Fitz! Alexander Hamilton!

and Alexander Hamilton, financial genius and our first Secretary of the Treasury, weeps…

every day, on every front, the news of these criminals amazes and saddens me.

And the complicit media still doesn’t rail this administration on their incompetence.

Come on Fourth Estate, get yer act tegether

and unlike our current Vice President Richard Cheney, back then Vice President Aaron Burr shot a man (Alexander Hamilton) and actually killed him. Recently Cheney shot an old man in the face but the wounds weren’t fatal.

Fiscal Responsibility from the “Party of Life/Life of the Party”? Whatevs.

Morning Humor (attempted) NRO’s The Corner, two years from Today!

I have decided to run my household modelled on true Republican values. You know those ubiquitous credit card offers that everyone gets? Well, my son, now five, has received three such offers and I have signed up for all of them. With his credit, I have purchased a computer, some really cool home theatre equipment, some very nice dining experiences (no hookers, however) and, of course, a big ass gun.

I am sorta sorry that my son will have to pay for it all or go to jail, but hell, I’m livin’ large now!

This is a great wedge issue for the GOP.

Raise the debt ceiling (again) and extend the tax cut giveaway to the rich. Perhaps I should take my cue from the Bush fiscal court jesters and go out and write a huge overdrawn ‘bad-check’ today and over-max my credit cards. Think the working, tax paying stiffs, and the poor will mind paying for my bugetary frivolity? I don’t think so. The more likely outcome will be me landing in jail. The difference between me writing a hot check and the administration raising the debt ceiling and their tax chicanery is that they can get away with it.

BTW: Rupert Murdoch is going to sponser a fund raiser for Senator Hillary Clinton. For this Democrat, that does it, Hillary! You’re toast.

Now I get it – they’re going to get rid of social security this way. Silly me, I thought they had given up on their plan.

immanentize

I am sorta sorry that my son will have to pay for it all or go to jail, but hell, I’m livin’ large now!

Did I detect a note of sarcasm?

You know, a trillion here, a trillion there-pretty soon you’re talking real money. We still have Clinton’s surplus, right? Right?

Rupert Murdoch is going to sponser a fund raiser for Senator Hillary Clinton. For this Democrat, that does it, Hillary! You’re toast.

That was the last straw for fence-sitting me, too.

klevenstein –

Me? Sarcastic?

More like, “What, me worry?”

The reality is that people who make under the Social Security tax ceiling, $90,000 in 2005, are the suckers in this budget charade.

When it comes time to ‘pay back the SS Trust Fund’, there will be a big stink about raising taxes.

The structural deficit for this year is almost $800 BILLION, with a B.

Fiscal insanity brought to you by both parties.

Well, they will save some bucks by holding the 3500 troops scheduled to deploy to Iraq– they’ll be hanging out in Germany. My guess is that this is the beginning of the administration’s cut and run statergery prior to the elections… we’re doing it in Afghanistan too.

But the killing goes on…

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05…..roops.html

To be accurate, the quote should read “But the federal debt keeps climbing because of continued deficit spending and in spite of the government’s insatiable borrowing from the Social Security trust fund.”

immanentize-
You could raise your debt ceiling even higher if you have another baby. Just think, you’ll get more credit card offers in that baby’s name and then you can buy more stuff. ;-)

… and then, since you’ll have sooooo much stuff, you’ll have to get a bigger place.

This is why it irks me so much when people call these right wing radical reactionaries conservatives. These days the true conservatives are, ironicly, liberals. If we keep letting these people get away with refering to themselves as conservatives, we will continue to lose elections. For to win elections you at least have to win the language game.

unfortunately I think a lot of Americans do live their financial life like the Bush administration. Their house is their ATM and instead of saving to buy something they want, they take out equity in their house to buy it. But just like the government, eventually you have to pay off your skyrocketing debt or lose your house.
How sad if America has to sell off it’s assests to pay off it’s debt. Bye bye Grand Canyon, Yosemite Park, Washington Monument.

And the complicit media still doesn’t rail this administration on their incompetence. Come on Fourth Estate, get yer act tegether

you mean the one owned by GE or AolTimeWarner ?? or the ones with the business before congress, or the ones controlled by moonies ?? please, elaborate

Anyone who caught Tom DeLay on with George Stephanopolous had a good laugh when he talked about the GOP being the party of fiscal responsibility. They’re all about “cutting taxes†and exercising “fiscal restraint.†I was shocked that George didn’t just bust out laughing. They are still saying what they want people to believe, even though the curtain has been removed and we can see what they’re doing. Brazen doesn’t cover it. Chutzpah probably comes closest.

Have you seen the commercial – I don’t remember what it’s for – but a group of people are sitting at a conference table at a staff meeting of some sort. The boss is speaking, and one of the employees is making faces and gestures to make fun of everything he says. Finally, the boss says, “This isn’t a conference call – I’m actually in the room.†I think we need to tell them we’re in the room and can see what they’re up to.

