On 9 June 2004, a group of 256 Iraqis sued CACI International and Titan Corporation (now L-3 Services, part of L-3 Communications) in US federal court. The plaintiffs, former prisoners, allege that the companies directed and participated in torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity, sexual assault, as well as cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment at Abu Ghraib prison. The US Government had hired CACI and Titan to provide interrogation and translation services at military prisons in Iraq.[4]
Monday, February 28, 2011
Budget Deficit a Result of Govt Outsourcing to Private Companies
GOPs idealogy in play - Govt cannot solve the problem, Govt is the problem - From there, everything should be outsourced to private companies. Gee, I wonder why the government is running a deficit. If non-profit activities are turned into profit generating activities, OF COURSE IT WILL COST MORE YOU IDIOT!
Efficencies - thats why it made sense. Govt is inefficient. Reagan screwed us with those words.
Clipped from en.wikipedia.org
Blackwater Worldwide
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Xe Services LLC Type Private military security firm Industry Private military and security contractor Founded 1997 Founder(s) Erik Prince
Al ClarkHeadquarters Moyock, North Carolina, USA[1]
Area served Worldwide Products law enforcement training, logistics, Close quarter training, and security services Services Security management, full-service risk management consulting Revenue Unknown Operating income Unknown Net income Unknown Employees Unknown Divisions 9 Website www.xecompany.com/ Xe Services LLC (pronounced /ˈziː/ zee) is a private military company founded as Blackwater USA in 1997 by Erik Prince and Al Clark.[2][3] The company has a wide array of business divisions, subsidiaries, and spin-off corporations but the organization as a whole has aroused significant controversy.[4][5][6][7][8] The Iraq War documents leak showed that Blackwater employees committed serious abuses in Iraq, including killing civilians.[9] Altogether, the documents reveal fourteen separate shooting incidents involving Blackwater forces, which resulted in the deaths of ten civilians and the wounding of seven others, not including the Nisoor Square massacre that killed seventeen civilians. A third of the shootings occurred while Blackwater forces were guarding US diplomats.[10]
In October 2007, Blackwater USA was renamed Blackwater Worldwide. It announced on February 13, 2009 that it would operate under the new name "Xe." In a memo sent to employees, President Gary Jackson wrote that the new name "reflects the change in company focus away from the business of providing private security." A spokesperson for the company stated that it feels the Blackwater name is too closely associated with the company's work in the occupation of Iraq.[11] Spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said there was no meaning in the new name, which the company took over a year to arrive at in an internal search.[12]
Xe is currently the largest of the U.S. State Department's three private security contractors. Of the 987 contractors Xe provides, 744 are U.S. citizens.[13][14] At least 90% of the company's revenue comes from government contracts. Xe provided security services in Iraq to the United States federal government, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency[1] on a contractual basis. They no longer have a license to operate in Iraq: the new Iraqi government made multiple attempts to expel them from the country,[15] and denied their application for an operating license in January 2009.[16] However, the company is still under contract with the State Department and some Xe personnel were working legally in Iraq at least until September 2009.[17]
The company was purchased on December 17, 2010 by USTC Holdings, an investment group. Erik Prince will no longer have an equity stake in or involvement in the management or operation of Xe.[18]
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Effective Tax Reform is Impossible As Wealthy Defend Their Riches
...real reform is pretty much impossible as long as Wall Street has the entire political class on its payroll. "The items that matter most to the rich and powerful will not be called into question because their interests are being protected," he writes. Protected, that is, by government officials hoping for a lucrative private sector gig after they finish serving the public...
Lobbying - This is where our senators and congressmen go after they "serve". Lobbying on behalf of the multi-billion dollar corporations that are at the heart of nearly every American issue
Fact or Fiction? Middle class is subsidizing millionaires
Most Americans believe what turns out to be a myth--that we heavily tax the highest-income Americans to subsidize the poor. What the government's data show is that the middle class and upper middle class--people making $30,000 to $500,000 per year--are subsidizing the highest-income taxpayers. Tax rates on the middle and upper middle classes are rising, the government's data show, but for the people who make millions per year, effective tax rates are falling dramatically
Budget Deficit Solved: Collect On Taxes Owed
There’s a building in the Cayman Islands that houses supposedly 12,000 US-based corporations. That’s either the biggest building in the world or the biggest tax scam in the world
US Uncut Points Out Corporate Welfare State
America’s two-tier economy in which workers are expected to shoulder the burden of deficit while corporations continuously skirt liability
Forbes - Rupert Murdoch - Bankrolling the Right Wing
and inciting the masses in the wrong direction...
