Not that this will matter to the congressional Republicans, whose agenda is not actually improving the economy nor listening to economists, the wealthiest 2%, or any other American, come to that. But the country’s wealthiest men, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, dismiss the calls of Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans and say that the wealthy SHOULD pay more taxes . Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said that the rich should be paying more taxes and that the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy should be left to expire at the end of December. “If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further,” Buffett said. “But I think that people at the high end — people like myself — should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.” The billionaire brushed aside Republican arguments that letting tax cuts expire for the wealthy would hurt economic growth. “They say you have to keep those tax cuts, even on the very wealthy, because that is what energizes business and capitalism,” anchor Amanpour said. “The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we’ll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on,” Buffett explained. It’s the simplest of messages and yet sadly not on the tongues of any Democratic politicians (including the President): if tax cuts worked, why isn’t the economy better right now? Gates also expressed disappointment in the failure of the ballot initiative 1098 that his father, Bill Gates Senior, was very publicly endorsing, to raise taxes on the wealthiest citizens in Washington state, showing once again how easily the majority of Americans will vote against their own interests, especially in the face of big money advertising persuasions.
Continue reading …Republicans Pretend There’s Going to be Anything But Business as Usual in Their Weekly Address
November 28, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media Looks like the incoming freshmen class of Republicans has all of their talking points down pat — we care about small businesses, tax cuts control runaway spending, we’re listening to the American people, freedom, and god bless America! Or in other words, another two years of platitudes and trickle-down economics. Hi, I’m Austin Scott. Earlier this month, I had the privilege of being elected to represent the people of Georgia’s Eighth Congressional District. This week, Americans will gather to give thanks for what matters most: for me, that’s family, faith and freedom. We are fortunate to live in a country where we, the people, are free to speak out and alter the course of our government. The American people have sent 85 new Republicans to Washington with a clear message: listen up, stop the job-killing policies, stop the runaway spending, and focus on getting our country back on track. The people certainly picked the right group of messengers to get the job done. Our freshman class includes seven farmers, six medical doctors, three car dealers, a former FBI agent, a pizzeria owner, and a former NFL lineman. All told, we’ve got 33 small businesspeople, folks who understand what it’s like to sign the front of a paycheck, and not just the back of one. It’s a new breed of leaders for a new majority and a new Congress. Republican leaders recognize how extraordinary our class is. The day after the election, they put us to work as part of the transition team planning for the new majority. Our freshman class has also been granted an unprecedented two seats at the leadership table in the 112th Congress. We’re excited to have Kristi Noem and Tim Scott representing us on the leadership team. But let’s face facts: fresh faces alone aren’t enough to bring about the change in course the American people are demanding. The real work lies ahead. As much as we have to be thankful for, too many Georgians and too many Americans have been out of work for far too long. Our new Republican majority is ready to focus on creating jobs and putting a stop to the runaway spending in Washington, DC. House Republicans have put a plan of action on paper with the Pledge to America, a governing agenda built by listening to the people. Watching our democracy work just as our founding fathers intended reminds us how hard-fought and hard-won our freedoms are. At this hour, tens of thousands of our sons and daughters are overseas in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world standing guard in defense of our country and the values on which it was built. We give thanks to our true heroes in uniform, we keep faith with them, and we mourn their fallen comrades. Thank you for listening. May God bless you, those you hold dear, and the great United States of America.”
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With rhetoric sounding like it’s coming straight out of Arizona, the Israeli cabinet has voted to construct a facility to hold detained undocumented immigrants who arrive to Israel from Africa. Prime minister Netanyahu claims migrants have “harsh implications for Israel’s character”. That’s political speak for “not Jewish”, by the way. —JCL Al-Jazeera English: Israel’s cabinet has voted to build a facility to hold the thousands of illegal immigrants who arrive every year mainly from Africa. The move is designed to provide a centre in the country’s southern Negev desert, close to the border with Egypt, where the basic needs of the migrants can be met, but they will not be allowed to work, Israeli officials said. “There is a swelling wave threatening Israeli jobs, a wave of illegal migrants that we must stop because of the harsh implications for Israel’s character,” Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, told the cabinet before the vote on Sunday. Read more Related Entries November 28, 2010 Recruiting ‘Allies’ to Israel November 24, 2010 More News, Less Turkey
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The oft-maligned BP is still sloughing off assets to stay economically afloat. The oil giant just sold a majority stake in Pan American Energy for $7.1 billion in cash, putting BP’s running total at $21 billion in assets sold. —JCL The New York Times: BP agreed on Sunday to sell its majority stake in Pan American Energy to its partner in the joint venture, Bridas, for about $7.1 billion in cash, as the wounded oil giant continues to sell off assets. With the sale of Pan American, one of the biggest oil producers in Argentina, BP will have raised about $21 billion of the $30 billion it hoped to reap from asset sales by the end of next year. The money is meant to help cover an estimated $40 billion in damage claims tied to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in the spring. Read more Related Entries November 23, 2010 Iran’s Parliament Schemes to Impeach Ahmadinejad November 22, 2010 Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion
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Wikileaks, the website that has provided damning classified material on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, has announced it is currently under attack by a denial of service attack as the site prepares to release another set of secret U.S. documents. Wikileaks is under a mass distributed denial of service attack, meaning that hackers are using multiple machines to persistently request information from Wikileak’s web server, essentially blocking the capacity for the Wikileaks site to service other users. —JCL The BBC: Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks says it is under attack from a computer-hacking operation, ahead of a release of secret US documents. “We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack,” it says on its Twitter feed. It adds that several newspapers will go ahead and publish the documents released to them by Wikileaks even if the site goes down. Read more Related Entries November 23, 2010 Iran’s Parliament Schemes to Impeach Ahmadinejad November 22, 2010 Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion
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Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, is on a kick to improve his country’s standing in Europe. His strategy? To develop “allies” abroad who will serve as walking PR agents for Israeli policy. —JCL The Guardian: Israel has instructed its embassies in 10 European countries, including the UK, each to recruit 1,000 members of the public to act as advocates for its policies in a new public relations offensive. A cable from the foreign affairs ministry was sent to embassies last week, with instructions from Avigdor Lieberman, the controversial and extreme right-wing foreign minister, to adopt a range of measures aimed at improving Israel’s standing in Europe. The most unusual was the order to identify up to 1,000 people by mid-January to act as “allies” to Israel. One source described them as “friends who are willing not just to receive messages but to actively promote these messages”. These individuals – likely to be drawn from Jewish or Christian activists, academics, journalists and students – will be briefed regularly by Israeli officials and encouraged to speak up for Israel at public meetings or write letters or articles for the press. Read more Related Entries November 28, 2010 Recruiting ‘Allies’ to Israel November 24, 2010 More News, Less Turkey
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enlarge As the charges against Julian Assange heat up , the anonymous folks of Wikileaks continue undaunted and promise another bombshell : Who: WikiLeaks. What: A Twitter message posted by the whistle-blowing website announced plans to release classified U.S. diplomatic cables reporting corruption allegations against foreign governments and leaders. WikiLeaks said the latest release will be seven times larger than the previous leak of classified Pentagon documents of roughly 400,000. U.S. State Department officials say the upcoming dump features corruption allegations and is set to cause serious embarrassment for American and foreign governments and politicians named in them. Where: It is not yet known where the classified documents would be released, however, the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, gave America’s New York Times, Britain’s Guardian newspaper and the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel – access to the documents some time ago. When: WikiLeaks has not specified when the tranche of documents would be released but Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said U.S. officials were expecting a possible release of documents ‘late this week or early next week’. As would be expected, the State Department has claimed that the leaks could cause irreparable harm and could put lives at risk . The latest leak is expected to include documents covering US dealings and diplomats’ confidential views of countries including Australia, Britain, Canada, Israel, Russia and Turkey. The letter from the US state department’s legal advisor Harold Koh was a response to correspondence from Mr Assange, who had written to the US ambassador to Britain, Louis Susman. Mr Assange had asked which individuals would be put at risk due to the leak, the State Department said. A senior American official told the BBC that Mr Assange was offering to negotiate over limited redactions. Of course, expect the government to go into overdrive in demonizing Assange even further in the hopes of deflecting the information.
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Would you ever in your wildest dreams imagine Chris Matthews flatteringly comparing Sarah Palin to former President Bill Clinton? During a lengthy opening segment about Palin's
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enlarge It’s a scary time, when the Republican Party moves further to the right each day . While this may be good for Democrats at least some of the time, it’s really not good for our country. It makes the possibility of an actual right-wing takeover that much more plausible: In an age when far-right tea party activists have taken over the Republican Party and demanded lockstep allegiance, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) has been one of the few GOP lawmakers to step out of line. In particular, Lugar, the ranking GOP member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has blasted his own party for relentlessly blocking ratification of the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia, calling on his fellow GOP senators to “ do your duty for your country ” and complete the pact. Not surprisingly, this insubordination has earned Lugar significant scorn within the Republican base, which now seems to value blind obedience over principled independent decision-making. In a New York Times profile of Lugar published today, former GOP Sen. John Danforth feared that the backlash against Lugar from his own party signals that the GOP has gone “ far overboard ” with no hope of turning back: “If Dick Lugar,” said John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri, “having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption .” Mr. Danforth, who was first elected the same year as Mr. Lugar, added, “I’m glad Lugar’s there and I’m not.” Danforth’s fears are not unfounded. Lugar, who is up for reelection in 2012, has already been targeted by tea party groups . “If I was Dick Lugar, I would certainly expect a challenge ,” noted veteran political analyst Stuart Rothenberg. As Diane Hubbard, a spokeswoman for the Indianapolis Tea Party, told the Times, removing Lugar “will be a difficult challenge. But we do believe it’s doable, and we think the climate is right for it and we believe it is a must.”
Continue reading …Reihan Salam: Conservative Backlash Against TSA Part of a Revival of Civil Liberties Talk on the Right
November 28, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media During the “Tell me something I don’t know” segment of The Chris Matthews Show, conservative columnist Reihan Salam suggests that after this dust up over the TSA’s invasive searches, the right is suddenly going to start caring about Americans’ civil liberties being violated. SALAM: The conservative backlash against the TSA is just part of a bigger revival of civil liberties talk on the right. We’re going to see a lot more of it in the next year or two. I’m sure those concerns will end again just exactly as soon as another Republican gets elected president. I’d like to know where their concerns were when the Bush administration was still in power.
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