politics

November 26, 2012

This Is Not The Response Fox News Expected When the Interview Started… Hahaha. #Benghazi

Journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas Ricks was brought on to talk Benghazi. His response caused the interview to be ended immediately.

Contacted about the whole thing, Ricks responded that he’d expected to spend about five minutes on Fox’s air, as opposed to the less-than-two minutes he ended up spending. Here are Ricks’s thoughts on the appearance:

I had told the producer before I went on that I thought the Benghazi story had been hyped. So it should have been no surprise when I said it and the anchor pushed back that I defended my view.

I also have been thinking a lot about George Marshall, the Army chief of staff during World War II, and one of the heroes of my new book. He got his job by speaking truth to power, and I have been thinking that we all could benefit by following his example as much as we can.

After I went off the air I saw some surprised faces in the hallway. One staff person said she thought I had been rude. My feeling was that they asked my opinion and I gave it.

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/post/fox-news-guest-slams-fox/2…

November 21, 2012

The insantiy of U.S. “Defence” spending (chart) #priorities

November 21, 2012

It’s gettin hard out here for a pimp: World’s richest woman makes case for $2-a-day pay

“

The world’s richest woman, Australian mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, said her country’s mining industry couldn’t compete with nations that are willing to pay workers less than $2 a day for their sweat and labor.

The implicit suggestion: Employers should be free to pay workers whatever they please.

This echoes Rinehart’s earlier to-do list, in which she urged Aussie lawmakers to cut the minimum wage so that, well, she wouldn’t have to spend so much money on things like workers’ salaries and benefits.

“The evidence is inarguable that Australia is becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to do export-oriented business,” Rinehart said at the Sydney Mining Club. “Africans want to work, and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day. Such statistics make me worry for this country’s future.”

Yep, it’s getting harder and harder to be a job creator.

Rinehart knows what it means to pull yourself up by the bootstraps. She inherited a fortune now estimated to be worth about $18 billion. That’s a heavy burden to bear.

Yet, inexplicably, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard didn’t take Rinehart’s advice in the generous spirit with which it was offered.

“It’s not the Australian way to toss people $2, to toss them a gold coin, and then ask them to work for a day,” Gillard said. “We support proper Australian wages and decent working conditions.”

Socialist.

“

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/05/business/la-fi-mo-richest-woman-pay-20120905

November 19, 2012

“Barack Hussein Obama is the most dangerous man on the planet” elected by “left wing hate”…

Oh god… How are these people even smart enough to use a computer?… Maybe I need to take a break from the internets for a while. I need to pretend these people don’t exist — for the sake of my own sanity…
November 18, 2012

Corporations Calling To ‘Fix The Debt’ Want $134 Billion In Tax Breaks


Ahead of negotiations over the so-called “fiscal cliff” and what promises to be another fight over raising the debt ceiling, 63 CEOs representing the largest U.S. corporations, including several Wall Street firms, launched a campaign to supposedly “fix the debt.” However, this campaign calls for additional corporate tax cuts by switching the U.S. to what’s known as a “territorial” corporate tax system, along the lines of that proposed by Mitt Romney.

According to a report by Institute for Policy Studies, the corporations involved could gain up to $134 billion in windfalls if Congress approves such a system, which exempts foreign earnings from the U.S. corporate income tax.

…


A territorial tax system actually rewards businesses that offshore jobs and investments. Corporate tax rates are already at a 40-year low of just 12.1 percent. Revenue from corporate taxes has plunged, despite a 60-year high in corporate profits.

November 18, 2012

Perspective. #Benghazi #Hypocrites #PartisanHacksWithTheShortTermMemoryOfAFly #p2 #tcot

