicans. I'm sure even Mr. Cain remembers Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, and saying he was delivering the South to the Republicans for the next 40 years. He was wrong. Try 60-70.
The horrific part of the interview which apparently did not catch Andrew's eye, was Lawrence's first asking Mr. Cain if he wanted to back off that "brainwashing" statement. Mr. Cain did not. With him questioning my intelligence as a African-American, I had a a right to know where he stood in relation to the community he was questioning. I had a right to know what kind of African-American he was, and yes that is something I can judge given the questions Lawrence O'Donnell asked rather haltingly. I had a right to know what he had given to the cause. Because if he had stood with my parents, if he had marched with my parents, then African-Americans as a whole would have shrugged when he called us "brainwashed". At least, he earned the right.
But he didn't. He didn't march. He didn't sit-in. He didn't test. He didn't want to get involved, because frankly, it was probably more important to him to ingratiate himself to the white community, and if you look, it certainly paid off for him. I'm sorry to come off sounding like a member of the Black Panther Party, but African-Americans see people like Mr. Cain all the time. They're the ones who think they're better than the rest of us, smarter, and the only ones fit to lead, the only ones fit to be heard from. You know this because they spend a lot of time shouting down the opposition. These people ars not a symptom of ideology, it happens in both left-wing and right-wing circles. It comes from a life spent in front of, or behind the pulpit, where the Preacher was the most powerful man in our community.
In the end, Herman Cain is not powerful, he is a parasite. He is a man who will twist himself into any shape required to make his money, to ingratiate himself to the white community, and more importantly to show himself superior to the African-Americans that frankly he despises. Yet, with equal lack of character, he will do the same to ingratiate himself back with his fellow African-Americans because he suddenly needs their votes. Remember, though Mr. Cain wants those votes, he still feels those voters inferior to the greatness that his "him" and will let that attitude slip out on occasion; like he did when he called a great many of us "brainwashed".
Andrew is wrong, and just a little bit insulting. The African-American community will call Herman Cain out on his past. It may be regrettable that Lawrence O'Donnell a white Irish-American face was the one asking him the questions, but make no mistake, African-Americans wanted those questions asked, and we don't need Andrew Sullivan's permission or anyone else's approval to have it so.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Friday, October 7, 2011
Finally, Barack Obama gets to enjoy the perks of the job (VIDEO)
Just remember, that smiling jackass standing next to the President (aka, Mike Dikta) briefly considered running against then State-Senator Barack Obama after Jack Ryan dropped out of the race. Wisely, he dropped out.
And notice that Dikta and Buddy Ryan are standing on opposite sides of the stage.
And notice that Dikta and Buddy Ryan are standing on opposite sides of the stage.
HEY! #OWS!! You may think Obama and Bush are the same, but Obama HAS YOUR BACK!!
From today's Press Briefing:
Note: I corrected a mistake in the text. For some reason identified the bold quote as coming from Cantor, which didn't make sense, given the story.
So, OWS...
Look, I support you, I support your goals, but at some point what you're doing is going to have to translate into some kind of political action. I know a lot of you feel let down by the Democrats and the President, but the Republicans are your mortal enemies. If you don't support the President in 2012, and he loses, what the hell was the point of all this if all you do is wind up handing power to the people who think you're nothing but an unwashed mob?
Cantor weighed in on the growing Occupy Wall Street movement in a speech to the social conservatives at the 2011 Values Voter Summit in Washington.
"I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country," he said.
Uh, excuse me? White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in the briefing today.
"I sense a little hypocrisy unbound here--what we're seeing on the streets of New York is a an expression of democracy," Carney said. "I think I remember how Mr. cantor described protests of the tea party--I can't understand how one man's mob is another man's democracy."
Note: I corrected a mistake in the text. For some reason identified the bold quote as coming from Cantor, which didn't make sense, given the story.
So, OWS...
Look, I support you, I support your goals, but at some point what you're doing is going to have to translate into some kind of political action. I know a lot of you feel let down by the Democrats and the President, but the Republicans are your mortal enemies. If you don't support the President in 2012, and he loses, what the hell was the point of all this if all you do is wind up handing power to the people who think you're nothing but an unwashed mob?
Lawrence O'Donnell's complete interview with arrogant ass Herman Cain (VIDEO)
First off, a word of caution, watching this takes a strong stomach.
Herman Cain has accused me (however indirectly along with every other African-American who supports President Obama) of being brainwashed because I (as a black man) won't support him.
Herm, that tends to happen to black people who stab their own in the back. How can I say this? He was in College from 1963 through 1967, by his own admission, in his own worthless misbegotten book, and did not participate in the Civil Rights Movement.
He also got out of serving in Vietnam to work on Ballistics Analysis, which my Father assures me was an actual field...until computers did away with it.
Now, Mr. Cain can call me brainwashed all he wants, but to do so, he needs to give and every other black person and explanation of why he didn't march in the Civil Rights Movement. My personal assessment...and by the way, I don't have any facts to back this up, but...the words House N***** come immediately to mind.