Forbes - David Koch - bankrolling the right wing
Do you benefit from the subsidies and tax loopholes this guy does?
Bill Gates Fighting Microsoft, Ballmer, Allen And Other Billionaires On Tax
Microsoft maven Bill Gates, along with dad Bill Sr., think that Washington State’s wealthiest should be taxed to help foot the state’s education and health-care costs.
Other billionaires don’t agree. In fact, they are giving money to fight it.
Forbes - Christy Walton
Forbes 400: September 2010
The widow of John Walton inherited her wealth after the former Green Beret and Vietnam war medic died in an airplane accident near his home in Wyoming 2005. She got an extra bump in her fortune because of her late husband's early investment in First Solar; shares up more than 400% since 2006 initial public offering. But bulk still comes from her shares in Wal-Mart, the retailer founded by her father-in-law Sam Walton and his brother James in 1962. Today Wal-Mart has sales of $405 billion, and employs more than 2.0 million people. The philanthropist supports museums, education and organic gardening.
The Richest People in America - You Know, The Ones Who Pay 16% Income Tax
Here they are. The Top 400 earners in the US are known to pay around 16% of their income in taxes while the rest of us pay somewhere between 22% and 35%.
Oh plus we have to pay for healthcare and daycare, & college education (Those are paid for within the taxes of SOCIALIST countries like France, Germany, etc.
U.S. now has 403 billionaires with a collective net worth of $1.3 trillion. Here is a list of the country's 25 to
Who amongst these billionaires is thwarting balanced budgets by fighting corporate tax reform?
The 400 Individual Income Tax Returns
Wouldn't you like to know who these people are and what causes they are funding around the US.
Average tax rate of the top 400 is 16.6% — the lowest since the IRS began tracking the 400 in 1992
Yes that's right. The Top 400 earners in the US pay an average of 16.6% income tax. What do you pay?
Clipped from www.ritholtz.com
Top 400 Taxpayers
By Barry Ritholtz - April 15th, 2010, 9:15AM
The IRS puts out an interesting tax document each year, looking at the returns of the nation’s 400 highest income tax paying people. The most recent year of complete data is 2007, when 143 million individuals filed tax returns.
Some of the data is quite astonishing:
• The top 400 U.S. individual taxpayers got 1.59% of the nation’s household income in 2007 — 3X the p% they got in the 1990s.
• The top 400 paid 2.05% of all individual income taxes in 2007.
• Only 220 of the top 400 were in the top marginal tax bracket.
• Average tax rate of the 400 = 16.6% — the lowest since the IRS began tracking the 400 in 1992.
• Minimum annual income to make the top 400 = $138.8 million.
• Top 400 reported $137.9 billion in income; they paid $22.9 billion in federal income taxes.
• 81.3% of income was from capital gains, dividends or interest. Salaries and wages? Just 6.5%.
• The top 400 list changes from year to year: 1992-2007, it contained 3,472 different taxpayers (out of a maximum 6400).
Washington DCs dirty little secret - stealth spending escapes public scrutiny
Another form of PORK? Or i this the other White Meat?
Clipped from www.tax.com
Battleground 2012: Taxpayers vs. Tax-Eaters
Robert Goulder | Feb. 3, 2011 02:45 PM EST
Everybody knows what a taxpayer is. We are the millions of people who pick up the tab for America's public spending. You, me, basically everyone you meet is a taxpayer. But what is a "tax-eater"? What do they look like? Where do they come from? And what should you do if you live next door to one?
The term can be traced back to British farmer and radical journalist William Cobbett (1763-1835) who railed against burdensome taxation in pre-Victorian England. Specifically, a tax-eater refers to any person or entity on the receiving end of public spending. If the chosen verbiage seems pejorative, that's exactly what Cobbett intended. His central belief was that tax-eaters are a drain on society and their numbers should be reduced to the greatest extent possible. In short, tax-eaters were freeloaders who unfairly rode on backs of others (i.e., taxpayers).
