Like Matt Taibbi, David Swanson also thinks the debt ceiling debate is a fraud . Matt Taibbi describes the debt ceiling charade in his own inimitable way: But what is becoming equally obvious, to both sides, is that the Obama White House is using this same artificial calamity to pitch its own increasingly rightward tilt to voters in advance of the 2012 elections. It has been extremely interesting in the last weeks to see observers on both sides of the aisle make this point. Just yesterday, the inimitable New York Times conservative Ross Douthat listed Obama’s not-so-secret rightward push as a the first in a list of reasons why the Republicans should dig in even more, instead of making a sensible deal: Barack Obama wants a right-leaning deficit deal . For months, liberals have expressed frustration with the president’s deficit strategy. The White House made no effort to tie a debt ceiling vote to the extension of the Bush tax cuts last December. It pre-emptively conceded that any increase in the ceiling should be accompanied by spending cuts. And every time Republicans dug in their heels, the administration gave ground. The not-so-secret secret is that the White House has given ground on purpose. Just as Republicans want to use the debt ceiling to make the president live with bigger spending cuts than he would otherwise support, Obama’s political team wants to use the leverage provided by those cra-a-a-zy Tea Partiers to make Democrats live with bigger spending cuts than they normally would support. Douthat makes this observation, then argues that the Republicans should recognize Obama’s hidden motive and hold out for an even better deal. It will then be a race to see which party can abandon employment in favor of deficit reduction faster . He writes: Why? Because the more conservative-seeming the final deal, the better for the president’s re-election effort. In that environment, Republicans have every incentive to push and keep pushing. Since any deal they cut will be used as an election-year prop in 2012, they need to make sure the president actually earns his budget-cutting bona fides. This is interesting because just last week, the liberal opposite of Douthat at the Times, Paul Krugman, came to the same conclusion: It’s getting harder and harder to trust Mr. Obama’s motives in the budget fight, given the way his economic rhetoric has veered to the right. In fact, if all you did was listen to his speeches, you might conclude that he basically shares the G.O.P.’s diagnosis of what ails our economy and what should be done to fix it. And maybe that’s not a false impression; maybe it’s the simple truth. One striking example of this rightward shift came in last weekend’s presidential address, in which Mr. Obama had this to say about the economics of the budget: “Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can’t afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs.” Krugman seems to believe that Obama has basically purged all of his real economic advisors and is doing what Bush did on foreign policy — engaging in complex and portentous policy initiatives at the behest not of experts, but political advisors. Just as Bush had Karl Rove telling him when and how to launch military invasions and drop bombs on unsuspecting foreign human beings in order to establish electoral credentials, Obama might be playing chicken with the budget for the benefit of undecideds in Florida and Ohio. Some of what we’re hearing is presumably coming from the political team, whose members seem to believe that a move toward Republican positions, reminiscent of former President Bill Clinton’s “triangulation” in the 1990s, is the key to Mr. Obama’s re-election. And Mr. Clinton did, indeed, rebound from a big defeat in the 1994 midterms to win big two years later. But some of us think that the rebound had less to do with his rhetorical move to the center than with the five million jobs the economy added over those two years — an achievement not likely to be repeated this time, especially not in the face of harsh spending cuts. The blindness of the DLC-era “Third Way” Democratic Party continues to be an astounding thing. For more than a decade now they have been clinging to the idea that the path to electoral success is social liberalism plus laissez-faire economics – in other words, get Wall Street and corporate America to fund your campaigns, and get minorities, pro-choice and gay marriage activists (who will always be frightened into loyalty by the Tea Party/Christian loonies on the other side) to march at your rallies and vote every November. They’ve abandoned the unions-and-jobs platform that was the party’s anchor since Roosevelt, and the latest innovations all involve peeling back their own policy legacies from the 20th century. Obama’s new plan, for instance, might involve slashing Medicare and Social Security under “pressure” from the Republicans. I simply don’t believe the Democrats would really be worse off with voters if they committed themselves to putting people back to work, policing Wall Street, throwing their weight behind a real public option in health care, making hedge fund managers pay the same tax rates as ordinary people, ending the pointless wars abroad, etc. That they won’t do these things because they’re afraid of public criticism, and “responding to pressure,” is an increasingly transparent lie. This “Please, Br’er Fox, don’t throw me into dat dere briar patch” deal isn’t going to work for much longer. Just about everybody knows now that they want to go into that briar patch .
