"The Republican Party shouldn't lay out an • 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation's wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.
And hedge fund manager Jeremy Grantham wrote some wise words in a letter to investors:
"Conspiracy theorists claim to believe that global warming is a carefully constructed hoax driven by scientists desperate for ... what? Being needled by nonscientific newspaper reports, by blogs and by right-wing politicians and think tanks? I have a much simpler but plausible 'conspiracy theory': the fossil energy companies, driven by the need to protect hundreds of billions of dollars of profits, encourage obfuscation of the inconvenient scientific results. I, for one, admire them for their P.R. skills, while wondering, as always: "Have they no grandchildren?"
A six-year archive of classified military documents made public on Sunday offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.Long, with a ton of documentation.
The secret documents, released on the Internet by an organization called WikiLeaks, are a daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year.
...
The documents — some 92,000 reports spanning parts of two administrations from January 2004 through December 2009 — illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001.
As the new American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, tries to reverse the lagging war effort, the documents sketch a war hamstrung by an Afghan government, police force and army of questionable loyalty and competence, and by a Pakistani military that appears at best uncooperative and at worst to work from the shadows as an unspoken ally of the very insurgent forces the American-led coalition is trying to defeat.
...
What this article tells me is we have no coherent strategy in the Afghan theater. If we're out to "win hearts and minds", you can't have SOF teams roaming the countryside with a "license to kill". If we want the locals on our side, we can't go killing them wholesale with unmanned drones these people see, in their 10th Century way, as the closest thing to Aliens. But (9 years on) it's too late to "unring" that bell.
Had we done any research on the culture over there (and the arbitrary political divisions the British drew up before they
Had they asked any of us who'd played a part in "Charlie Wilson's War" 30 years ago, they would have learned that the only reason we saw some success then (we paid through the nose at the time too) is because the US, the group that would become Al Quaeda, and the Pakistanis had a common enemy in the Soviets. They didn't detest us any less than the Soviets but we served their purposes (Stinger missiles, unlimited small arms, ammo, explosives, and, of course, money) until the Communists were gone.
I'm sure there were some in our government, at the time, who knew this Afghan adventure would only end up with the result we have now and counseled against it. But, if you'll remember, we were out for vengeance; "Dead or Alive" and all that good shit and nobody listened to the levelheaded folks. If you weren't gung-ho, you were a traitor.
Personally, I thought it would be quick, Osama's dead ass hung from the fence in front of the White House, and that would have been it. Then they blew it at Tora Bora as all eyes were on the prize (oil) in Iraq. And the "war" drags on.
Our mission might have been right-minded at one time and might have met with some success had it been run better from the beginning, but with the Bush administration (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld) holding the reins, Afghanistan, like Iraq, was doomed to failure. To them, Afghanistan was merely an entry point, taking advantage of a national tragedy to put us on a war footing, to allow them to realize their primary goal, taking the oil fields of Iraq. There was no commitment to do anything related to "winning".
Afghanistan is lost. There is nothing we can do now to "win hearts and minds" and "bring democracy" to that place. There is nothing we can do but pack up and leave. Hopefully, this article will cause enough people to wake up and smell the coffee and realize we're throwing hundreds of billions of dollars down a dry hole.
Meanwhile, it has come to light that Goldman Sachs (a/k/a the Global Vampire Squid was lying when it said that if AIG had defaulted, that Goldman Sachs would have had few losses. The AIG rescue, which has cost well over a hundred billion dollars, looks more and more like it was engineered to be a hidden bailout of Goldman Sachs and the other banksters.
I suspect that the NY Fed (then headed by Timothy Geithner, now our Treasury Secretary) had its fingerprints all over that deal.
Once upon a time, there were people who could 
Catholic priests 'filmed at gay clubs and having casual sex'
But women cannot be priests. What a system they have created.
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In a deal negotiated last month, President Obama and BP officials agreed the company would pay $5 billion annually over the next four years into an escrow account for damage its oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico caused. Ken Feinberg, who was appointed to administer oil spill claims out of the escrow fund, has said he "hasn't been able to start writing claims checks" because BP PLC has failed to deposit any money into the $20 billion fund it promised to create:
Feinberg, who was appointed to administer oil spill claims out of the fund, said he doesn't have the authority to force BP to deposit the money, but his hands are tied until it does. "I don't want the checks to bounce," he said.
The day after the escrow account's establishment in June, BP CEO Tony Hayward told Congress that BP is "unwavering in our commitment to fulfill all our responsibilities" and the company "won't stop spending until the job is done."
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A new study in the International Journal of Environmental Studies and Public Health conducted by British researchers has found a startling increase in the number of infant mortality and cancer cases in the Iraqi city of Fallujah since the 2004 U.S.-led bombardment of the area. The Independent reports that the cases "exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki":
Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study. [...]
Dr Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster and one of the authors of the survey of 4,800 individuals in Fallujah, said it is difficult to pin down the exact cause of the cancers and birth defects. He added that "to produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened."
Among the researchers' findings was a "a 38-fold increase in leukaemia, a ten-fold increase in female breast cancer and significant increases in lymphoma and brain tumours in adults. At Hiroshima survivors showed a 17-fold increase in leukaemia."
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So what would a Republican congress do if they regained power in November? Michele Bachmann knows.