Fast forward to modern times. Cobbett's colorful language strikes a chord with today's Tea Party movement, which displays a marked intolerance for tax-eaters. This is what drives the conservative desire for smaller government. Should the number of tax-eaters in a given society grow too large in proportion to the number of taxpayers, your culture will inevitably descend into socialist hell.
TX Taxes Amazon and They Are Pissed!
Really? Is paying your fair share of taxes really worth leaving an entire State? Amazon will have to let go all the people employed there.
Amazon is amassing incredible profits and wealth and is partly to blame for Borders is out of business.
Perhaps TX should forbid Amazon from doing business in TX and allow a new small player to fill the space
Clipped from www.tax.com
Amazon to Texas: Adios
David Brunori | Feb. 15, 2011 06:43 AM EST
Amazon the internet behemoth is mad as a hornet at Texas. In fact, the company is so mad it closing its distribution center in Dallas. The company informed its employees that it is leaving because Texas is not treating them so nice. You see, Texas has billed Amazon $269 million for sales taxes the company never collected on sales in the state. Amazon says it has no physical presence in the state and thus is under no obligation to play tax collector. In fact, Amazon is so irate it is closing its nonexistent physical presence in Dallas to show Texas that it will not be pushed around.
Moreover, Amazon said it was “previously planning to build additional facilities and expand in Texas bringing in more than 1,000 new jobs and tens of millions of investment dollars to the state… We regret the need to reverse course.” Basically, the company is saying "we were going to do more in Texas -- although we really are not there but we changed our mind. I say: good for Texas.
Budget Deficit Silver Bullet: Close Tax Loopholes for MegaCorporations
David Cay Johnston and Chris L Hayes have just discussed what could possibly a silver bullet for fixing the US budget deficit and what Arianna Huffington calls the Assault on America's Middle.
Do you make less than $10M a year? If so, read this article and write to your congressman to fix the corporate tax problems that are destroying our middle class and small business AND causing a budget deficit!!
Can you imagine that the largest 1900 corporations get local tax subsidies at the expense of firefighters, police, and education?
Read on (or listen)!!!
Clipped from www.thenation.com
The Breakdown: Why Aren't Corporations Paying Their Taxes?
February 25, 2011
While pressure mounts for both sides of the aisle to pursue more fiscally responsible budget plans in Washington and around the country, many are rightly wondering why generating more revenue from uncollected corporate taxes isn't on the agenda. There's even a citizens’ movement called US Uncut afoot to hold corporations accountable for their tax evasion. On this week's episode of The Breakdown, DC editor Chris Hayes talks with Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist David Cay Johnston about the manifold maneuvers corporations carry out in order to avoid paying their share of contributions to civil society.
tax.com: Obama Calls for Revenue-Neutral Corporate Tax Reform
Corporate Tax Reform
Obama cautioned that the corporate tax rate was damaging the country's ability to compete globally.
"Over the years, a parade of lobbyists has rigged the tax code to benefit particular companies and industries," Obama said. "Those with accountants or lawyers to work the system can end up paying no taxes at all. But all the rest are hit with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and it has to change."
tax.com: House GOP 2011 CR Includes $603M in Cuts to IRS
The GOPs solution to a deficit problem is cutting the budget of the IRS, reducing their ability to collect taxes. At the same time the effective corporate tax rate for the top 1900 companies dropped to 1.9%.
Essentially getting started as an entrepreneur is tough but once you make it to the top, you dont have to pay taxes fpr the system that allowed you to get there in the first place
tax.com: Tax Rates for Top 400 Earners Fall as Income Soars, IRS Data
The report shows that the number of the top 400 who paid an effective tax rate of 0 percent to 10 percent declined slightly, to 25 in 2007 from 31 in 2006. In 1992 only 6 of the top 400 paid an effective income tax rate of less than 10 percent.
Another 127 paid 10 percent to 15 percent in 2007, up from 113 in 2006.
