The Grifters

Please consider:

1982: Reagan appoints Alan Greenspan to head the National Commission on Social Security Reform (The Greenspan Commission). The Commission calls for a payroll (FICA) tax hike to build up reserves in the Social Security trust fund to cover the years after the baby boom generation retires and Social Security begins running deficits.

1983: Social Security amendments are enacted, hiking payroll taxes to generate said surpluses in the trust fund.

1985: As the first surplus payroll taxes come in, they are shunted to the general fund and used to supplement other government programs. None of the money is saved or invested anywhere. Social Security revenue from working Americans ends up replacing revenue lost to Reagan’s big income tax cuts. More succinctly: The additional taxes U.S. workers pay into Social Security are used to fund tax breaks for the rich. It goes on to this day, to the tune of $2.5 trillion in all.

1987: Greenspan succeeds Paul Volker as chairman of the Fed, a position he holds until January 31, 2006. Just sayin'.

1990: Greenspan Commission member Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, a major advocate of the 1983 amendments, becomes incensed upon finding that first Reagan then George H.W. Bush co-opted the surplus Social Security revenue for other government functions instead of reserving and growing it for the baby boomers. Moynihan's suggestion that, if the government couldn't keep it's paws off the money, the fund should be dissolved is ignored by President Bush the First. Of course.

Moral:

Next time someone tells you Social Security is dragging the country down and must be cut, cut, cut, here's what they're really saying:
Thanks for the loan.
When you're ready to retire, piss off.
Fool.

Consider also:

This year (and every year since 2006) the Post Office is legally required to make a $5 billion annual contribution to a retirement account to pay for future retirees who aren't even born yet. That's 7 years totaling $35 billion so far.

This is a scheme to kill the postal service and privatize it because it is a hugely successful government program that people like. Republicans hate government, so a successful government program must be broken and destroyed. In light of that, one wonders how much of that money is still sitting there.

Just a thought.

Traitors: Dairylanders who signed Grover's pledge

These are the legislators from Wisconsin who have pledged their allegiance to Grover Norquist over their constituents:

WI-Sen Ron Johnson (R)
WI-01 Paul Ryan (R)
WI-05 Jim Sensenbrenner (R)
WI-06 Tom Petri (R)
WI-07 Sean Duffy (R)
WI-08 Reid Ribble (R)

These people are NOT in our corner, they don't have our back except to bury a knife in, and they need to be eliminated from government as soon as possible. They are anti-American.

Get the national list (pdf) here. Then, if they're running this year in your district, get off yer a$$ and vote them out.

They didn't build this; they destroyed it.

Class act: A friend Ann Coulter doesn't deserve to make

Illustration: Paul Szep via Huff Post

When John Franklin Stephens read Ann Coulter's tweet calling the President a retard,  he decided not to let her get away with it:

Dear Ann Coulter,

Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren’t dumb and you aren’t shallow.  So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult?

I’m a 30 year old man with Down syndrome who has struggled with the public’s perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb and shallow.  I am not either of those things, but I do process information more slowly than the rest of you.  In fact it has taken me all day to figure out how to respond to your use of the R-word last night.

John goes on to wonder what Coulter meant by the slur:

... I wondered if you meant to degrade him as someone who is likely to receive bad health care, live in low grade housing with very little income and still manages to see life as a wonderful gift.

I read John's letter with tears in my eyes, not just for John, but for my daughter and everyone else in the country at risk of losing hugely if Romney and Ryan get their way.

Having watched my daughter (who will remain unnamed here) grow up in and cope with this mean-spirited, selfish society we have built ourselves, I can still not fathom what it must be like to be John Franklin Stephens. Even more baffling is Mr. Stephens' ability to, as he puts it "[love] life so much":

I have to wonder if you considered other hateful words but recoiled from the backlash.

Well, Ms. Coulter, you, and society, need to learn that being compared to people like me should be considered a badge of honor.
No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.

John signs his letter "A friend you haven’t made yet."

Ann Coulter should be so goddam lucky. Read John's entire post.

Please support Special Olympics, and consider a donation.

Update: Can we please be rid of this sociopathic asshole? Just stop reporting the worthless shit she says. Please.

The hunger

"Strictly speaking, all amassing or hoarding of wealth above and beyond one's legitimate requirements is theft. There would be no occasion for theft, and therefore no thieves, if there were wise regulations of wealth and absolute social justice."

Mahatma Ghandi

A fact: There is a limited amount of material wealth available in the world. However much it is, and it is obviously vast, it is finite. When individuals are allowed, even encouraged, to gather unlimited fortunes, the vast majority of folks are going to be left sucking the shit end of the stick.

The human who takes way more than they need to live comfortably, frankly, is one of the faces of true evil in the world today. For every Mitt Romney (or Donald Trump, or [your favorite entitled jackass here]) there are legions of families who could be adequately fed, housed, doctored and employed for only a fraction of his wealth.

When you have more money than you and your children can possibly spend in a lifetime, how do you justify taking more?

How do you square your constant pressure to contribute less and less to the world you plunder more each year?

How much is enough?

 The United States has been down this road before, leading to sharp divides in the people: the 1770s, the 1860s, and the 1960s, to name a few. What makes this time different, imo worse, is that the divide is not about ideology or politics. It's about money, greed, pure and simple. The 400 richest Americans own as much wealth as the poorest half of us, and they are happy to use that money to buy elected officials who legislate to maintain their bloat-rate.

