>> ^Edgeman2112:

I call a bit of BS on this one. There is some information that is likely omitted.
It all depends on how you define "economic recovery." We know it has nothing to do with employment because the employment rate has either stubbornly remained high for this 2009-2011 period, or simply crept lower. So yes, it's no wonder the average american household income fell with so many people unemployed. Derp.

Economic recovery, as defined by economists, has to do with whether the economy is getting better, or getting worse, not whether the economy is "good" or "bad" in some absolute sense.

Unemployment is still too high, but it's been falling consistently. That's recovery.

Also, why would higher unemployment necessarily fall more heavily on the lower income groups? What's shifting the average in part is that the people making the least are losing their jobs, while the people making the most are getting big bonuses.

That's the whole complaint here -- 93% of the income gains are going to the top 1%.

Derp.
>> ^Edgeman2112:

So where is this large percentage of suspiciously named, "income gains," come from? The stock market! The fed has done 2 (some say 3) rounds of QE which inflate the market. So yes, it's no wonder rich people got richer because they have a ton more disposable income to throw around and double.

The stock market is still below its peak. If you invested $100 in blue chips in 2007, you'd only have $90 to show for that investment now.

On the other hand, if you ran a business that was able to raise prices, bust unions, ship jobs overseas, etc., you could cut your labor costs and make record profits, which a lot of companies have been doing.

>> ^Edgeman2112:
And to be even more frank, I have many middle class friends. I don't see any of them becoming poor or in any serious financial risk not due to healthcare costs. They're having children. Working hard. Earning money. Buying homes too. Saving for retirement and college. They're doing just fine despite the evil rich cadre.
The more I watch Cenk, the more I see him glossing over the issues instead of studying them with a rational mindset.


I agree, you should look at some data. Did you know that if wages had continued to track productivity gains that the average household income would be $92,000 instead of $50,000?

@Yogi

This is the clause of the pledge that they're interpreting:

"Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President."
-Full document: https://motherjones.com/files/marriagevow.pdf

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts

Look at the top three. Are the rich (aka the top 1%) universally callous a-holes? No.

Are a statistically significant number of them hoarding a disproportionate helping of the gains achieved through productivity increases over a the last few decades? Yes.

Is that trend happening very, very quickly right now? Yes.

Oh, and about the above back and forth about tax rates, actual tax revenue as a share of GDP is lower than ever right now, personal income tax rates are lower than they've been since the 1920's, capital gains tax rate is lower than it's been since the 1920's, and the effective corporate tax rate (i.e. once you account for exemptions) is about 25%, which is well below the OECD average.

So yes, taxes are lower than ever here in the US.
>> ^quantumushroom:

Part of your writing is about what happened and the rest is about what you believe. Are the rich universally callous a-holes who care nothing about their employees? Some are like that, others ain't. Capitalism is like a military tank; it's better to be riding in the turret than getting caught under the treads.

The Regan revolution!

Wow. Are you serious? How do you not know what is gong on over there?

They are revolting because they are tired of living under a dictator (Mubarak). They are tired of living in a country that tortures and kills any dissenter. They are tired of being piss poor while their leaders live in massive Dubai-esque palaces because corruption is so wide-spread they don't even try to hide it anymore. It started in Tunisia about a month ago and democracy is starting to spread to neighbouring countries in the middle east....

Here are some links....
NYT
Tunisia [cole's notes-ish]


>> ^spoco2:

Sorry, but without any sort of background, I can't upvote at all.
Why are they revolting? What has been done to them? Etc. etc.
All I'm seeing is a collection of violent protesters, and that never makes me side with them without really good reason.
I've tried looking into it, but have found nothing that really deals with what their grievances actually are.

I'm trying to depersonalize this, and not question your motives, while still making the case that my viewpoint (which obviously differs from yours) is based on things that are supported by objective facts.

Both liberals and conservatives base their underpinning concepts on things that are 'facts'. The interpretation of those facts is where the distortion lies. For example - Bachman’s full quote clearly proves she is talking about the dissemination of information about Cap & Trade and not violent rebellion. Obama’s “I want people angry” quote is likewise clearly not a call for violence.

Both quotes are factual. It is the interpretation that is biased. I extend both sides the benefit of the doubt and do not just go around assuming the worst on ‘their side’ and the best on ‘my side’. So when I hear leftists calling only right-wing speech 'bad' and ignoring the same crap from the left-wing, I call BS.

My point here is that not all gun metaphors are created equal. "We're going to stick to our guns on health care" is pretty different from "If ballots don't work, bullets will".

Joyce Kaufman is as irrelevant to this topic as Micheal Fiengold is - the guy who said Republicans “should be exterminated before they cause any more harm.” Fringe crazies do not represent the majority. And I reject as poppycock any implication that the right has a greater number or percentage of these crazies compared to the left.