Continue reading …Like Matt Taibbi, David Swanson also thinks the debt ceiling debate is a fraud . Matt Taibbi describes the debt ceiling charade in his own inimitable way: But what is becoming equally obvious, to both sides, is that the Obama White House is using this same artificial calamity to pitch its own increasingly rightward tilt to voters in advance of the 2012 elections. It has been extremely interesting in the last weeks to see observers on both sides of the aisle make this point. Just yesterday, the inimitable New York Times conservative Ross Douthat listed Obama’s not-so-secret rightward push as a the first in a list of reasons why the Republicans should dig in even more, instead of making a sensible deal: Barack Obama wants a right-leaning deficit deal . For months, liberals have expressed frustration with the president’s deficit strategy. The White House made no effort to tie a debt ceiling vote to the extension of the Bush tax cuts last December. It pre-emptively conceded that any increase in the ceiling should be accompanied by spending cuts. And every time Republicans dug in their heels, the administration gave ground. The not-so-secret secret is that the White House has given ground on purpose. Just as Republicans want to use the debt ceiling to make the president live with bigger spending cuts than he would otherwise support, Obama’s political team wants to use the leverage provided by those cra-a-a-zy Tea Partiers to make Democrats live with bigger spending cuts than they normally would support. Douthat makes this observation, then argues that the Republicans should recognize Obama’s hidden motive and hold out for an even better deal. It will then be a race to see which party can abandon employment in favor of deficit reduction faster . He writes: Why? Because the more conservative-seeming the final deal, the better for the president’s re-election effort. In that environment, Republicans have every incentive to push and keep pushing. Since any deal they cut will be used as an election-year prop in 2012, they need to make sure the president actually earns his budget-cutting bona fides. This is interesting because just last week, the liberal opposite of Douthat at the Times, Paul Krugman, came to the same conclusion: It’s getting harder and harder to trust Mr. Obama’s motives in the budget fight, given the way his economic rhetoric has veered to the right. In fact, if all you did was listen to his speeches, you might conclude that he basically shares the G.O.P.’s diagnosis of what ails our economy and what should be done to fix it. And maybe that’s not a false impression; maybe it’s the simple truth. One striking example of this rightward shift came in last weekend’s presidential address, in which Mr. Obama had this to say about the economics of the budget: “Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can’t afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs.” Krugman seems to believe that Obama has basically purged all of his real economic advisors and is doing what Bush did on foreign policy — engaging in complex and portentous policy initiatives at the behest not of experts, but political advisors. Just as Bush had Karl Rove telling him when and how to launch military invasions and drop bombs on unsuspecting foreign human beings in order to establish electoral credentials, Obama might be playing chicken with the budget for the benefit of undecideds in Florida and Ohio. Some of what we’re hearing is presumably coming from the political team, whose members seem to believe that a move toward Republican positions, reminiscent of former President Bill Clinton’s “triangulation” in the 1990s, is the key to Mr. Obama’s re-election. And Mr. Clinton did, indeed, rebound from a big defeat in the 1994 midterms to win big two years later. But some of us think that the rebound had less to do with his rhetorical move to the center than with the five million jobs the economy added over those two years — an achievement not likely to be repeated this time, especially not in the face of harsh spending cuts. The blindness of the DLC-era “Third Way” Democratic Party continues to be an astounding thing. For more than a decade now they have been clinging to the idea that the path to electoral success is social liberalism plus laissez-faire economics – in other words, get Wall Street and corporate America to fund your campaigns, and get minorities, pro-choice and gay marriage activists (who will always be frightened into loyalty by the Tea Party/Christian loonies on the other side) to march at your rallies and vote every November. They’ve abandoned the unions-and-jobs platform that was the party’s anchor since Roosevelt, and the latest innovations all involve peeling back their own policy legacies from the 20th century. Obama’s new plan, for instance, might involve slashing Medicare and Social Security under “pressure” from the Republicans. I simply don’t believe the Democrats would really be worse off with voters if they committed themselves to putting people back to work, policing Wall Street, throwing their weight behind a real public option in health care, making hedge fund managers pay the same tax rates as ordinary people, ending the pointless wars abroad, etc. That they won’t do these things because they’re afraid of public criticism, and “responding to pressure,” is an increasingly transparent lie. This “Please, Br’er Fox, don’t throw me into dat dere briar patch” deal isn’t going to work for much longer. Just about everybody knows now that they want to go into that briar patch .