We have allowed the psycho-pathetic fringe of our country to commandeer our media, in large part; we have allowed them to take over statehouses and legislatures nation-wide. They have launched a full-scale attack on public education, because, you know, if nobody makes a buck on it it must be bad. They have sworn to roll back every piece of humane legislation since the 1920s because job creation they want the money. They have collectively told so many lies in pursuit of their goals as to poison the country.

Dice


The question is no longer who will let them; it's who will stop them.

Ayn Rand, paraphrased, #19

Hauntedtable via Rezinnaise

Willful Ignorance & Stupidity Preferable to Education & Intelligence

Well-known prig Rick Santorum can insult a room full of Values Voters and get applause for it:

"We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country," Santorum said, according to BuzzFeed and a video posted by Right Wing Watch, available above. "We will never have the elite, smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do." [article on Huffington Post]

Forgive me, but I really wish I was making this up. It makes me want to puke that these morons really believe ignorance and stupidity are virtues. My education and ability to think (and spell) make me suspect and somehow part of that shadowy "other" region occupied by President Obama and anybody else with an IQ greater than their belt size.

Stunning. Coupled with the nation-wide attack on public education, it's also frightening as hell. This is the Tea Party's "long game:" By 2016 or 2020, they intend to make the majority of Americans too stupid to know they're dumb.

Full transcript on Politico. Hat-tip: Huffington Post.

Letter from the colonies

[Thanks to oldmoderate for the great post; I couldn't resist riffing.]

Colonialism, according to Wikipedia, is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. They go on to call it (my emphasis):

". . . a set of unequal relationships between the metropole ['mother city'] and the colony and between the colonists and the indigenous population.

Here in Wisconsin, we're learning first-hand what it means to be "colonized" by a hostile power. Scott Walker is a colonial governor, placed in power by fascists running multinational corporations to control our fortunes to their best interest. We're getting the deluxe package:

• for-profit education fed by vouchers: taxpayer money going pretty much directly into the pockets of Walker's friends in the profit education business
• public employee unions busted, not only at the state level, but county, municipal and school district levels as well
• legislative chambers essentially closed to the public, silent protesters routinely arrested and hauled away for (couldn't make this shit up) holding a sign or shooting a cellphone video
• bills passed in the middle of the night, behind locked doors, with no scrutiny or input from constituents, those who, you know, might not agree with getting screwed repeatedly to profit the "job creators."
• speaking of, where the hell ARE the jobs?
• NRA and ALEC-driven concealed carry and castle doctrine legislation, one fatality so far
• one of the most draconian voter ID laws in the country, currently on a fast track to the Colonial supreme court, where it will be quickly freed of pesky injunctions by the court's ethics-impaired conservative majority and allowed to become law
• high-level civil service positions changed to gubernatorial appointments, often filled with the unqualified relatives of political donors and allies
• and then there's Walkergate . . .

Even though he's from 'Tosa, Scott Walker is a colonist. No, actually, he's a carpetbagger, as are Kleefisch,  the Fitzgeralds and the rest of this unholy train wreck of an administration, including 4 of 7 state supreme court justices. Walker's public motives are those of his handlers; he exhibits no loyalty to the state of Wisconsin, to its erstwhile reputation for open government, the quality of its air and water, or its people. While Walker has to "dance wit those whut brung him," for his political survival, his only real loyalty is to Scott Walker.

Olbermann is right: Walker is a fascist bastard. The things he's done to my state are anti-democracy and anti-American.

Here's your October Surprise ... a few months early

The latest ploy by the paleoconservative gang to throw Barack Obama out of the Whitehouse is ... (wait for it) ... WAR WITH IRAN!!!

A military strike on Iran, whether by the US or Israel or anybody, would pretty much destroy the global economy, particularly here in the land of the dollar bill, where every single aspect of our daily lives depends on what? Oil, boys & girls. If somebody bombs Iran, the price of a barrel of oil will likely go over $160 in a heartbeat when they close the Strait of Hormuz in response. If that happens, there will absolutely be a global great depression. Such a small price to pay for getting that black guy out of the Whitehouse, no?

From Thom Hartmann: 

"On Tuesday - International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde warned that a military strike on Iran could disrupt oil supplies around the world - causing the price of oil to spike 30%. Lagarde said, 'Clearly it would be a shock to economies if there was a major shortage of exports of oil out of Iran...A sudden and brutal rise in the price of oil would have serious consequences on the global economy.' "

So if you've been puzzled by the constant yammering about Irani nukes, despite the fact that Mossad and all 18 US intelligence agencies (18? That in itself makes you wanna puke) are convinced that Iran has no nukes, puz no more. They'll have to bomb Iran to take out Obama because, face it, without crashing the economy they probably can't.

They've tried strangling the US economy with their damnable tinkle-down economics, they've tried to strangle the working class by killing unions both public and private, and they've tried to gut some of the country's most popular and successful programs (social security, Medicare, even the Post Office, because it comprises the biggest public sector union on the planet) in the interest of tanking the economy and disabling their opposition.

Why must we sacrifice necessities for poor, working class, and disabled people in order to provide more money and toys for rich legislators and their friends?

 

Because it is the fascist way, and we are being taken over by fascists. Look at what's happened in Wisconsin.