News and Politics // Current

^#5

Tax Cuts for the rich lead to a higher Deficit

Funny is it just me or dose it look like every time the Rich people get a big tax cut the Deficit gose up.

macfan
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4 comments

14 hours ago

^#6

Blackwater Protects Obama and Hillary in Afghanistan

During the Democratic primary battle, blasting the private security firm Blackwater USA as a bunch of unaccountable trigger-happy mercenaries was an easy crowd pleaser – particularly after the September 2006 Nisoor Square incident and a subsequent congressional report that stated the company’s use of force was “frequent and extensive”.

Hillary Clinton announced she was sponsoring legislation banning the use of private security contractors. Barack Obama didn’t sign up to this and would not rule out using Blackwater and its ilk. But he made clear his disdain for the outfit, trumpeting in Iowa City last October his proposal for “tougher government reforms than any other candidate in this race – reforms that would eliminate the kind of no-bid contracts that this administration has given to Blackwater”.

He added: “Most contractors act as if the law doesn’t apply to them. Under my plan, if contractors break the law, they will be prosecuted.”

In Pennsylvania in March he stated that “we have to crack down on private contractors like Blackwater, because I don’t believe they should be able to run amok and put our own troops in danger and get paid three or four times or ten times what our soldiers are getting paid”.

So who do you think protected Obama and his fellow senators Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel during their recent and much ballyhooed congressional delegation trip to Afghanistan? Yep, that’s right – Blackwater.

In his Washington Whispers column, the well-connected Paul Bedard reports that Obama was overheard saying that “Blackwater is getting a bad rap”. A fairly startling alleged observation given his previous utterances about the company – though perhaps unsurprising given he was in a war zone and his life was in the hands of Blackwater guards.

A tight-lipped Anne Tyrrell, spokeswoman for Blackwater, said she could neither confirm nor deny that the company had been involved in the visits by the senators to Afghanistan or Iraq. My request to Bill Burton, Obama’s national spokesman, for comment on the Bedard story – including whether the alleged quote or its sentiment was genuine – went unanswered.

But a source familiar with Obama’s security arrangements told me that Blackwater, along with the Secret Service, did pull security for the three senators in Afghanistan, though not Iraq.

Deceiver describes this as Obama’s “Rosie O’Donnell moment” That’s maybe a tad harsh but it will be interesting to see whether Obama’s public position on Blackwater changes as a result of his up-close time with their personnel in Afghanistan.During the Democratic primary battle, blasting the private security firm Blackwater USA as a bunch of unaccountable trigger-happy... more

asherp
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0 comments

10 hours ago

^#7

War Is Peace: Can Science Fight Media Disinformation?

When I saw the statement repeated online that theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge would be dead... more

pjacobs51
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1 comment

11 hours ago

^#8

Gay marriage loses In Maine

I was there in the ballroom with the No On One campaign watching the results come back. I was there with friends of mine who had... more

asherp
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195 comments

18 days ago

^#9

State Medical Association says pot prohibition is 'failed public health policy'

In a laudable nod to the obvious, members of the California Medical Association's (CMA) House of Delegates have endorsed a... more

JackHerer
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17 comments

1 day ago

^#10

PETA passes out McCruelty meals to kids

Parents in Albany, New York are upset with the prominent animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals)... more

Manatee_man
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113 comments

14 days ago

^#11

Senate Democrats win vote to begin debate on healthcare bill

Sweeping health carelegislation has cleared its first hurdle in the U.S. Senate on a party-line vote. The 60-39 vote clears the... more

Future_America
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0 comments

10 hours ago

^#12

10 Year Old with Autism Benefits from Medical Marijuana

And from the very start, the cannabis was a godsend for Sam’s family. “The first time we did it, we wanted to see if... more

sharprichard
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55 comments

4 days ago

^#13

Unborn children for sale in S Korea

"The illegal sale of children makes up more than half of all the cases of human trafficking around the world, according to... more

pcs007
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0 comments

6 hours ago

^#14

No Dope: Ft. Lauderdale Man to Smoke 115,000th Joint

When you think of the world's most prolific pot smokers, certain names come to mind: Snoop, Cheech and Chong, Willie Nelson.... more

JackHerer
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24 comments

1 day ago

^#15

NASA finally finds water on moon

NASA has announced that after 6 billion years water has been found on the moon.... more

phxboy
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79 comments

9 days ago

^#16

Student Stuns Iran By Criticizing Supreme Leader To His Face

BEIRUT — An unassuming college math student has become an unlikely hero to many in Iran for daring to criticize the... more

elsonwvu
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31 comments

16 days ago

^#17

Dad speaks only in Klingon to son

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2009/11/dinkytown_dad_s.php Is this taking the whole Star Trek thing a teensie weensie bit... more

SleepDirt
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78 comments

3 days ago

^#18

House of straw passes fire test

A house built from straw-bales and panels of hemp has passed an industry standard fire safety test which exposed it to... more

JackHerer
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3 comments

1 day ago

^#19

Steven Weber: Republicans are pussies.

Republicans are pussies. From the congressional chicken hawks to the half-baked Alaskan Sarah Palin; from the wild-eyed... more

slarabee
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48 comments

2 days ago

^#20

Have the mega-rich achieved victory in their class-war?

How rich—and powerful—have today’s rich become? Some numbers can help tell the story. In 1974, the most affluent 1% of Americans averaged, in today’s dollars, $380,000 in income.

Now let’s fast-forward. In 2007, the most recent year with stats, households in America’s top 1% averaged $1.4 million, well over triple what top 1% households averaged back in 1974—and, remember, this tripling came after adjusting for inflation.

Americans in the bottom 90%, meanwhile, saw their average incomes increase a meager $47 a year between 1974 and 2007, not enough to foot the bill for a month’s worth of cable TV.

The bottom line: top-1% households made 12 times more income than bottom-90% households in 1974, 42 times more in 2007.

The numbers become even more striking when we go back a bit further in time and focus not on the top 1%, but on the richest of the rich, the top 400, the living symbol of wealth and power in the United States ever since America’s original Gilded Age in the late 19th century.

In 1955, our 400 highest incomes averaged $12.3 million, in today’s dollars. But the top 400 in 1955 didn’t get to enjoy all those millions. On average, after exploiting every tax loophole they could find, they actually paid over half their incomes, 51.2%, in federal income tax.

Today’s super rich are doing better, fantastically better, both before and after taxes. In 2006, the top 400 averaged an astounding $263 million each in income. These 400 financially fortunate paid, after loopholes, just 17.2% of their incomes in federal tax.

After taxes, as a group, the top 400 of 2006 had $84 billion more in their pockets than 1955’s top 400, $84 billion more they could put to work bankrolling politicians and right-wing think tanks and Swift Boat ad blitzes against progressive candidates and causes.

How could America’s super rich have so little, relatively speaking, back in 1955 and so much today? What has changed between the mid 20th century and the first decade of the 21st? We have lost, simply put, the economic checks and balances that so significantly discouraged grand concentrations of private wealth in the years right after World War II.

[more after the jump]How rich—and powerful—have today’s rich become? Some numbers can help tell the story. In 1974, the most affluent... more