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Click here to view this media Rep. Patrick McHenry was rewarded handsomely for slamming Elizabeth Warren at a Congressional hearing back in May, it seems. No wonder they wanted a second hearing. It was like a gold mine for him. I wonder if he got more after he went after her in a petty, personal way. Think Progress lists the donors and donations McHenry received on April 20, 2011, just ahead of the hearing: – Advance America PAC: $10,000 on 4/20/11 – Dennis Bassford, CEO of the Seattle-based payday lender MoneyTree: $4,600 on 4/20/11 – Sarah Bassford: $2,700 on 4/20/11 – Community Financial Services Association of America PAC (trade association for payday lenders): $5,000 on 4/20/11 – Checksmart Financial LLC PAC, an Ohio-based payday lender: $2,000 on 4/20/11 – A. David Davis, CEO of Ohio-based payday lender Check-n-go: $2,000 on 4/20/11 – Jared Davis, CEO of Ohio-based payday lender Axcess Financial: $2,000 on 4/20/11 – Roger Dean, CFO of Axcess Financial: $500 on 4/20/11 – EZCORP PAC, a Texas-based payday lender: $2,000 on 4/20/11 – Natl Pawnbrokers Assoc. PAC: $2,000 on 4/20/11 Advance America PAC is the political action committee for the payroll lender of the same name. Anyone who has had the misfortune of using them understands just how predatory they really are, and it’s not exactly surprising to discover they’re thriving in this economy, either. But then, their victims aren’t Republicans, so there’s that. Since we’re not going to get corporate money out of politics anytime soon, the best we can do is keep showing how it buys politicians for more than just votes. In this case, clearly they have a vested interest in not only keeping Elizabeth Warren out of of the CFPB, but also discrediting her personally as much as possible. Only a bought-and-paid-for politician like McHenry would stoop so low as to call her a liar about her schedule to satisfy his masters. This right here is why we can’t have nice things.
Continue reading …Rick Santorum Responds to Dan Savage Wanting to Perform Violent Hate Sex on Him
July 18, 2011 No Comment
As NewsBusters previously reported , sex advice columnist Dan Savage on HBO's “Real Time” Friday said he wanted to perform violent hate sex on Rick Santorum. On Monday, the former Pennsylvania Senator responded on WOR radio's Steve Malzberg show ( audio available here , relevant section at 5:00, partial transcript and commentary follow): STEVE MALZBERG, HOST: What’s your reaction to this filth? RICK SANTORUM: It’s just that. It’s filth. It’s, you know, this man has, has gone out there and tried to destroy my integrity. I mean, you’ve heard the whole issue of the Google issue. That’s Dan Savage. You know, it’s, it’s the lowest, you know, debasement of public discourse. It’s, it’s offensive beyond, you know, anything that any public figure or anybody in America should tolerate, and the mainstream media laughs about it. They, they, they kid about it. They write about it. They say, “Oh, Santorum’s got a Google problem.” For those unfamiliar, Savage initiated a campaign in 2003 to associate Santorum's name with a sexual act. As the gay activist alluded to on “Real Time” Friday, a santorum in perverted parlance now despicably refers to “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.” That's the kind of animal Savage is. Let's continue: SANTORUM: And then when you see this kind of even over the top, you know, not even, beyond that, the Google is worse than, than what he said there. They, they laugh about that, too. Why? Because it’s a liberal beating up on a conservative. And that’s okay. Whether it’s Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann, it’s the Left making fun of someone who believes in the values that built America. It believes in traditional marriage. How outrageous. How bigoted. How hateful that you actually believe that, that, you know, raising children and, and, and families with mothers and fathers is something to be encouraged. That you’re, that, that, just because you hold those opinions, you are subject to the worst form of, of, of, of vulgarity on the internet, on television, and everywhere else, and they get away with, not only do they get away with the mainstream media, but they are applauded by the mainstream media. They are made, they are celebrated by, as you mentioned, in New York, by taking on these, these people who