"You'd have 100 percent repeal of ObamaCare."
"Let's repeal almost everything Nancy Pelosi did," Bachmann said as the crowd applauded wildly. She said she wants "The big mother of all repeal bills."
"The sleeping giant is awake," Bachmann said. "We are going to take back this country the first Tuesday of November. It's going to happen." She later added that the group wants to "just have our country the way that it was before."
She told the crowd that they were hearing it first from her, that Obama won't win reelection in 2012.
Makes perfect sense to me. The country "before" was in wonderful shape…if you forget the tanking economy, two wars, the 2.5 million jobs lost under Bush's tenure, the crumbling health care system, Dick Cheney…all pretty, all nice.
Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again
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US Senate Deals Blow to Global Climate Talks
WASHINGTON - A year and a half after President Barack Obama breathed new life into global talks on a climate treaty, the United States is back in a familiar role -- the holdout.
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"Pray my sight loss is restored."
First Glenn Beck, now Rick Warren? WTF is with all the hypocrites going blind?
Saddleback Church's Rick Warren tweeted Thursday that he recently suffered a severe eye injury:
"My eyes were severely burned by a toxic poison.Hospitalized Mon.Excruciating pain.Now home.Pray my sight loss is restored"
Warren was working in his garden Monday when he accidentally wiped the sap of a firestick plant into his eyes. He was hospitalized for those severe burns.
Larry Ross, Rick Warren's spokesman, said that Warren's doctors "expect 100% recovery," and Warren later tweeted that he is "not blind."
Well, maybe not physically blind. But certainly morally.
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Taxes, politics and screwing the country
As the date approaches (January 1, 2011) for the Bush 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to expire, here is how the political game is being played out.
Fact
If Congress is unable to pass legislation before the end of the year extending the Bush tax cuts either in whole or in part, most Americans will see a tax increase next year. (See chart below)
What do most Democrats want?
- Allow the tax cuts for those earning more than $250 K to expire thus returning them to the 2000 tax rate.
- Cut taxes further for everyone else.
Democrat's argument
- Extending tax cuts for the rich in a time of growing deficits is irresponsible.
- Bush fiscal policy is in large part what got the country into the current economic mess.
What do Republicans want?
- Extend the tax cuts across the board.
Republican's argument
- Increasing taxes for the rich in a time of economic depression is irresponsible.
- Jobs are best created by leaving more money in the hands of the rich.
Dems strategy
- Try to have the Senate pass a bill before the midterm elections fully aware that Republicans will filibuster and block passage.
- Make it an election issue claiming that Republicans are forcing an increase in taxes for the middle class.
Money quote - Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen
"If you can't get it out of the Senate, then you take it to the election. You say to the American people that Republicans want to continue to hold middle-class tax relief hostage for an extension of tax breaks for [the well-to-do]. That will be the debate."
Republican strategy
- Block all attempts to extend the Bush tax cuts unless cuts to the rich are left intact.
- Make it an election issue claiming that Democrats are forcing tax increases on the middle class.
Money quote – Republican Rep. Mike Pence
"Washington Democrats are poised to allow the largest tax increase in American history to take effect next year."
Conclusion
The middle class gets screwed…again..
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Pat Condell gets positive about religion.
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A day late and a metric assload of common sense short. but Shirley Sherrod gets the apology she so rightfully deserves from No-sack and the White House.
No word yet on whether the lesson was learned.
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Apparently protesting child rapists isn't enough; now the Catholic Church is protecting military criminals. "President Sebastian Pinera of Chile has rejected a plea by the Roman Catholic Church that he pardon members of the armed forces over human rights abuses committed during military rule. Mr Pinera said the proposal had caused division in Chile and reopened old wounds. He said there could be no pardon for serious offences such as murder and crimes against humanity. More than 3,000 Chileans were killed by the military between 1973 and 1990. The Chilean Bishops' Conference had urged Mr Pinera to show clemency to long-serving inmates who had shown repentance, in a gesture to mark 200 years of Chilean independence. In a letter last week, the bishops said that not all of those convicted of crimes under the rule of General Augusto Pinochet shared equal responsibility. But Mr Pinera rejected the suggestion saying: "I have reached the conclusion that it would not be prudent or convenient in the current circumstances to promote a new law of general pardon."
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Not even U.S. mobsters could have pulled this off. "Gunmen who killed 17 people at a party in northern Mexico earlier this month were let out of prison to carry out the attack, state prosecutors say. Guards at a prison in Durango state are accused of lending the inmates weapons and vehicles to commit the murders in neighbouring Coahuila state before returning them to their cells. The same group of prisoners are thought to have carried out other killings. The prison director and at least two other officers are under investigation."
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Because there aren't any unemployed actors
Levi Johnston? In a music video? I'm sure Mama Grisly would approve:
LOS ANGELES — Levi Johnston will make his music video debut as a lover whose romance is thwarted by his girlfriend's disapproving mother, according to a Universal Music Group record label and Johnston's attorney.
Johnston, 20, who is Bristol Palin's fiance, has agreed to appear in the video with singer-songwriter Brittani Senser next month in Los Angeles. The project is based on the song "After Love" by Senser, 26, a sultry-looking R&B and pop performer from Minneapolis.