Only 33 of the top 400 paid an effective tax rate of 30 percent to 35 percent, which is the maximum federal tax rate.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
‘Big Oil’ lobby certain oil cos will cut jobs before accepting lower profits
Here it goes. A President finally has the balls to propose cuts to oil subsidies and big oil threatens the loss of jobs - rather than diversifying their portfolios to include more clean energy
Oil billionaires Koch Have No Values Beyond Money
So it appears that the Koch billionaires are not like their right wing buddy Rupert Murdoch. They will support anyone so long as the objective is to make them richer, whereas murdoch is hellbent on pursuing a conservative social agenda as well as making billions
Murdoch and Koch Make Billions Causing Friction
Right wing billionaires ungrateful for what they seek to increase their fortunes by stripping Americans of collective bargaining rights and extracting subsidies from US Govt
Union Hater Rush Limbaugh Member of a Union? | Gather
Limbaugh says union workers "bottom-feeding freeloaders." He's a member of AFTRA, an AFL-CIO union http://bit.ly/fajilK v @absolutspacegrl
Koch oil billionaires seek demise of democracy pt 2
Citizens United decision is taking us further down the path of corporate slavery and a Corporate Aristocracy.
Koch oil billionaires seek demise of democracy
Tea party is "grassroots" and oil subsidies are needed to support a troubled industry - yeah right.
Another reason campaign finance reform is needed ASAP!!
Runaway Military Spending Edges Out Education
Apparently spending on the military is much more important than educating our children because obviously educated people vote to cut military spending
Biofuels: Autos compete with fuel for the body
Plagued by politics
Biofuels are an example of what not to do
A special report on feeding the world Feb 24th 2011 | from the print edition
The wrong shade of green
“THIS is the craziest thing we’re doing,” says Peter Brabeck, the chairman of Nestlé. He is talking about government biofuels targets which require a certain proportion of national energy needs to be met from renewable fuels, most of them biofuels (ie, ethyl alcohol made from crops, usually maize or sugar).
Oil companies begin demonstrating why we cant eliminate their subsidies
"Every penny increase in the cost of a gallon of gas tears more than a billion dollars from the economy each year, experts say. It takes those dollars out of the hands of people who might spend them in their communities -- at restaurants and craft shops, or on the services of the local carpenter -- and sends them instead to large oil companies."
This is what the oil companies will say when we discuss eliminating oil subsidies. There will be some short term pain but this is the only way to ween ourselves from foreign oil and begin making the transition to sustainable clean energy
Clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com
Read More:
Bahrain, Business News, Economic Recovery, Egypt, Lybia, Middle East, Middle East Protests, Oil, Oil Small Business, Small Business, Small Business America,
Business News
Sharon James, co-owner of a carpet-cleaning company in the San Francisco Bay Area, thought her business was finally recovering from the Great Recession.
(Are rising gas prices affecting your daily life? Tell your story below.)
After a difficult 2010, in which sales dropped five percent, it seemed that business at Stanley Steemer was starting to pick up. Former customers came back. The spring-like weather in the community of San Leandro made people more willing to spend money, she said. Her Stanley Steemer franchise, part of a larger company, was poised to benefit from a new advertisement on national television. She planned to hire four new technicians in anticipation of extra business in the spring.
Then, oil prices soared.
"Every day that I see on the news that it's gone up over a hundred dollars a barrel, I cringe," James said. "That's coming out of our profit line."
Oil prices have spiked in recent weeks, as purchasers fear upheaval in the Middle East could disrupt the world's supply. A higher oil price translates into higher gas prices for consumers and higher transportation costs for businesses. Small businesses, which create 70 percent of the nation's jobs, according to government estimates, have been hit especially hard.
Just as the economy has begun showing signs that a real recovery is gathering momentum, high fuel prices now threaten to impede progress. The price of a barrel of Brent crude, an industry benchmark, has risen 20 percent since the beginning of the year, going from about $95 to nearly $114. It's the highest price since the fall of 2008, after a summer of record-high oil prices helped drag the economy into recession.
Every penny increase in the cost of a gallon of gas tears more than a billion dollars from the economy each year, experts say. It takes those dollars out of the hands of people who might spend them in their communities -- at restaurants and craft shops, or on the services of the local carpenter -- and sends them instead to large oil companies.
Given that consumer spending makes up roughly two-thirds of economic activity, that's a considerable concern: Recent surveys have shown marked improvement in so-called consumer confidence, but as the numbers increase at the gas pump, so does worry about the future, sowing a new reluctance to spend.
"I don't think the economy is going to contract, but it is going to cause consumers and business to rethink their spending plans and hiring for this year," said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group, who until recently stood out as one of the more optimistic forecasters. "Uncertainty and instability will cast a big cloud."