Also, let me say for a guy who claims to be a Mathematician, most of the numbers he used were suspect at best, and outright lies at worst. I mean, c'mon, did Herman even know he was being interviewed by someone who used to write Tax Code for a freakin' living?
My father, who is an actual black Professor of Mathematics said that his computations of poor people's taxes were just flat out wrong, and his statement about the "percentage" GOP votes for the Voting Rights Act...also wrong, deceptive, and a curious editing of history. (see: Dixiecrats)
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Herman Cain has accused me (however indirectly along with every other African-American who supports President Obama) of being brainwashed because I (as a black man) won't support him.
Herm, that tends to happen to black people who stab their own in the back. How can I say this? He was in College from 1963 through 1967, by his own admission, in his own worthless misbegotten book, and did not participate in the Civil Rights Movement.
He also got out of serving in Vietnam to work on Ballistics Analysis, which my Father assures me was an actual field...until computers did away with it.
Now, Mr. Cain can call me brainwashed all he wants, but to do so, he needs to give and every other black person and explanation of why he didn't march in the Civil Rights Movement. My personal assessment...and by the way, I don't have any facts to back this up, but...the words House N***** come immediately to mind.
Also, let me say for a guy who claims to be a Mathematician, most of the numbers he used were suspect at best, and outright lies at worst. I mean, c'mon, did Herman even know he was being interviewed by someone who used to write Tax Code for a freakin' living?
My father, who is an actual black Professor of Mathematics said that his computations of poor people's taxes were just flat out wrong, and his statement about the "percentage" GOP votes for the Voting Rights Act...also wrong, deceptive, and a curious editing of history. (see: Dixiecrats)
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Steve Jobs. 1955-2011.
You may remember this ad, as it was ultimately voiced by Richard Dreyfus. This version was narrated by Mr. Jobs himself.
Godspeed, sir. At least you pain is over now, and your family was at your side.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Jed Lewinson: Governor Goodhair's not dead yet.
From the Jed Report at Daily Kos:
Rick Perry's fundraising haul for his first six weeks on the campaign trail was $17 million, almost as much as Mitt Romney raised in his first reporting period and significantly more than Romney raised over the past three months. And Maggie Haberman also reports that Perry has $15 million in cash on hand, about $2.5 million more than Mitt Romney had after his first report.
As Haberman points out, Perry's cash on hand is significant: if the campaign ends up becoming a war of attrition between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.
...
As Kombiz Lavasany points out:
$15 million is a lot of money in IA and NH tv to remind voters that Mitt Romney has no real belief system and flip flops all the time.
Monday, October 3, 2011
New York Observer: How Jesse LaGreca kicked Fox's ass, even though they didn't show it on-air (VIDEO)
From the New York Observer:
Even if Geraldo Rivera was at the Zuccotti Park yesterday, Fox News has generally been a tad dismissive of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Foxnews.com (as of this writing) has no coverage of this national event on their front page stories. (Hard to imagine for a network that was so gung-ho about the Tea Party!) Red Eye‘s Bill Schulz went out to try to “prank” the protesters. Bill O’Reilly sent a producer minion out with the same mission: to belittle OWS’s cause by cutting up interviews to make people sound stupid.
Well, here is an interview that Fox News filmed, but doesn’t want you to see. The segment was shot on Wednesday for Greta van Susteren‘s show, (though it looks like the same producer from this O’Reilly segment questioning Michael Moore‘s anti-capitalist agenda) though the decision was made to leave it on the cutting room floor. The reason should be obvious pretty quickly.
The speaker giving Fox News the buisness is Jesse LaGreca, a vocal member of the Occupy Wall Street protests. This video comes courtesy of Kyle Christopher from OccupyWallSt.org‘s media team.
Now, no news organization is under obligation to air every interview they’ve filmed, especially when it makes them look bad. But you’d think that a “Fair and Balanced” network (that tells an interviewee that they are here to give them fair coverage to get any message they’d like to get out) would try to include at least a couple of opposing viewpoints to Mr. Shulz’s smarmy jokes or O’Reilly’s “infiltration” of the camp.
The ball is in your court, Fox.
Somebody book this guy on Lawrence tonight, or at least Olbermann or Rachel.
The Manifesto (and thus message) of the Wall Street Occupiers...
There is the Wall Street Occupation, and those of us who support it, but still want them to step their game up. What do I mean? The Teabaggers have a message, its mostly uniformly anti-Obama, but it is a message. What is the message of the Wall Street Occupiers?
One of the things that got on my nerves late last week was the Wall Street Supporters defending their lack of a message, even going so far so that that it's intentional. Well, that's bull@#%. You need a message. If you're protesting something, you need people who are not protesting to understand what you want.
Well, they took an important first step forward. It's still too long and I agree with Randi Rhodes' idea that it should be "Get The Money Out of Politics", but it basically says the same thing:
One of the things that got on my nerves late last week was the Wall Street Supporters defending their lack of a message, even going so far so that that it's intentional. Well, that's bull@#%. You need a message. If you're protesting something, you need people who are not protesting to understand what you want.
