Bullshit! Conservative twits. What the FUCK!?!? 6 Reasons the Fiscal Cliff is a Scam. Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com November 22, 2012 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Stripped to essentials, the fiscal cliff is a device constructed to force a rollback of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as the price of avoiding tax increases and disruptive cuts in federal civilian programs and in the military. It was policy-making by hostage-taking, timed for the lame duck session, a contrived crisis, the plain idea now unfolding was to force a stampede. In the nature of stampedes arguments become confused; panic flows from fear, when multiple forces – economic and political in this instance – all appear to push the same way. First, is there a looming crisis of debt or deficits, such that sacrifices in general are necessary? Second, is there a looming crisis of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, such that these programs must be reformed?
Sixth, what about all the other cuts in discretionary federal spending?
What Legacy Does Felipe Calderón Leave in Mexico? Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Advisor By: Andrés Rozental Felipe Calderón's achievements, such as they are, will be quickly overshadowed by his legacy of a failed strategy in the fight against organized crime and the drug cartels, an unfulfilled pledge to create sufficient jobs to absorb new entrants into the market and a lackluster economic growth record.
Although the country's economy has performed reasonably well when compared to other middle-income nations and most industrialized ones, much of this has been due to a tenuous recovery in the United States, a competitive currency and a resumption of consumer spending on durable goods that Mexico produces for the U.S. market. There is little evidence that the underlying structure of Mexico's economy has improved sufficiently to weather another downturn in the United States or indeed a continuing global recession. On the security front, there is little to praise vis-à-vis the current administration's accomplishments. Political geniuses, political fools - Roger Simon.
In a couple of days, the top operatives of the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns will gather at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics to discuss the strategies and tactics they used this year. In the past, it has been a very illuminating exercise. After campaigns are over, the winners always look like geniuses and the losers always look like fools, but the truth is rarely that simple. Continue Reading Campaigns are made up of thousands of decisions, large and small, many made after deep study and some done on the fly. One of the things I hope the operatives will discuss this week is voter suppression, how it was supposed to work and how it failed.
Voter suppression is not some fantasy or conspiracy theory. Shortly after one Election Day, a group of top Republican legislative aides met on Capitol Hill to discuss the future. “We could poll-tax them,” he added sarcastically. That meeting was held a dozen years ago. Matthew Dowd, George W. Warren Buffett Calls Out Grover Norquist On Taxes. Warren Buffett is out with a NYT op-ed calling for a minimum tax on the rich. We'll get to his specifics in a second, but the part that will get the most attention is his intro, where he calls out Grover Norquist, the powerful activist who gets Republicans to "pledge" that they'll never raise taxes.
Buffett writes that what Norquist doesn't get is that no businessman would ever turn down a good, profitable deal due to tax rates. SUPPOSE that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. “This is a good one,” he says enthusiastically. Would your reply possibly be this? With the fiscal cliff debate heating up, criticism of Grover Norquist and his influence is growing louder.
This weekend, a few different Republicans said they would consider violating the Norquist pledge as part of a Fiscal Cliff deal. Read the whole Op-Ed here > NDAA Vote This Week: Tell Senate to end indefinite detention. NDAA Vote THIS WEEK: Tell Senate to end indefinite detention UPDATE: The timeline on this is tortuous, but the vote could still take place TODAY. We have adjusted the email text that will be sent to the Senate (by those who take action Thursday afternoon and beyond) to specifically reflect support for Senator Udall's amendment, out of concern that other amendments that purport to address indefinite detention are too narrow.