James' carpet-cleaning company in the Bay Area has poured money into fuel in the weeks since protests began in the Middle East. Gasoline powers the eight trucks the business sends out daily and also the machines it uses to clean carpets, upholstery and hardwood floors. Each truck typically uses a full tank of gas every day.
In January of 2010, the business' fuel cost, its largest expense after payroll, was $4,966, James said. In January of this year, it was $6,572, an increase of 32 percent. James dreads seeing February's bill.
Weak DEMS Capitulate to Noisy GOP?
Stop cutting our benefits and start collecting taxes from the wealthy individuals and corporations.
Stop blaming govt. pensions and social security and cut military spending.
Stop subsidizing the most profitable industries in the world and start subsidizing sustainable clean energy.
Clipped from act.credoaction.com
Tell Democratic Leadership: Don't cave to Republican extremists on the budget.
It's breathtaking to think that the Republicans would risk a government shutdown because Democrats won't unilaterally capitulate to their demands for concessions in some of the most intractable ideological wars of our time.
But last week the House passed and sent to the Senate for consideration an extremist's wish list under the guise of the "Continuing Resolution." The Continuing Resolution (CR) is a must-pass bill that is necessary to maintain funding for the federal government while Congress debates the 2011 budget.
Democrats must stand their ground. But progressive champions in the Senate won't be able to fight if their leadership preemptively cuts a deal with Republicans.
Unfortunately, such a deal may already be underway. The Huffington Post has reported that Democratic leadership and key Appropriations Committee staffers met Thursday to identify cuts in social spending drastic enough to appease Republican demands for devastating spending reductions.1
Friday, February 25, 2011
Obama's Proposed Budget Pumps Up Support for Electric Cars, Bipartisanship Hard to Come By | PluginCars.com
So how much of the GOP preference for SUVs and gas guzzling autos is tied to their macho ego?
Factory Farming Partly to Blame for Obesity and Spiraling Cost of Healthcare
Let's see if I can frame this picture for you. Large corporations continue to put small farmers out of business / and/or acquiring them. Those larger corporations have to produce better profits every quarter to satisfy their shareholders. They increase their profits by selling MORE for LESS. That means hiring illegal immigrants who they let go when they are not needed. They inject more and more of their animals with anti-biotics and steriods (which must be expensive too) to help them grow faster and larger. Crowd those suckers into a smaller area.
All the while they get subsidies from the US Govt.
And remember those small farmers that were put out of business. If they are in need of "help" getting by, that is seen as welfare and they are lazy bastards sucking on the welfare tit of government.
But hey, you get artificially low prices for chicken, pork, and beef so you can EAT MORE, rather than eating more vegetables as a percentage of your diet, not getting fat and unhealthy, not needing extra medical care - Oh wait, that's not covered by your health insurance policy because that's a preexisting condition.
Lesson here is: Its ok for corporations to get subsidies but not ok for people.
Clipped from www.themeatrix.com
Learning about sustainable food and the problems with factory farming can be daunting, but with a little effort you can quickly learn enough to make the safest and wisest food choices for you and your family.
Here, we introduce you to the major issues surrounding sustainable agriculture and factory farming. Below we’ve provided simple overviews of the issues – click on the headers to read the full report!
Additives
Much of the food we find at today’s supermarkets is highly processed and contains numerous food additives. These substances are used to change the way food tastes and looks (altering the color and texture), to improve the nutritional quality of foods (adding vitamins and minerals), and to increase the food’s shelf life to prevent spoilage.
Air Pollution
Industrial farms produce massive amounts of animal waste that is known to release greenhouse gasses into the air. Aside from the air pollution that comes from farm waste, the industrialized food system also burns significant amounts of fossil fuels to power the trucks that distribute products.
Animal Welfare
As farms have become more industrialized, animals have become more of a commodity. They are considered units of production, rather than living, breathing beings, and as a result these animals are treated inhumanely. But increasingly, more and more consumers are demanding better treatment of animals.
Antibiotics
Because of the crowded and unsanitary conditions on factory farms, animals are often fed low doses of antibiotics. Antibiotics are also used to make the animals grow faster. This is contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in humans.