Not to mention a couple people killed on 9/11/2001 if I recall… in either the biggest intelligence fuckup in history or complete and impeachable incompetence on the part of the Bush administration or a treasonable act of omission in order to create public support for a pre-conceived plan for global dominance (Project For A New American Century, anyone?…) — in either case, then there was that whole thing where W and the GOP decided they didn’t care about Bin Laden anymore and exploited the tragedy of 9/11 by lying about who was responsible and diverted all attention money and resources to launching a pre-emptive and illegal war of choice on a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 or terrorism causing a million+ deaths and 4 million+ displaced refugees. Oh yeah, and putting both wars on the country’s credit card – not only not paying for it, but not even including it in the budget. For 6 years. While giving Billions in tax breaks to rich people who didn’t need them. Remember all those Republicans screaming about the federal budget and the national debt during Bush’s 8 years in office? You don’t? Well, that’s strange. That would almost suggest… that maybe, just maybe, they are willfully-ignorant partisan thugs who put their party ahead of their country? Nah, couldn’t be… Hm, but that would also explain why they didn’t give 2 shits about Bush wiping his ass with the Constitution and eliminating basic human rights and civil liberties, while now they suddenly claim to care deeply and with an almost religious fervor. Hmmm… Interesting… I seem to remember that anyone who tried to speak out against any Republican / Bush Administration policies, foreign or domestic, was immediately silenced, vilified, publicly disgraced, had their character assassinated, their careers ruined, and were labelled traitors who hated America. Hmm… What’s changed?…

This whole manufactured Benghazi “scandal” perfectly encapsulates the absurdity of the GOP. Let me put it this way: if you supported George W Bush, then please do us all a favor and STFU. Otherwise you are clearly an imbecile, a liar, a hypocrite, a mindless partisan hack, or you have the memory of a fly. (Or some combination thereof.)

Thanks.

November 18, 2012

Noam Chomsky: My Visit to Gaza, the World’s Largest Open-Air Prison http://bit.ly/S3rPo0

Some needed perspective on Israel & Gaza…


http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12635-noam-chomsky-my-visit-to-gaza-the-worlds-largest-open-air-prison


“

“what has to be kept in mind is that the occupation and the absolute closure is an ongoing attack on the human dignity of the people in Gaza in particular and all Palestinians generally. It is systematic degradation, humiliation, isolation and fragmentation of the Palestinian people.”


This conclusion has been confirmed by many other sources. In The Lancet, a leading medical journal, Rajaie Batniji, a visiting Stanford physician, describes Gaza as “something of a laboratory for observing an absence of dignity,” a condition that has “devastating” effects on physical, mental and social well-being.


“The constant surveillance from the sky, collective punishment through blockade and isolation, the intrusion into homes and communications, and restrictions on those trying to travel, or marry, or work make it difficult to live a dignified life in Gaza,” Batniji writes. The ‘Araboushim’ must be taught not to raise their heads.


…


“I think feeling powerless and hopeless is the most killing feeling that a human can ever have. It kills the spirit and breaks the heart. You can fight occupation but you cannot fight your feeling of being powerless. You can’t even ever dissolve that feeling.”

A visitor to Gaza can’t help feeling disgust at the obscenity of the occupation, compounded with guilt, because it is within our power to bring the suffering to an end and allow the Samidin to enjoy the lives of peace and dignity that they deserve.

“

November 17, 2012

No more Twinkies?! : ( “Hostess Bankrupt – Vulture Capitalists Picked Corpse Clean”

“

To emerge from bankruptcy, the companies unions agreed to large concessions which these vulture capitalists demanded, cutting thousands of jobs, transferring benefits or cutting benefits entirely. The companies also agreed to modernize the factories, which were running at a loss due to the age of the equipment, some of which dated to the 1930s. The investments from Silver Point and Monarch were to go towards this modernization. Instead the company found itself saddled with even more debt. To add to the company’s woes, the holding companies stopped supporting the retirement fund, raiding it for easy cash to extract from the firm. The current estimates put the liabilities of this fund at over $2 billion currently.

In order to “save” the firm, the operators of the company turned to the unions, which had already surrendered huge concessions just a few years back to turn the company around, and demanded an across the board slash, an additional 31%, along with eliminating the retirement and benefits entirely. It was a bridge too far. The union went on strike, and now the company has declared it will be liquidated.

Of course the right-wing media is quick to blame the unions, but in the end the union members would have lost more if they had capitulated to the vulture capitalists demands. By this move, they can hope to salvage the retirement plan, while if they’d given in they would have lost it all. $2 billion is a lot of money to just “give away” in negotiations. Of course the unions were expected to surrender despite the fact that the management company was asking the bankruptcy court to give their outgoing CEO up to $5.5 million. All of this was in addition to the 80% raises the executives were being treated to.

……..

 “

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/11/16/hostess-bankrupt-vulture-capitalists-picked-corpse-clean-video/

November 16, 2012

Secession: “Now why didn’t someone think of this sooner?”… @TheOnion

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