Part of your issue here is that you're not talking about anything in legislation, but something Obama said. The other issue is, you're quoting him way out of context

It IS in the legislation, and it is not out of context. Obamacare establishes the H&HS secretary as the party who makes decisions regarding what is and isn’t covered in plans. And his law requires all Americans to buy into these approved plans or pay fines and face possible jail time. It establishes government panels as entities that make health care rationing decisions based on economics and not doctors or patients. Calling them death panels is grandiose, but no different in concept than what liberals do when they say Bachman actually WANTS armed rebellion.

What Republican plan of privatization that worked for decades are you talking about?

I didn’t say “Republican Plan”. I said that a private system. The systems that work best do not come from Republicans or Democrats. They come from PEOPLE in a private system who creatively seek for profit by dealing in goods and services.


I mention Grayson as an outlier. He's unusually inflammatory for a Democrat, and even what he said wasn't particularly inciteful.

Because you agree with him. To a conservative, it is despicable. When a conservative exaggerates about a liberal, do you not find it despicable and ‘inciteful’? Is it not hypocritical to excuse it from one side, while condemning it on the other?

I say stretch, because Republicans never put together a fully formed plan of their own

Yes they did. Many times. Obama and the democrats rejected it and instead of negotiating they just crammed Obamacare through a midnight vote using unconstitutional processes to bypass the law and stifle debate.

I demand a source on this one. It's gotta be sifted here as a YouTube clip if that's accurate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/20/alan-grayson-to-republica_n_652244.html
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/best-quotes-alan-grayson
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/28/grayson-taking-opponents-quotes-context-taliban-ad/

Grayson is a source for a lot of fun stuff because he’s a certifiable lunatic.

"The Republican health care plan is: 'Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly." This one's debatable for the reasons I said above. But I think that the accuracy of the statement has a lot to do with whether that comment was okay or not. This one's at the edge, either way.

No –it isn’t debatable. It deliberately mischaracterizes the issue. Obama’s government solution of panel-based rationing is the exact same thing in a different form. Would you say it would be an unfair statement to say Obama’s plan is “Don’t get old, and if you get old die quickly”?

I don't think you understand the liberal side of arguments at all.

Au contraire. I understand them on more levels than liberals do themselves.

Litanies like this make it pretty clear that you're you're not interested in examining your own prejudices about liberals.

But litanies about conservatives are fine? That was a list of ACTUAL EVENTS. Real examples of real liberals doing real violence. Why is that a 'litany' that proves I’m not interested in examining things? Sounds to me like your response shows that you are not interested in examining liberal prejudices – whereas I have examined them far more thoroughly.

I see someone essentially saying "I'm right, you're evil, and nothing you say will convince me otherwise".

But your litanies do no such thing, I take it? You implied that the speech of the political right gins up right-wing crazies. I ask the perfectly fair question, “Did liberal speech gin up THESE left-wing crazies?” Goose for the gander. If you make the claim that right wing speech is done to gin up crazies, do you allow the same logic to apply to the left wing crazies – of which my evidence shows there is ample existence?

My sense is that you don't know (or don't care) about the way legitimate arguments get made.

Your sense is wrong. You can continue to believe it if that pleases you, but that does not make it correct.

The topic of what rhetoric is worthy of condemnation is going to be a little more slippery, but it's not impossible to have a civil discussion about what the important factors are in deciding whether a comment is appropriate or not.

Certainly. My assertion is that both sides get plenty of leeway to make strong political arguments. Free speech is hardly ever a bad thing. Let people say what they want and let the chips fall where they may. This attempt to stifle political speech has been done before, and by better people than our current crop of political doofuses. Their conclusion was the 1st Ammendment. It still works.

Mother Jones has an interesting article profiling Loughner, most of which is based on interviewing his best friend.... http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/jared-lee-loughner-friend-voicemail-phone-message?page=1

I wonder if that's true about most of the Valdez workers being dead. Anyone know what her source was for those numbers? There were several thousand Exxon Valdez cleanup workers, it seems like this should be a huge story at the moment if most of them are dead, and most related to causes that could conceivably be linked to chemical exposure.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2003/03/valdez-crud
According to the above article Exxon went to great efforts to avoid reporting respiratory illness, releasing medical records of cleanup workers, or granting access to the workers. As a result they completely blocked the federal investigation. There was never a class-action suit, but every worker who managed form a case good enough to go to trial was given a settlement ensuring non-disclosure and no admission of fault. However towards the end the article states that activists are trying to track down the old workers, and that was in 2003. So maybe they really have done a proper survey since then.

This is more of an indictment against Cheney and less the republican party though. Wide sweeping generalizations are always wrong...errr...ya!

>> ^volumptuous:

I normally agree, but we are talking about direct causality here. This spill, and the Iraq invasion are both direct results of oil/energy companies colluding directly and personally with Dick Cheney in 2000 & 2001.
There's a major difference between accepting lobbyist donations, and colluding to wreak havoc on the planet and its humans.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cheney_Energy_Task_Force
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,198862,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Task_Force
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/
11/15/AR2005111501842.html
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/06/dick-cheney-bp-spill

>> ^NobleOne:

>> ^volumptuous:
Fucking scumbags.
If you vote GOP, you should either STFU for the next decade, or drink a glass of oil for every time Sarah Palin has said drill-baby-drill.