believe in these outmoded virtues, and, the bottom line is I stand and I wear it as a badge of honor that someone as vulgar and as, and as disgusting and as hate-filled as Dan Savage sees me as public enemy number one. To me, that tells me I must be doing something right. MALZBERG: Well, listen, God bless you, and you know you have friends here, and this man, again, I, I, I would like to see the organizers of the Gay Pride Parade to denounce him. Readers are advised that the man saying this vile stuff on national television – who also said he wished Republicans “were all f–king dead” – was the Grand Marshall of last month's Gay Pride Parade in New York City. They should be so proud. But I again digress: SANTORUM: They won’t denounce. They will applaud him for taking on, you know, someone who stands in their way. And this is all, this isn’t about power, Steve. This is about using, this is about (?), this is about intimidation. To ultimately see this is about intimidating anybody who stands up against them. You stand up against them, they will intimidate you, they will, they will use vile things, and the media will applaud them, and you will be ostracized in society. That’s their objective. It is, it is, it is nothing short of that. And so I would just encourage those who don’t want to see that trend to continue, if you can help us out, I would appreciate it, because I tell you what, they will keep it up, they will keep trying to marginalize and ostracize anybody who stands up against them and the media will applaud them. I would appreciate your help. You can go to ricksantorum.com if you want to help us. After saying goodbye to his guest, Malzberg gave his own opinion on this issue: MALZBERG: I mean, when I saw that, and I saw that on, on, on NewsBusters.org. I mean, I don’t watch – I don’t even have HBO. I wouldn’t give these people a dime. I stopped subscribing to HBO when they ran that series. It was after the Sopranos. It was after Curb Your Enthusiasm. It was, and it was, well, I think, I guess Curb is still on, but, it was when they made that military series about us fighting in the War, and it turned my stomach. I said, “That’s it – no more HBO.” So I dumped HBO, and boy oh boy, am I glad I did. To pay Bill Maher’s salary? How does he get away with this? How does the media allow this? How? I mean, to say that they, to have a show. To me, this is worse than what he got canned on ABC for saying when he reportedly got canned for saying that, as we played the other day, that our, it’s cowardly for us to lob rockets out of planes, but it’s not cowardly, and I’m paraphrasing, for the terrorists to stay on the plane. In other words, our troops are cowards but the terrorists were brave. That’s how I interpreted it. And he got canned. This, making jokes about having someone, I don’t know. It’s, and then the attack on Santorum. Can you imagine a conservative attacking a liberal presidential candidate in that manner? I’d like to blank the blank out of him. Are you kidding me? But, Santorum has it read properly. He’s right on target. This is, this is what they do, and the people who run the Gay Pride Parade, and anybody who participated in the Gay Pride Parade in New York City, if they don’t come out and denounce this in my view animal, Dan Savage, then they approve of him, and there’s no difference between them. As KSFO's Brian Sussman told me Monday morning, if he or any conservative radio host made this kind of a comment about any liberal, he not only would be immediately fired, it would be the end of his career. But so-called comedian Marc Maron and Savage can make such vile comments about conservative presidential candidates on national television, and neither them nor anyone associated with the show got admonished in any way. Exactly how did we get here as a nation where such invective is accepted and applauded by one side of the media while meeting with the harshest consequences on the other? As I wrote in my reports about Friday's “Real Time,” it may have contained the most vile political discussions ever aired on national television. Given the absence of announcements by HBO addressing what occurred on their program, it appears the powers that be at the cable network are just fine with this kind of discourse being aired by them. Makes you wonder how much worse it's going to get before they step in and stop it – or is there no such point?
