The Last . . .

. . . person to give credit to the current U.S. Senate, would be ME . . .

. . . but . . .

Signs of progress began to emerge in U.S. budget talks on last Tuesday, as top Senate Democratic negotiator Patty Murray said that she sees a path toward an agreement to ease automatic "sequester" spending cuts.

Murray, asked if there was now a path forward in her talks with her counterpart, Republican Representative Paul Ryan, said: "I believe there is."

The lawmakers are racing against a December 13 deadline for a deal, as Republican resistance to including new tax revenues continued to be a sticking point, according to a Democrat on the negotiating committee headed by Murray and Ryan.

House and Senate negotiators were putting the finishing touches Sunday on what would be the first successful budget accord since 2011, when the battle over a soaring national debt first paralyzed Washington.

The deal expected to be sealed this week on Capitol Hill would not significantly reduce the debt, now $17.3 trillion and rising. It would not close corporate tax loopholes or reform expensive health-care and retirement programs. It would not even fully replace sharp spending cuts known as the sequester, the negotiators’ primary target.
(thanks to Reuters and the Washington Post)

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Once. . .

. . . upon a time. . .


(from The HIDDEN HISTORY of 9-11 edited by Paul Zarembka)
". . . [A] wise prince," advises Machiavelli, must whenever he has the occasion, foster with cunning some hostility so that in stamping it out his greatness will increase as a result."  I introduce a theory of terrorism inspired by Machiavelli's observation.  September 11 may be an example of expedient destruction ordered from within the state, a macabre instance of a state protection racket.  What I call Machiavellian state terrorism is terror/assassination performed for reasons different from the publicized ones; often initiated by persons or groups other than those suspected of the act; and - most important - secretly perpetrated by, or on behalf, of the violated state itself.  Machiavellian state terror advances the ruling agenda while disguising itself as the work of individuals or groups opposed to the state's fundamental principles.  I present as an example, an obscure 1971 assassination in Paris that obliquely foreshadows some critical elements of the official story of 9-11.  I conclude with a discussion on the importance of oppositional theory for maintaining a lively and democratic public discourse. . .'

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When. . .

. . . I'm president. . . 

(from http://www.voterocky.org/meet_rocky)
". . . On August 11, 2011, Rocky (Ross C. Anderson) denounced the Democratic Party and resigned his affiliation with it. He wrote in a letter to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that "The Constitution has been eviscerated while Democrats have stood by with nary a whimper. It is a bottom and gutless, unprincipled party, bought and paid for by the same interests that buy and pay for the Republican Party." On January 13, 2012, Anderson accepted the presidential nomination of the Justice Party, a new national political party. The Party’s primary principles are integrity, justice, and liberty for all. 

Rocky advocates:

    The promotion of the public interest through the defeat of the systemic corruption that has caused massive failures in public policy.
    An immediate end to the on-going wars
    Essential health care coverage for all citizens
    Urgent international leadership by the U.S. to prevent against the most catastrophic consequences of climate disruption
    Adequate revenues to balance the budget through fair taxation
    Treatment of substance abuse as a public health rather than a criminal justice issue
    Control of the Federal Reserve by the Treasury Department and Congress
    A balanced budget (or a surplus) except in times of war or major recession
    An end to the legal concept of corporate “personhood”
    A constitutional amendment to overrule Citizens United and to allow limits or prohibitions on the corrosive impact of money in our electoral system
    An end to the stranglehold on our government by the military-industrial complex. . . "

Maybe one day soon. . .



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Outlaws. . .

 (from IT'S EVEN WORSE THAN IT LOOKS;  HOW THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM COLLIDED WITH THE NEW POLITICS OF EXTREMISM by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein)

". . . A new law that flatly outlaws the super PACs would be the best route.  But as  the DISCLOSE Act vote in the 111th Congress shows, passing any campaign reform law without sixty Democrats in the Senate and a Democratic majority in the House is next to impossible.  Also close to impossible would be reform of the FEC or a new set of commissioners, at least as long as Mitch McConnell remains Senate Republican Leader;  he has made it clear that protecting the FEC as it now exists, that is, as a lawless agency, is a top priority for him.  As Public Citizen's Craig Holman has noted, "[McConnell] is really the whole key to the FEC. . . . He realized several years ago that a very effective way to minimize the effect of federal laws is to undermine the regulator."  So absent a recess appointment strategy on the part of the president, the government has to look for other options to provide disclosure and prevent brazen and illegal coordination.  As a first option, the Justice Department could prosecute violations of the coordination bans in cases where the brazen behavior has been most evident.  Justice does not need to wait for the FEC. . . "

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How? . . .