Get over the two sides story that shit is dead, both sides take oil money and it is a fact. The two side is only there for you to bicker about how your side is removed from all evil; when in actuality it is just there to separate you from others. Divide and conquer. If we continue to play this game they (corporations) will win.


I normally agree, but we are talking about direct causality here. This spill, and the Iraq invasion are both direct results of oil/energy companies colluding directly and personally with Dick Cheney in 2000 & 2001.

There's a major difference between accepting lobbyist donations, and colluding to wreak havoc on the planet and its humans.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cheney_Energy_Task_Force
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,198862,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Task_Force
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501842.html
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/06/dick-cheney-bp-spill

I wanted to see if I could find the real court finding, to see on what basis they decided in his favor.

I had some trouble with that. It would be an understatement to say that this man has spent a lot of time in court over the last decade. Here's a decent summary from Mother Jones; it's Lt. Col. Donald Sullivan.

So, I found the opinions of him being laughed out of court for claiming that his property taxes are unconstitutional pretty much every year for as far back as the court has records. He's tried to get cases up to the SCOTUS on illegal passage of the 16th amendment (that's the one that permits income taxes), he's trying to make a case that Barack Obama's birth certificate is fake. He also tried to sue that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were illegal because they were undeclared.

All that said, I haven't found any record of him winning a court case about a "right to drive" except this Youtube video, and it's accompanying article on the local TV station (which is basically a transcript of this video), and a blog entry by Donald Sullivan telling a story about how his son got arrested for refusing to answer an officer's questions when pulled over. He did this because the officer first read him his Miranda rights and then asked for license and proof of insurance (at which point the son exercised his right to remain silent).

Regardless, I think all rights have limits. You are free to speak, but you may not incite people to violence. You are free to "bear arms" but I'm pretty sure land mines are not permissible. You are guaranteed the right to a trial, but you do not have the right to infinite appeal.

People should indeed be able to move about without restriction. This does not mean I may use a 3000 lbs. device to convey myself without limits on how that device is used and operated.

Personally, I think if you want to take a "right to free movement" to some sort of extreme, the real meaning would be that trespassing shouldn't be a crime, and things like locks and fences should be illegal since they restrict people's freedom of movement.

After all, if you cause no damage to the person's property, it's a victimless crime...

>>demon_ix
Why are you guys measuring things in feet again?

you might want to impeach cheney first though

take action:
The one click form on this page will send your personal message to all your members of Congress, with your vote on the the question "Should Vice President Cheney be impeached?"
http://www.usalone.com/cheney_impeachment.php

Why?

Lying to congress and the American people:
* Lie #1 - Uranium from Niger - Bush said "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." in his State of the Union Address. The documents supporting that statement were forged.
* Lie #2 - Iraq and 9/11 - Bush led people to believe that Iraq was involved with 9/11 by repeatedly linking them in his speeches. This was so effective that at one point 70% of Americans actually believed Saddam was behind 9/11. Bush has since admitted that this was not true.
* Lie #3 - Congress Knew - Bush has stated that Congress had access to all the same information that the White House had. Thus he should not be blamed for making the mistake of going to war. But Bush was briefed many times about the falsehood of various stories and this information never reached Congress. [ZNet]
* Lie #4 - Aluminum Tubes - Bush, Cheney, Rice and Powell said that some aluminum tubes Iraq attempted to buy were intended for use in a uranium centrifuge to create nuclear weapons. These were the only physical evidence he had against Iraq. But it turns out this evidence had been rejected by the Department of Energy and other intelligence agencies long before Bush used them in his speeches. [NYTimes] [MotherJones] [CNN]
* Lie #5 - Iraq and Al Qaeda - Bush still insists that there was a "relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. But the 9/11 Commission released a report saying, among other things, that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Al Qaeda and Iraq. The nature of the relationship seems to be that Al Qaeda asked for help and Iraq refused. Al Qaeda was opposed to Saddam Hussein because Saddam led a secular government instead of an Islamic government. [ZNet] [CNN] On 9/8/06 a Senate panel reported there was no relationship. [ABC]
* Lie #6 - Weapons of Mass Destruction - Bush insisted that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction but his "evidence" consisted mostly of forged documents, plagiarized student papers, and vague satellite photos. The United Nations was on the ground in Iraq and could find nothing. After extensive searches Bush was finally forced to admit that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.
* Lie #7 - Mobile Weapons Labs - Bush and his team repeatedly claimed that Iraq possessed mobile weapons labs capable of producing anthrax. Colin Powell showed diagrams of them at his speech before the UN to justify invading Iraq. These claims originated from Curveball, a discredited Iraqi informer who fed Bush many of the stories related to WMD. On May 29, 2003, two small trailers matching the description were found in Iraq. A team of bio-weapons experts examined the trailers and concluded they were simply designed to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. But, for over a year, Bush claimed these were part of Iraq's bio-weapons program. The expert's report was suppressed and only recently made public. [WashPost] [ABC]