Another day, another bailout. This time taxpayers are chipping in $320 billion or so to save Citigroup. Not the auto industry, of course, because it’s the goddamn unions that killed the auto industry. Banks, though, they’re the bastion of god-fearing, anti-union Republicans, so we need to keep them up and running. Besides, high unemployment keeps labor costs low, and that’s good for everybody, right? Except, I dunno who’s gonna buy all this crap from China if nobody’s working, but then I’m not an economics expert. Fortunately, it looks like the rich folks might get to keep their Bush tax cuts – for a while, at least. That’s good. I’d hate to stop getting trickled down on.
What better way to start the day than a rousing comment from…
.. a cuckoo!
US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday.
Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent correct on the 33 exam questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI)
Take the test
I got 31 out of 33 and a headache. :turkey:
Where is all the money for the bank bailouts going? It doesn’t look like the situation is getting any better. Maybe it is time to throw the money at the auto industry where millions of jobs are at stake instead of the banking industry where millions of dividends and millions in bonuses are at stake.
:rofl2: Thanks PJ! Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining!
Hey NC Blue, Good to see you. I think we need to sharpen our pitch forks and put on our mob gear. :growl:
I think the spirit of Fred just took over my keyboard, except, since there’s no machine gun emo I had to use a pitch fork. :tongue:
Hi KP, and all the other MS-ers. Haven’t been too far away. I check in and practice drive-by blogging as time permits. Which reminds me. I have another diatribe to share.
———————
I am fed up with so-called conservatives whining about liberal-biased political media coverage. “Fair and balanced†doesn’t exist if all the news from the right is fear-driven hatred. Let’s go for some truthfulness. I call that fair.
News from the right should start with a fairly in-depth look at the current landscape. The economy is in a shambles. After 28 years of corporate greed and right-wing monopolistic fiscal policy designed to drive huge profits, unsustainable growth and massive CEO compensations the under-regulated banking industry cratered. The GOP recommendation was more deregulation.
The unregulated U.S. auto industry has engineered itself into dinosaurian irrelevance. Three decades of neglect and incompetence has left the icons of American industry broken shells, shadows of their once proud preeminence.
Unemployment is skyrocketing. It is impossible to get a true measure of this problem. The calculations were changed in the Reagan days. Unemployment numbers now measure only those people collecting unemployment insurance, approximately 35% of the people active seeking employment. If the U.S. auto industry is allowed to fail, as the GOP leadership desires, 2.3 million more jobs could vanish.
Inflation calculations were also altered in the 1980s. Volatility was eliminated by not measuring are housing, transportation, energy and food costs, the day items responsible for the vast majority of every day expenses. Grocery store visits display the unreliability of these figures.
This generation has seen management of retirement funds turned over to the recently broken banks and brokerages. Healthcare is now controlled by insurance companies whose profits rest on denying services. Most primary care workers would leave the industry if they had other options. Inflated costs have priced higher education out of reach for the average American.
In recent testimony before Congress, Alan Greenspan admitted his economic beliefs are flawed. Deregulation, the backbone of Reaganomics and Neo-Con philosophy, was dead wrong. Greenspan pretty much put an end to the claim of viability for most if not all right-wing fiscal and monetary policies.
Recently, the GOP has fought many wars – Grenada, invasion of Panama, the inconclusive Gulf War, the misnamed and mismanaged War on Terror and the ideologically-driven “liberation†of Iraq. Lesser known wars the GOP wage include the war on science, the war on the environment, the war on American workers, the war on affordable healthcare, the war on retirement, the war on the Constitution, the war on functional government, the war on judicial justice, and above all the war on common sense and sensibility. Their weapons have been extremist feigned outrage, huge tax cuts for the rich and infamous, lack of government accountability, unprecedented governmental deficit spending and a two-front war of terror waged on the Middle East and the American people. Their frontline soldiers include an unprecedented, unregulated and unaccountable attacking propaganda media preaching fear and hatred, extreme hate-driven, fear-feeding pseudo-religions, obstructionist legislators and the worst President in United States history.
I agree with some of the right-wing assessment of the current state of our media, though. The media has failed the American people. Where the media remains silently fearful of continued right-wing attacks the media failed as America’s watchdog. The media failed to warn the American people about the real costs incurred by same right-wing policies that caused the recessions of 1907, 1982-83, 1988-89 and the Great Depression.