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is important because ecosystems rely on the interaction of a variety of plant and animal species, and because various breeds of animals and plants have valuable genetic material. Industrial agriculture is one among many unsustainable human activities that has lead to rapid decreases in the world’s biodiversity.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Mexico Surpasses Iraq and Afghanistan in War Fatalities
This is not news. It happened a long time ago. Why doesn't the Mexican government BEG America to LEGALIZE IT! Because they are Right Wing, Bible Thumping Bush fans?
If its not the drug cartels, its the monopolies silencing the media so why care who does it?
Funny, manufacturing moves from Mexico to China and the number of impoverished in Mexico and illegal immigrants from Mexico increase significantly... You should hear about who the agriculture immigrants are and who they work for in the US and what forced them into unemployment.
Clipped from www.npr.org
Enlarge Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesA military police officer patrols at the scene of a murder in Juarez, Mexico, in March.
Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesA military police officer patrols at the scene of a murder in Juarez, Mexico, in March.
Second of five parts
Mexico has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. So far this year, eight reporters have been gunned down. Last week, five were reported kidnapped — four of them in Durango state and one in Zacatecas state.
Some 25,000 people have been killed over the last 3 1/2 years in drug-related violence.
Unbiased information has also been a casualty.
Journalists in some parts of the country have stopped covering the drug trade entirely after their colleagues have been kidnapped, killed or threatened. Others say they have limited reporting on crime to only what is in official government press releases. Some even say they report whatever the local cartels order them to print.
"This record level of violence is really unprecedented," says Carlos Lauria, head of the Americas program at the Committee to Protect Journalists.
By the organization's tally, more than 30 Mexican reporters have been killed or have disappeared since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels in December 2006.
"We only see these numbers (of murdered journalists) in conflict ridden countries like Iraq and Somalia," Lauria says.
Bush Administration's Arrogant Certainty Applied to War
Funny. Critics of Obama say he's arrogant. Perhaps. But he's trying to do the right things for American people and people worldwide. His values are spot on.
Meanwhile, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush oversold the Invasion of Iraq. Smart. All this to get OIL contracts?
Meanwhile, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush oversold the Invasion of Iraq. Smart. All this to get OIL contracts?
Rumsfeld Blames the Intelligence Community on the Mistakes of Iraq
You are the top man responsible and you are blaming the intelligence community! Meanwhile your thinktanks produced papers explicitly detailing how and why Iraq should be invaded PRIOR to 9/11.
Rumsfeld Denies Hard Sell of WMD in Iraq
He's making money now selling his book and thousands. no wait.. millions of heartland conservatives with guns will read his book and buy into his story...
Now he is BACKTRACKING on what he said then...
THIS IS WHAT LYING LOOKS LIKE! It doesn't hit you in the hit th moment they say it. You find out later you dingbats!
Now he is BACKTRACKING on what he said then...
THIS IS WHAT LYING LOOKS LIKE! It doesn't hit you in the hit th moment they say it. You find out later you dingbats!
GOP targets teachers pay and benefits to reduce budget deficit?
So the State and Federal tax revenues are down because the banking giants gambled with subprime mortgages which they then sold to pension fund managers. The funds lose a lot of money and instead of pressing the bankers for some of their billions, the GOP goes after teachers with a $50,000 salary?
Certainly Teacher Unions are partially to blame for schools not performing better but Union membership is at an all time low. The Financial CORPORATIONS are sitting on all time HIGH profits but teachers' unions and pensions are the scapegoat and target for budget cuts?
WHO VOTES FOR THESE PEOPLE? Fools who only watch Fox News?
Clipped from www.nytimes.com
How Chris Christie Did His Homework
Mark Peterson for The New York TimesBy MATT BAI
Published: February 24, 2011
Like a stand-up comedian working out-of-the-way clubs, Chris Christie travels the townships and boroughs of New Jersey, places like Hackettstown and Raritan and Scotch Plains, sharpening his riffs about the state’s public employees, whom he largely blames for plunging New Jersey into a fiscal death spiral. In one well-worn routine, for instance, the governor reminds his audiences that, until he passed a recent law that changed the system, most teachers in the state didn’t pay a dime for their health care coverage, the cost of which was borne by taxpayers.
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And so, Christie goes on, forced to cut more than $1 billion in local aid in order to balance the budget, he asked the teachers not only to accept a pay freeze for a year but also to begin contributing 1.5 percent of their salaries toward health care. The dominant teachers’ union in the state responded by spending millions of dollars in television and radio ads to attack him.