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On his Saturday show Your Money, CNN host Ali Velshi tried to pin the blame for the debt ceiling standoff on one man – the president of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist. “Are you the reason that we don't have a debt ceiling increase right now?” he boldly asked his guest. Velshi was referring to Norquist's pledge that entails elected officials who sign it promising to oppose increases in taxes. Velshi termed the pledge one of “remarkable inflexibility.” He questioned outright the viability of the pledge. “Why is preserving the inability to increase taxes more important than the overall health of the economy and the danger that it's putting us into right now?” he asked. [Video below the break.] The host interrupted his guest multiple times, framing the debate around his own terms and even suggesting that certain higher taxes are “fair.” When Norquist tried to argue that the current debt situation is due to President Obama, Velshi abruptly dismissed the point as “an unreasonable position.” “A lot of people are wondering if it's appropriate that you hold so much power in the Republican Party,” the CNN host asked Norquist, throwing a cheap shot his way. He made sure to get another low blow in at the interview's end. “Grover Norquist is the president of Americans for Tax Reform, a name that doesn't entirely represent what he's doing,” Velshi growled. A transcript of the segment, which aired on July 16 at 1:08 p.m. EDT is as follows: ALI VELSHI: Grover, your lobbying group has gotten more than 230 House Republicans and nearly 40 GOP senators to sign a pledge never to support an increase in taxes. And you warn those who break your pledge will pay a political price. Are you the reason that we don't have a debt ceiling increase right now? (…) GROVER NORQUIST, president, Americans for Tax Reform: Our friend, President Obama, has said he won't try and solve the problem he created with his spending unless people give him more money. VELSHI: Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. He created with his spending? You didn't just suggest that our budget problem is because of President Obama, did you, Grover? (…) VELSHI: Let's – let's have a real conversation here, Grover. (…) VELSHI: Are we in this debt situation – (Crosstalk) – because of the Obama administration, Grover? NORQUIST: Yes. VELSHI: OK. We're going to pass by that question, because that's an unreasonable position. (…) VELSHI: Why is preserving the inability to increase taxes more important than the overall health of the economy and the danger that it's putting us into right now? (…) VELSHI: OK, Grover, hold on right there because I want to ask you whether or not there are any taxes in this country that you need to see increased to make things a little more fair. (…) VELSHI: Grover, you've gotten so many Republicans in Congress to sign a pledge to never raise taxes. A lot of people are wondering if it's appropriate that you hold so much power in the Republican Party. You've never been elected to public office. But you certainly are influential. What's the consequence, if somebody who has signed one of those pledges, one of those pledges of remarkable inflexibility that you forced them to sign, goes against you? (…) VELSHI: Is it not more important, Grover, that people can trust their elected officials to make the right decisions in their interest than to be loyal to Grover Norquist so that they get reelected again? NORQUIST: OK, are you not listening? VELSHI: I'm listening very clearly. NORQUIST: The pledge is not to me. The pledge is to their constituents. VELSHI: I'm waiting for you to tell me why what you do makes America better. (…) VELSHI: I'll give you this, Grover. You were into this long before it was majority opinion. But right now, you've seen the Quinnipiac poll. You've seen the Gallup poll that says most Republicans – not most Americans – most Republicans agree with the fact that there need to be spending cuts and some corresponding tax increases. Do you think that there is not a tax in America on the wealthy or on corporations that needs to be increased? There's just no tax anywhere that you think needs to be increased? (…) VELSHI: And I'll save — I'll save the viewers, by the way, from going to your Web site. The pledge reads this, “I, the undersigned, pledge to the taxpayers of the state of undersigned and all the people of this state that I will oppose and vote against all efforts to increase taxes.” (…) VELSHI: And are you OK with the fact that the pledge may cost Americans when this debt ceiling is not increased? It will cost Americans a lot of money when it's not increased. NORQUIST: I hope that President Obama will not stick to his ideological left-wing guns and demand more spending and tax increases, that he will come to the table and actually put something in writing, which he hasn't done yet. There is no Obama plan in writing – VELSHI: Wow. NORQUIST: – that he's negotiating from. VELSHI: Grover, it is remarkable – remarkable to hear you suggesting that President Obama does not stick to his ideological guns when your entire – NORQUIST: I hope he won't. VELSHI: – existence is about sticking to your ideological guns. Grover Norquist, thanks for coming on the show. Grover Norquist is the president of Americans for Tax Reform, a name that doesn't entirely represent what he's doing.