Well, they took an important first step forward. It's still too long and I agree with Randi Rhodes' idea that it should be "Get The Money Out of Politics", but it basically says the same thing:
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.That last part is not a joke added by me or anyone else, it's on the site.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. *
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
*These grievances are not all-inclusive.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Friday, September 30, 2011
Huffington Post. Still the scum of the Journalistic Earth...
Finally, since I figured out how to use screen capture, you get to see what I mean.
So I saw this this evening:
Don't worry, the actual story is just as bad.
Oddly enough, I was familiar with Biden story before seeing this headline. Familiar enough to know that Huffington Post's take (or at least the headline's take) was 100% bullshit.
If you wanna know what the Vice President actually said, you might have to go to an actual newspaper like the Washington Post:
Greg Sargent put it like this:
So Greg's right about Conservatives spinning the story this way...
...so why is Huffington Post doing the same thing?
So I saw this this evening:
Don't worry, the actual story is just as bad.
Oddly enough, I was familiar with Biden story before seeing this headline. Familiar enough to know that Huffington Post's take (or at least the headline's take) was 100% bullshit.
If you wanna know what the Vice President actually said, you might have to go to an actual newspaper like the Washington Post:
“Even though 50-some percent of the American people think the economy tanked because of the last administration, that’s not relevant,” said the vice president. “What’s relevant is we’re in charge.”...
Biden said it is “totally legitimate” for the 2012 presidential election to be “a referendum on Obama and Biden and the nature and state of the economy.” He said Americans will need to make a choice between what the Obama administration is offering to address the problem and what is being offered by the eventual Republican nominee.
Greg Sargent put it like this:
You can see why conservatives would jump on this — it gives them something to undercut the idea that Bush continues to deserve more of the blame for our current mess than Obama does. What Biden’s quotes really reflect, I think, is the tricky political spot the White House is in when it comes to the former President. White House advisers are aware that the public does still blame Bush more than Obama for our current predicament — this is confirmed in poll after poll, though that may be changing — but they also think voters probably don’t want to hear Obama telling them they should continue to blame Bush more than himself.
Conservatives constantly claim that Obama does try to fob off blame for the economy on to Bush, in order to dodge blame himself. But by and large, the real political argument Obama is making when he invokes the problems he inherited is one about the scale of the challenges we face, and how long they were in the making. It’s not finger pointing. It’s a plea for patience.
By the way, conservatives are right: Obama probably does “own” the economy in political terms right now. Indeed, it’s possible for the two following things to be simultaneously true: First, the public continues to blame Bush for originally tanking the economy; and second, this may be mostly irrelevant in 2012. The American people know Bush made an absolutely hideous mess of things. They hired Obama to clean up that hideous mess. They will judge Obama in 2012 on his progress towards completing that chore — whether the public will factor in GOP efforts to block Obama’s solutions remains to be seen — and will decide whether they think his GOP opponent would manage it any better. Obama will argue that his GOP foe plans to revive the ideas that tanked the economy under Bush in the first place. But that will ultimately be an argument over how to proceed in the future, not a relitigation of the past.
Bush broke it. Obama now owns it. Americans will judge his efforts to fix it — and will pick whichever candidate and party they think would best complete that job. Okay?
So Greg's right about Conservatives spinning the story this way...
...so why is Huffington Post doing the same thing?
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Well, now the White House is saying they didn't try to save Troy Davis...
From Politico, in the same spot where I found the previous story:
I'm not sure what to make of this since its possible both sides are speaking the truth. All the Redding News said was that the President looked into it, and determined there was nothing he could do, which is not far from the: "Obama, she said, was "unequivocal" that there was "nothing he could do" in the Davis case."
So we're really arguing over whether or not he looked into it before realizing there was nothing he could do.
A White House official and a reporter who was in the room today denied a report from an African-American radio host who says Obama told a group of black journalists that he tried to save Troy Davis.
The report from Rob Redding Jr. at The Redding News Review, which we were unable to confirm, says the president said he'd looked into saving the death row inmate for "three days" and inquired with the local authorities.
But White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer flatly denied the report to me just now, as did American Urban Radio Networks' April Ryan, who was among the reporters at the off-the-record meeting from which the story purported to draw.
"That article was completely, 100 percent wrong," said Ryan, who said she'd pressed Obama on Davis at the gathering with African-American media figures including radio hosts Joe Madison, Tom Joyner, and Michel Martin, though not Redding. Obama, she said, was "unequivocal" that there was "nothing he could do" in the Davis case, though he did tell the group that in general, he had concerns about innocent death row inmates, and that he'd worked in Illinois to improve the criminal justice system.
UPDATE: Redding emails, "In your report, even April D. Ryan says that the death penalty was mentioned at the meeting. She is clearly not the source of our story. We stand by the story, as posted on our websites."
I'm not sure what to make of this since its possible both sides are speaking the truth. All the Redding News said was that the President looked into it, and determined there was nothing he could do, which is not far from the: "Obama, she said, was "unequivocal" that there was "nothing he could do" in the Davis case."
So we're really arguing over whether or not he looked into it before realizing there was nothing he could do.
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