Right-wing policies have turned our society inside out, twisted and tortured true American values and plundered the public coffers for 28 heart-wrenching years. And now it has imploded. Our once-proud society is crumbling under the weight of right-wing governance. Once again in American history it is up to Democrats to clean up the mess and hopefully stop our society’s accelerating decent into the next GOP-caused Great Depression. So, to all you right-wing media whiners, go to the corner, sit down and shut up the fuck up. The rest of us have work to do.
Wow, NC, you covered it all. I should send that to my dad.
KP, that is just a handful of highlights from an epic nightmare. Send it to anyone you like.
Great job, NC Blue
James, former head of Slinky company, dies
Retired James Industries Inc. Chief Executive Officer Betty James, whose company made the wiry Slinky toy, has died in Philadelphia, an official says.
Her company is now known as POOF-Slinky Inc., but still creates the coil-shaped toys that were known for using its own momentum to move about.
🙁 :gate: :pup: :turkey:
Maybe James will bump into John Hayes :reaper:
For Kevin, and any other Heuvelheads out there:
Wal-Mart’s former Republican outreach director will be charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the next to fall in a long list of current and former lobbyists linked to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, according to court documents filed last week.
snip
James Hirni will be charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to papers filed by the Justice Department in U.S. District Court cited by Roll Call Sunday. Hirni was an executive director for Wal-Mart’s Republican outreach effort.
Hirni is accused of providing a former Republican congressional aide Trevor Blackann with a trip to the World Series in 2003, including airfare, tickets, a souvenir jersey and other entertainment. The total value of the gifts was more than $1,000; Blackann is a former aide to Missouri Republican Sen. Kit Bond and GOP Rep. Roy Blunt.
In exchange, “Blackann agreed to provide favorable official action to, and to use their influence on behalf of, defendant Hirni,” two other individuals and an unnamed equipment rental company, according to court documents.
The company was United Rentals.
“They wanted action on an amendment to a federal highway reauthorization bill that would have encouraged state public works agencies to rent, rather than buy, construction equipment,” wrote TPM’s Zachary Roth Friday. “That would clearly have benefited United Rentals.”
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/WalMarts_Republican_outreach_director_to_be_1124.html
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Sweet Beans! 86% on my last cal. test. :banana:
How does President-elect Obama put the rule of law back into our court system? That will the trickiest task of them all.
Appeals Court Backs Warrantless Searches Abroad
I know that that isn’t an impressive grade, but I’m in damage control mode. I really had some deep, dark doubts because I didn’t know how the questions were weighted. Now it’s on to integral calculus-geeky-ish-ness.
A respectable B, Travis.
:joe: Thanks
good job, Trav.
NC, good diatribe ^ up there. I’m not sure about that opinion yet. Looks like the naturalized citizen was overseas…. Obama is going to need to massively appoint judges in the vacancies and we’ll have to hope the filibuster doesn’t stop them. It also might help if the new AG will not cover the Spirit of Justice’s boobies…
poor ari:
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports today that Freedom’s Watch, the right-wing advocacy group founded by Ari Fleischer and funded by Sheldon Adelson, “is pretty much kaput.†Freedom’s Watch spokesman Ed Patru “confirmed that much of the staff was on its way out,†but refused to say if the group would continue in the future:
Of course they are going to go after one last Dem – Ga’s martin – on their way out. the :turkey:
31 of 33 on the quiz!
:turkey:
AIG, Citibank and a number of other federally bailed-out financial institutions have no plans to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in sports team sponsorships, even as they take billions in taxpayer support, ABC News has found.
snip
Struggling Citibank just sealed a multi-billion-dollar emergency “backstop” deal with the U.S. government. The financial behemoth, suffering with billions in bad mortgage-related assets on its books, recently shed 53,000 workers and saw its stock price lose over half its value. Yet it’s in a 20-year contract to pay the New York Mets $400 million to name the team’s new stadium “Citi Field.”
snip
Citi isn’t alone: Imploding insurance giant AIG is paying the British soccer team Manchester United $125 million for the privilege of having its logo appear on Man U’s uniforms. That, despite the fact the firm is standing largely thanks to a $150 billion lifeline from the U.S. Treasury.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6321691&page=1
On the other hand, GM cut Tiger Woods loose today.