Continue reading …Asked Why Workers Should Pay For Tax Cuts, Romney Repeats The Right-Wing Lie That We Need Lower Taxes On Business To Compete
July 18, 2011 No CommentGood old Mittens! He’s standing up for the rights of corporations to squeeze every last drop out of the U.S. treasury that by rights, belongs to them and their warrior class of entrepreneurial heroes. So much so, that when this man asks a rational question at a Rotary Club event, instead of answering him, Mittens repeats the right-wing lie that we have the highest taxes in the industrial world. He doesn’t seem to want to explain that the effective rate (that is, the rate paid after numerous deductions) is one of the lowest. That’s why we have so many giant corporations that not only pay no tax at all, they even get rebates. But Mittens insists they need even more tax cuts in order to compete: A member of the local Rotary Club stood yesterday to ask former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) a question weighing on the minds of millions of jobless Americans: At a time when corporations are sitting on record amounts of cash , why are the Americans who can least afford it being asked to shoulder the burden of trillions of dollars in potential budget cuts? But Romney dodged the question, ignoring the plight of the poor and unemployed, and instead launched into a speech about how American jobs were being outsourced to developing countries with cheap labor and miniscule tax rates because the U.S. has made itself unattractive to major corporations. Instead of sticking up for Americans who are facing cuts to the safety net programs they desperately need, Romney took the opportunity to proclaim that America’s problems could be fixed if it gave corporations yet another tax cut : QUESTIONER: We obviously need cuts to the budget…but many of the recipients of those programs are Americans whose jobs have gone places where labor is cheap. So corporate profits remain high and in some cases higher than ever. Is it fair to ask those Americans to shoulder reductions in favor of businesses and corporations who have sent those jobs overseas? ROMNEY: We need to make ourselves the most attractive place in the world for entrepreneurs and pioneers and businesses, just like it was when the Founders created this country. How do you do that? One, you make sure our employer tax rates aren’t the highest in the world . Right now they’re tied with Japan as the highest in the world. They’re about 10 points higher than the corporate tax rates in many of the countries in Europe.
Continue reading …Asked Why Workers Should Pay For Tax Cuts, Romney Repeats The Right-Wing Lie That We Need Lower Taxes On Business To Compete
July 18, 2011 No CommentGood old Mittens! He’s standing up for the rights of corporations to squeeze every last drop out of the U.S. treasury that by rights, belongs to them and their warrior class of entrepreneurial heroes. So much so, that when this man asks a rational question at a Rotary Club event, instead of answering him, Mittens repeats the right-wing lie that we have the highest taxes in the industrial world. He doesn’t seem to want to explain that the effective rate (that is, the rate paid after numerous deductions) is one of the lowest. That’s why we have so many giant corporations that not only pay no tax at all, they even get rebates. But Mittens insists they need even more tax cuts in order to compete: A member of the local Rotary Club stood yesterday to ask former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) a question weighing on the minds of millions of jobless Americans: At a time when corporations are sitting on record amounts of cash , why are the Americans who can least afford it being asked to shoulder the burden of trillions of dollars in potential budget cuts? But Romney dodged the question, ignoring the plight of the poor and unemployed, and instead launched into a speech about how American jobs were being outsourced to developing countries with cheap labor and miniscule tax rates because the U.S. has made itself unattractive to major corporations. Instead of sticking up for Americans who are facing cuts to the safety net programs they desperately need, Romney took the opportunity to proclaim that America’s problems could be fixed if it gave corporations yet another tax cut : QUESTIONER: We obviously need cuts to the budget…but many of the recipients of those programs are Americans whose jobs have gone places where labor is cheap. So corporate profits remain high and in some cases higher than ever. Is it fair to ask those Americans to shoulder reductions in favor of businesses and corporations who have sent those jobs overseas? ROMNEY: We need to make ourselves the most attractive place in the world for entrepreneurs and pioneers and businesses, just like it was when the Founders created this country. How do you do that? One, you make sure our employer tax rates aren’t the highest in the world . Right now they’re tied with Japan as the highest in the world. They’re about 10 points higher than the corporate tax rates in many of the countries in Europe.