. . . Mitt? . . .

 (from MSNBC http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/19/10765542-romney-best-thing-i-can-do-for-student-debt-is-get-you-a-good-job) at a 'Town Hall' session at Bradley University recently. . .

 "I and my party are also devoted to making sure we don't pass on to you trillions upon trillions of dollars in debt. We have in the Democratic party people who are consumed with giving more and more benefits to me and my generation, and passing on those burdens to you,"

How, Mitt?


"My party, my vision, is about protecting economic freedom for you," Romney said. "I've had it for me. I've had economic freedom. I've achieved beyond my wildest dreams. I want economic freedom for you."

 How, Mitt?


"Well they can go wherever they’d like to go; this is a free society. But here’s what I’d say, which is the federal government should not tax these people to pay for Planned Parenthood," Romney said. "The idea of the federal government funding Planned Parenthood I’m going to say no, we’re going to stop that."

How and why, Mitt?


"Best thing I can do for student debt is get you a good job when you come out," Romney said.

How, Mitt?

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Sleight of hand. . .

. . . From CNN Opinion August 19, 2011

Editor's note: Al Franken, a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, is a U.S. senator from Minnesota.

(CNN) -- "Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters."

"This quote, taken from an e-mail sent by a Standard and Poor's official in 2006, says it all. Just two years after it was written, the house of cards that S and P helped build collapsed and roiled the global economy. And while I welcome the news that the Justice Department has launched an investigation into S and P, I imagine it will conclude what a lot of us have long known: S and P made record profits by knowingly handing out sterling credit ratings to complete junk.

It was the incompetence and corruption by S and P and its peers, Fitch and Moody's, that played a pivotal role in our financial meltdown that cost Americans $3.4 trillion in retirement savings, triggered the Great Recession with its massive business failure and job losses, and consequently caused the explosion of our national debt. . .

. . .And then when Wall Street ran out of subprime mortgages to securitize, it created another market by securitizing bets on those securities, which the Big Three also obediently gave their top rating. The rest is history.

The rating agencies' complicity bred the kind of incompetence that was on full display the day S and P downgraded our government's credit rating this month. Within minutes, Treasury Department analysts identified a $2 trillion dollar error in S and P's calculations. But instead of admitting its error, S and P simply came up with other reasons to justify its downgrade.

Why? Well, the rating agencies have an enormous stake in intimidating the federal government. As Jeffrey Manns, associate professor of law at George Washington University, recently wrote in The New York Times:

"The credit rating agencies are taking advantage of the country's financial problems to increase their own political power. ... The Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, enacted a year ago but not fully implemented yet, threatened to introduce unprecedented oversight and regulation. . .

. . .Lest you think that this is some kind of big government regulation of the free market, please understand that my colleague, Wicker of Mississippi, is one of the Senate's most conservative members. And it passed the Senate with a large majority, including 11 Republican votes, because it's not a progressive or a conservative idea -- it's a commonsense idea. . .

. . .When the Big Three's house of cards finally collapsed, the rest of America paid the price. Until we rein in the corruption of the credit rating agency industry, we are just asking for it to happen all over again."

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Al Franken.




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What's wrong with Egypt?

Thirteen people have died in the recent clashes between Muslims and Christians in Egypt. THIRTEEN!

After exhibiting a remarkable solidarity in their quest to depose what they viewed as a corrupt, dictatorial leader in favor of a more democratic government, they have now digressed to squabbling amongst themselves along religious lines. This population that inspired the world with their peaceful (mostly) demonstration for their basic human rights now shows the world an immature, tribal, self-defeating side that no one would have dreamed of two weeks ago.

Is there something in the atmosphere, the drinking water or the gummy bears in that part of the world that forces people to live in a constant state of turmoil?

Which country will take the lead and become an example to the region and the rest of the world, of what people can do when united for a just cause, without losing sight of the humanity of each and everyone of the members of the group and the humanity of entire population of the country???!!!!

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