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Time and time again, anyone reading the mainstream news or reading articles on the Internet will read the claim that President Clinton not only balanced the budget, but had a surplus. This is then used as an argument to further highlight the fiscal irresponsibility of the federal government under the Bush administration. The claim is generally made that Clinton had a surplus of $69 billion in FY1998, $123 billion in FY1999 and $230 billion in FY2000 . In that same link, Clinton claimed that the national debt had been reduced by $360 billion in the last three years, presumably FY1998, FY1999, and FY2000--though, interestingly, $360 billion is not the sum of the alleged surpluses of the three years in question ($69B + $123B + $230B = $422B, not $360B). While not defending the increase of the federal debt under President Bush, it's curious to see Clinton's record promoted as having generated a surplus.
The Myth of the Clinton Surplus
presidents who kill people are popular
David Henderson and Zachary Gouchenour have a paper on the topic of presidential rating s. The finding is simple. War casualties, as a fraction of the population, positively correlate with how historians rate presidents. More death = better presidents. The regression model includes some controls, like economic growth.
Use the HTML below to embed this graphic <a href="http://www.infographicsonly.com/the-true-cost-of-military-spending/" ><img src="http://www.infographicsonly.com/wp-content/uploads/military-850-x-380.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.infographicsonly.com/the-true-cost-of-military-spending/" >The True Cost Of Military Spending</a> Click icon below to copy code From: MilitaryEducation.org Add this Infographic to Your Website:
The True Cost Of Military Spending |
Two years ago, the top honchos at the Fed, Treasury and the Wall Street banks were running around like Chicken Little warning that the world was about to end. This fear mongering, together with a big assist from the elite media (i.e. NPR, the Washington Post , the Wall Street Journal , etc.), earned the banks their $700 billion TARP blank check bailout. This money, along with even more valuable loans and loan guarantees from the Fed and FDIC, enabled them to survive the crisis they had created. As a result, the big banks are bigger and more profitable than ever.
Dean Baker: The Terrible Tale of the TARP Two Years Later
NEW YORK – Perhaps because it’s a round number, the 70th anniversary of Japan’s assault on Pearl Harbor has given me the impression that more articles on it saw print than in the past, except for, as I recall, the 50th anniversary of the same. Back in 1991, Japan’s financial bubble had burst, but there was as yet little sense that its economy had lost its “juggernaut” momentum and the Japanese were anxious that the U.S. might grab the half-century anniversary of the “sneak attack” as another occasion to inflame the fear of Japan. That sense of Japan’s unstoppable economic power is long gone now, on both sides of the Pacific. But “70 years have not dimmed the meaning and memory of that day,” Dec. 7, 1941, as The N.Y.
Strange how isolationist stance can ruin a politician's reputation
Featured in our news section , the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has published an important new investigation into America’s drone war in Pakistan, finding that many strikes have deliberately launched follow-up attacks, killing people “who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals.” As Glenn Greenwald points out ( again ) the Bureau’s methodology for tallying civilian deaths is very rigid and “virtually guarantees significant under-counting of civilian deaths,” but nonetheless the report finds that “at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims” and “more than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners.” The high-end estimate for total casualties in the U.S. drone war, according to the Bureau, is 3,019, including up to 815 civilians (175 of them children). Here’s what I think is the most important passage of the report:
Institutionalizing Extra-Judicial Execution: Obama is a Mass Murderer
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Full transcript of Sabrosky interview
( my deepest gratitude to R for sending me this important text ! VS ) Mark Glenn: Dr. Sabrosky, welcome to the programme.NDAA Nullification Bill Passes Another Step in Virginia
Posted by Michael Boldin On Friday, February 10th, the Committee of Courts of Justice in the Virginia House of Delegates voted in favor of House Bill 1160 (HB1160) – unanimously. The final vote was 16-0 with 2 abstaining. The legislative goal of HB1160 is to codify in Virginia law noncompliance with what many are referring to as the “kidnapping provisions” of section 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA). The official summary of 1160: “A BILL to prevent any agency, political subdivision, employee, or member of the military of Virginia from assisting an agency of the armed forces of the United States in the investigation, prosecution, or detention of a citizen in violation of the United States Constitution, the Constitution of Virginia, or any Virginia law or regulation.”
As I’ve written about before , America’s election season degrades mainstream political discourse even beyond its usual lowly state. The worst attributes of our political culture — obsession with trivialities, the dominance of horserace “reporting,” and mindless partisan loyalties — become more pronounced than ever. Meanwhile, the actually consequential acts of the U.S.
Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies - Glenn Greenwald
Ron Paul and Our Selective Definition of Bigotry Posted on Jan 20, 2012 By David Sirota If they have any value at all anymore, presidential election campaigns at least remain larger-than-life mirrors reflecting back painful truths about our society. As evidence, ponder the two-sided debate over Republican candidate Ron Paul and bigotry. One camp cites Paul’s hate-filled newsletters and his libertarian opposition to civil rights regulations as evidence that he aligns with racists.
David Sirota: Ron Paul and Our Selective Definition of Bigotry
A major defense of the president exaggerates Obama's accomplishments and misses the point: his scandalous transgressions against rule of law. After reading Andrew Sullivan's Newsweek essay about President Obama, his critics, and his re-election bid, I implore him to ponder just one question. How would you have reacted in 2008 if any Republican ran promising to do the following? I submit that had Palin or Cheney or Rumsfeld or Rice or Jeb Bush or John Bolton or Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney proposed doing even half of those things in 2008, you'd have declared them unfit for the presidency and expressed alarm at the prospect of America doubling down on the excesses of the post-September 11 era. You'd have championed an alternative candidate who avowed that America doesn't have to choose between our values and our safety. Yet President Obama has done all of the aforementioned things.
Dear Andrew Sullivan: Why Focus on Obama's Dumbest Critics? - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics
66 Things You Can Grow At Home: In Containers, Without A Garden | The Veritas Magazine
From apples and figs to bananas and guavas — and hops. Source: www.planetgreen/discovery.com/ By Rachel Cernansky | Mon Apr 26, 2010Bush 2.0: 100 Ways Barack Obama Is Just Like George W. Bush
Bush 2.0: 100 Ways Barack Obama Is Just Like George W. Bush
Regulatory Capture: What the Experts Have Found
“Regulatory capture” occurs when special interests co-opt policymakers or political bodies — regulatory agencies, in particular — to further their own ends. Capture theory is closely related to the “rent-seeking” and “political failure” theories developed by the public choice school of economics. Another term for regulatory capture is “client politics,” which according to James Q.Who Rules America: An Investment Manager's View on the Top 1%
This article was written by an investment manager who works with very wealthy clients. him from decades ago, but he recently e-mailed me with some concerns he had about what was happening with the economy. What he had to say was informative enough that I asked if he might fashion what he had told me into a document for the Who Rules America Web site. He agreed to do so, but only on the condition that the document be anonymous, because he does not want to jeopardize his relationships with his clients or other investment professionals. — G. William Domhoff I sit in an interesting chair in the financial services industry.Dogs
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