Continue reading …NBC’s ‘Today’ Wonders Why Americans Are ‘Obsessed’ With Breasts, Then Shows Breasts 54 Times
July 18, 2011 No Comment
Monday's NBC Today decided to devote a six-minute segment in the 8 a.m. ET hour to America's “obsession” with breasts, with co-host Ann Curry declaring: “…they have become an object of sort of undue fascination.” As the report was teased throughout the broadcast and during the segment itself, 54 pairs of breasts appeared on screen , with some images repeated. The irony of doing a segment filled with images of breasts while asking why people were obsessed with them seemed to be lost on NBC reporters and pundits as they decried the amount of attention given to that part of the female anatomy. Fill-in co-host Lester Holt referred to it as a “tempest in a C cup.” Correspondent Amy Robach reported: “Just how much are breasts on the human mind? A quick Google for them, paired with 'boobs' and the slang word starting with a 'T,' turns up almost a billion hits.” Following Robach's report, Curry discussed the topic with a panel women and wondered if the fascination was unique to America: “Are they a bigger obsession in this country than they are in other countries?” Anthropologist Natalia Reagan argued: “I think they are for a few reasons. One of them, obviously, there's a lot of rules restricting what can be shown on television and what can even be said on television about breasts.” Curry interjected: “So the conservative, kind of maybe almost…puritanical nature.” Reagan replied: “Yes.” Glamour magazine editor-in-chief Cindy Levi agreed with that observation: “I do think that that's probably true. You know, that the more conservative society, probably the more, sort of, obsessed we become about those things.” In her report, Robach noted recent incidents in which women were criticized for being too revealing: “For all of our cartoonish emphasis on the breast, showing too much of one is no laughing matter in some quarters.” Mentions included Janet Jackson exposing a single breast during the Super Bowl halftime show and the controversy surrounding a low-cut dress worn by Katy Perry during a Sesame Street appearance.
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One month ago, President Obama blamed the sluggish economy on technologies like ATMs and self-service kiosks, extremely underestimating the value Americans find in innovation. To prove how vital new technology is to the economy, Southern Methodist University professor Michael Cox asked his students how much money they would have to be paid to give up the internet for the rest of their lives, but found few takers to his proposal. Do you think you could be paid to give up the internet forever? Check out a video produced by the free market group the Fund for American Studies after the break, and let us know what you think in the comments. Beyond giving up the internet, the video also questions how much people are willing to pay for new technological devices. Computers once cost millions of dollars, cell phones cost thousands, and cameras cost hundreds, but their prices have all dramatically fallen since their invention due to competition to create the best, most cost-efficient products. Because of what the video explains as a free market system, the wealthy buy new products first at their peak prices. After glitches are ironed out and production costs are lowered, the products gradually become affordable to an increasingly wider audience. The market that allows for this technological growth is also a driving economic force. As Ted Balaker at Big Government explains , About a century ago roughly 40 percent of Americans worked on the farm, but technology–from tractors to new irrigation techniques–has made agriculture vastly more efficient. Today less than 1 percent of us works on the farm. But the fact that we can feed far more people with far fewer workers is progress. Likewise, if food magically appeared in our refrigerators, it would be tough on the remaining agriculture workers, but free food would be one of humanity’s greatest achievements. Technology allows us to do more with fewer workers, and that efficiency allows the folks who would have been farmers or travel agents to get to work meeting society’s other needs and wants by, for instance, creating software. Today America is home to more than a million software engineers. These and countless other jobs were “created” because the market served the needs and wants of consumers. Technology may not create as many jobs as we’d like as quickly as we’d like, but as an engine of growth it’s much more effective than a big blast of government spending. And when Obama’s own economists admit that each job the stimulus “created or saved” cost taxpayers $278,000, it’s clear that the White House’s tweeting technocrats are in no position to criticize efficiency. How much would you have to be paid to give up the internet forever?
Continue reading …Last Year, America Spoke Loud and Clear. We Still Haven’t Changed Our Minds: Tax The Rich, Cut Defense Spending!