ORIGINAL: The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act allows the United States military to detain civilians indefinitely and without charge or trial -- even American citizens. Help us reverse this travesty of justice by adding your name at right. The Senate is taking up the 2013 NDAA THURSDAY. Demand Progress members have sent hundreds of thousands of emails to Congress and have helped fund the courageous lawsuit by Chris Hedges et al -- which recently spurred a federal judge to rule that indefinite detention is unconstitutional. Exclusive: NBC News Vetoed Chelsea Clinton Marriage Equality Ads. Grover Norquist Portrayed As The Wizard Of Oz. Santa Claus Faces the Democratic Firing Squad? On the day after the election, Rush Limbaugh blamed Santa Claus for Mitt Romney's defeat. "Conservativism did not lose last night," Limbaugh said. "It's just very difficult to beat Santa Claus.
It is practically impossible to beat Santa Claus. People are not going to vote against Santa Claus," Limbaugh concluded. The night before, on Election Night, as the tide was turning against Romney, fellow Republican kingpin Bill O'Reilly said, "50% of the voting public wants stuff. They want things. Who is going to give them things? Even Mitt Romney himself blamed "Santa Claus" Obama.
These men, especially Rush Limbaugh, perfectly summed up the message the Republican establishment took from their election defeat, which is, "It is practically impossible to beat Santa Claus. " But this is something Republicans have known for quite a long time. And what did Republicans get for playing Scrooge? But there was another dimension to Wanniski's strategy that he doesn't explicitly lay out in his article. Fueled by War on Drugs, Mexican Death Toll Could Exceed 120,000 As Calderon Ends Six-Year Reign.
Mexican cemeteries are filling up with victims of the so-called war on drugs as are mass unmarked grave sites. (Photo: libertygrace0 ) In the first part of this year, Truthout posted a series of ten articles that dispelled the myths surrounding the failed US/Mexico war on drugs. As a follow-up, this article details newly released statistics that indicate the predicted death toll from the alleged war-turned-bloodbath will likely far exceed past estimates. In late August, the internationally respected French newspaper Le Monde posted an editorial denouncing the war on drugs in Mexico: "The Spiral of Barbarity. " Within Le Monde, two years ago, Mexican President Felipe Calderon welcomed the results of the large-scale war committed since the beginning of his term in December 2006, against organized crime and drug traffickers.
According to Molloy, INEGI compiles data from death certificates that list a cause of death as determined by a medical examiner. Rachel Maddow Show. Rachel Maddow On How The Republican Party Hasn’t Learned One Damned Thing. Wrangling in Egypt as Constitution Deadline Looms. Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times Egyptians ran from tear gas fired by the police during protests in downtown Cairo on Wednesday. On Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of people protested. President Mohamed Morsi set off a political crisis a week ago when he sought to declare his own decree above judicial scrutiny until the constitution was complete, saying he needed to protect the assembly from dissolution by judges appointed by the former president, Hosni Mubarak.
Completion of the draft could moot the institutional conflict. The dual battles raging with the courts and in the streets began six days ago with Mr. Mr. While some judges on the court are esteemed as impartial, all its members were picked by Mr. The Constitutional Assembly’s announcement of its intent to wrap up the draft constitution by Thursday could render the case irrelevant. Hossam el-Gheriani, the chief of the assembly, said Wednesday that voting would begin at 10 a.m. the next day. Mr. Nobel peace laureates call for Israel military boycott over Gaza assault | World news. A group of Nobel peace prize-winners, prominent artists and activists have issued a call for an international military boycott of Israel following its assault on the Gaza Strip this month. The letter also denounces the US, EU and several developing countries for what it describes as their "complicity" through weapons sales and other military support in the attack that killed 160 Palestinians, many of them civilians, including about 35 children.
The 52 signatories include the Nobel peace laureates Mairead Maguire and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel; the film directors Mike Leigh and Ken Loach; the author Alice Walker; the US academic Noam Chomsky; Roger Waters of Pink Floyd; and Stéphane Hessel, a former French diplomat and Holocaust survivor who was co-author of the universal declaration of human rights. "Such a measure has been subject to several UN resolutions and is similar to the arms embargo imposed against apartheid South Africa in the past. "
Who Are The Real American ‘Welfare Queens?’