“The argument you heard most vociferously from the teachers’ union,” Christie says, “was that this was the greatest assault on public education in the history of New Jersey.” Here the fleshy governor lumbers a few steps toward the audience and lowers his voice for effect. “Now, do you really think that your child is now stressed out and unable to learn because they know that their poor teacher has to pay 1½ percent of their salary for their health care benefits? Have any of your children come home — any of them — and said, ‘Mom.’ ” Pause. “ ‘Dad.’ ” Another pause. “ ‘Please. Stop the madness.’ ”
Fwd: War is Good For the Aviation Industry
Dont forget we subsidize Boeing with low interest loans and taxpayer funded research so they dont have to.
The Pentagon announced Thursday that it has selected Boeing to supply a new generation of aerial refueling tankers in a deal worth more than $30 billion.
"Boeing was a clear winner," Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn said after Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley announced the winner of the years-long competition.
Donley said Boeing beat out its archrival, European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS), to provide 179 tankers in the first phase of the program to replace the aerial refueling fleet. He indicated that both companies met all 372 mandatory requirements of the contract but that Boeing submitted the lower bid.
The tanker is to be designated the KC-46A, and the first planes are to be delivered by 2017, Donley said.
"This was a spirited competition, with both offerers acquitting themselves well," he told a Pentagon news conference.
The competition for the contract ...
http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=83ec2509bf3a25326feb21e000af5e16
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Conservatives prefer to deal with social issies instead of creating jobs
GOP wants government out of their lives when it involves taxes and guns, butthey get in everyone elses face about marijuana and gay rights.
NEW YORK — Angered conservatives are vowing to make same-sex marriage a front-burner election issue, nationally and in the states, following the Obama administration’s announcement that it will no longer defend the federal law denying recognition to gay married couples.
"The ripple effect nationwide will be to galvanize supporters of marriage," said staff counsel Jim Campbell of Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal group.
On the federal level, opponents of same-sex marriage urged Republican leaders in the House of Representatives to intervene on their own to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, against pending court challenges.
"The president has thrown down the gauntlet, challenging Congress," said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. "It is incumbent upon the Republican leadership to respond by intervening to defend DOMA, or they will become complicit in the president’s neglect of duty."
Conservatives also said they would now expect the eventual 2012 GOP presidential nominee to highlight the marriage debate as part of a challenge to Obama, putting the issue on equal footing with the economy.
Gay rights activists welcomed Wednesday’s announcement from the Justice Department, sensing that it would bolster the prospects for same-sex marriage in the courts. Among Democrats in Congress, there was praise for Obama’s decision and talk of proposing legislation to repeal the law altogether.
"I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It was the wrong law then; it is the wrong law ...
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bostonherald/news/~3/hOCTboEcDos/view.bg
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US Senators Brainwashed by American Military to Keep War Going
FUD To bolster military spending, sounds like the cold war years.
Either we haven't learned that this is obvious or we dont care?
Meanwhile the GOP wants to cut education, social security, and healthcare benefits here at home.
And people vote for them? Why? FUD works on them too
Fiscal Responsibility And Runaway Military Spending Are Not Compatible | NEWS JUNKIE POST
Clearly since we overspend on the military we should cut social security
Circumstances in the world we refuse to alter extort oil subsidies from us.
If we reduce the oil subsidies, Big Oil will pass on the additional cost to us in the form of higher prices. True.
So is the a tax or policy mechanism to protect us from this?
If we gave clean energy half the subsidies we give big oil, we might become less dependant on foreign oil or even less willing to drill in challenging places like the gulf.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Banks have US Govt and its Citizens By the Balls!
This is a great film. Every American should see it. My guess is that most Democrats and progressives will agree, most middle class Republicans will argue that its the individuals that made their own choices.
So the question is, is it the Banks fault for taking advantage of our greed or the government's fault for being servants of the banks vis a vis the campaign finance mechanism.
US Govt Allows US Corporations to Murder Citizens
Harsh title but it caught your attention. Seriously, you need to watch this movie. See the clip below from YouTube.
Meat, Corn, Oil, fast food, pharma are feeding on us like parasites and ripping out the innards of all that was once good in America in favor of the greatest corporate profits ever, and a congress that is a servant to those corporations