July 18, 2011 No CommentA little more than a year ago, I attended the AmericaSpeaks town hall, which was billed as an opportunity for Americans to have their say in the America’s budget decisions. I was so impressed by how informed and assertive my fellow Americans were about standing up for other people, and that’s what I wrote. What I didn’t say was how curious I was about how and why the event was put together. Yes, I knew that Pete Peterson had funded it, but who was pushing it? Who was this AmericaSpeaks group, anyway? I talked to a knowledgeable insider (someone who’d worked on the issue for decades), and he told me AmericaSpeaks didn’t initiate the project – it came from the White House. In fact, he told me, Austen Goolsbee had been tasked by the White House with bringing public opinion in line with supporting cuts to Social Security and Medicare. I didn’t write about it then because my source wasn’t willing to go on the record. But under the current circumstances, I thought I’d tell readers, and remind you all to take what you hear about the need to cut these programs with a very large grain of salt . And by the way? People’s opinions on what to cut haven’t changed! For the first time in a long time, I might have some faith in America. Because no matter how many times the facilitators of this event (which was funded heavily by Pete Peterson, the conservative billionaire who wants to cut Social Security ) tried to steer us toward cutting Social Security and Medicare , the 3500 or so people who took part in this national town hall weren’t buying it. Sure, there were Fox News junkies here and there, and some cautious, low-information voters who kinda-sorta disagreed, but the majority who attended seemed to have their own ideas about how to solve the deficit “problem.” You know what most of them wanted to do? Soak the rich — and cut defense spending. (Are you listening, President Obama?) I thought maybe it was just my table, but when they tabulated the results, it was pretty much the same throughout the crowded ballroom of several hundred attendees. (Whew!) And the national tabulation from the 19 cities across the country showed pretty similiar results. In fact, the only places in which it varied from a progressive agenda were on more complex, less familiar topics like the tax deductions businesses take to keep jobs in this country. (“They leave anyway!” my tablemates exclaimed.)That, in spite of a pretty sophisticated, full-scale marketing push. When you arrived, you were given a glossy information packet and asked to fill out a questionnaire about core values. Now, clearly this approach had been focus-grouped, because the common theme seized on by the moderators was our desire to leave a better world for the next generation. (Apparently they thought this would translate to a spirit of self-sacrifice. Hah!) When we talked about the economic recovery, I said the deficit had nothing to do with it. “It’s only a ‘crisis’ when the GOP is out of power and they want to cut entitlements,” I said. “The top economists are all saying you don’t worry about the deficit in a major recession, so why would we even accept this premise?” (I think I made our facilitator nervous. So did the guy who said he was worried about a double-dip recession.) It was also a happy moment when we pointed out that they forgot to include the possibility of cutting the estate tax in their budget estimates. That, and the loud snickers throughout the room when our hosts showed a video starring Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg .) Even more heartening, though, was how carefully people looked at the questions. You know what else they said? They’d rather see no cuts at all in any social programs than give Congress the go-ahead to slash them. They don’t trust them to look out for the interests of the vulnerable over the corporate interests. (Hell, one guy at my table even quoted Karl Marx ! “Shouldn’t matter who said it if it’s a good idea,” he said.) You know what everyone said they supported instead of Medicare cuts? Medicare for all! In fact, people wanted to spend more money on all social programs! About the only real non-progressive moment came when a couple of the older participants said they thought they could support raising the age at which you got full Social Security benefits. “Wait a minute,” I said. “That’s actually a benefit cut. If you paid in for all those years expecting to get that, you can’t turn around and take it away.” They hadn’t thought of that. We talked about personal responsibility vs. government care, but agreed we just didn’t trust Congress to make those decisions.The facilitator kept saying things like, “Are you keeping in mind future generations, and the young people who aren’t present here today? Are you voting for their interests as well?” Several of us pointed out that a single-payer system was best for their interests – that it would stimulate the economy and generate more jobs. (Although by the time the sentiment was shown on the conference screen, it said “single-payer option in our healthcare system” or something similarly convoluted. Which, you know, kind of defeats the purpose of single-payer and kills the economic benefits. But whatever!) One of the guys at my table went off on a rant about Social Security “running out because the politicians stole the money.”“Hold on, Social Security is not running out,” I said. “It’s completely funded through 2036, and even if we didn’t do a thing, it would still pay out 80% of the benefits. All we have to do is raise the cap on earnings and raise the payroll tax by one percent, and we’d be fine.” (I was in sales. I’m pretty persuasive. Come to think of it, why aren’t progressives holding town hall meetings on Social Security?) Anyway, there were many, many insidious attempts to reframe the debate. But people were pushing back on just about everything – in the nicest, most polite way. But they definitely pushed back. Despite the little hints from the emcee about “denial” and “making hard choices,” the attendees held their ground. And politicians did not get the go-ahead signal to go anywhere near Social Security. Frankly, I was surprised. But in a good way! Now we’ll see just how AmericaSpeaks frames the results. But I want to tell you: Today, Americans did us proud. I hope they keep their guards up.Because this is only the beginning. Obviously, the plan is to wear down our resistance with more clever infomercials like this one. As predicted, it was only the beginning. But understand: This was a long-term plan, one we shouldn’t let the powers that be shove down our throats under the pretext of solving a crisis.
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