“How sad if America has to sell off it’s assests to pay off it’s debt. Bye bye Grand Canyon, Yosemite Park, Washington Monument.”

You do mean the Volkswagen Canyon, Mitsubishi Park and the Queen Elizabeth Monument?

I guess they’re trying to sneak through a raise in the debt ceiling now so they don’t have one during the campaign season?

Fiscal insanity brought to you by both parties.

Umm…I seem to recall a budget surplus sometime in the last 10 years…what party was in the White House and what party was in Congress?

Redshift-
Either that or they are going through it so fast they need to ask for more money monthly now.

sorry for my darkness and off topic comment so early in the morning… but i have been skimming news around the world, opinions on whats going on here in the US, and you know, it really seems possible that this is a silent coup we’re going through. if this cabal is so reluctant to depart, what won’t they do?

maybe we are way too naive…

Are they trying to bury the country under debt on purpose? Maybe to bring the End of Days or that feed the beast crap. These people are freightening. And taking from the SS fund, are they also trying to kill SS? Don’ the f-ing super rich have enough already?

somebody tell me to cheer up, it ism’t so bad.

Totally off topic, but I feel the need to express myself.
That pink rose fantasy photo is really disturbing. I never want to see a rose that smells like shit and that’s what that photo says to me. I must shower now.

God, just stunning.

W(not!)ilson:

I’d go with Warner-Disney Canyon, Honda Snowmobile Park and Bechtel Monument…

…but no doubt, the whole country will go to the highest bidder in the end (China?).

teak111-
To them, you can never have enough.

My husband and I are in our early 40’s, we have equity in our home, we even pay extra on our mortgage every month to bring the principal down. We have college funds set up for the kids, they won’t have enough for 4 yrs, but probably 2. Our vehicles are almost paid off, our credit card (we only have one) is below $2000 and will be paid off within 6 months. We have 300K in our retirement funds. We’re about as financially responsible as you’re going to find in America. What scares me is that it will all fall apart because of Dubya’s irresponsibility. The fiscal health of this country is on shifting sand and there goes the stock market and with it our sons’ college funds and my husbands and my retirement…also there goes the housing market and all our equity. Maybe the ones going nuts and borrowing and spending like Republicans are the smart ones. At least they are living large now. My family is depriving itself for the future and might possibly have nothing to show for it.

brkily– sorry, i think it may be worse ;(
This is the very first thing I read this morning.

>>>>>>
A strake, by the way, is a metal strap that holds boats or planes together. Odd. But what makes me go nuclear is the use of “Divine” in the name. I’ve really had it with the Bush administration positioning things like they were ordered up by God.

And this isn’t the first time. There are at least nine other divine tests on the books, including Divine Warhawk and, to really prove the point, Divine Hates.

Up close, each day, Americans are doing lovely, honorable things, but I wonder how we look as a group from far away. We ignore poor people and people stricken with unrelenting illness and pain, we turn our backs on genocide, and we spend our vast wealth and waste our sharp minds on war. Then we name the effort after deity. As if this experiment is ordained by God. The appalling arrogance, the blind blasphemy, the colossal chutzpah, in essentially naming this test after God!

Could this be why people hate us? We make bad choices. We choose to enrich the already wealthy, making everyone else poorer; we ignore the sick and starving; we invent wars but give them very real death tolls; we ruin the only land the world will ever get; we spend sinful amounts of money to create a better way to wage war; and, more and more, we literally do it in God’s name.

The Bush administration acts like God prefers us to other countries. Like God isn’t also God to Iceland and Bhutan and France and Rwanda. With President Bush in charge, we surely look like we think we’re special. A little too special for some people.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0508-23.htm

I need some Cute Overload therapy.

http://cuteoverload.com/

Donna M., my heart goes out to you. You are the salt of the earth.

between the tax breaks and the give aways to defense contractors, big oil and phara… there is no money. and soon our borrowing power- credit worthiness will vanish.

brkily – cheer up. It isn’t so bad.

(It’s a damned lie, of course. But I really wanted to make you feel better.)

OT: Kavanaugh hearings today at 2:00 EDT. I think that all the usual suspects will be there. I can’t wait to hear Jeff “Sock Puppet” Sessions talk about how much he admires Kavanaugh’s judicial philosphy. We should get some good questions from Leahy and Feingold about whether or not the president is above the law.
peace,
jim

How sad if America has to sell off it’s assests to pay off it’s debt. Bye bye Grand Canyon, Yosemite Park, Washington Monument.

Ummm, I hate to be the one to break the bad news to you but we have been selling off our assets for decades to pay for our debt. The problem is that Monuments aren’t our assets. You know all of that American debt that China owns? You know all those American jobs that have been getting shipped to China(go to wal-mart and you can see em stamped on the bottom of most any product)? Well guess what. A nations assets are it’s means of production(people/factories) and we’ve been shipping assets off wholesale to China, India, Mexico, hell anywhere that will take our assets, for atleast my whole life.

pharma, i mean

DonnaM at 36:

I hear ya.

My husband retires in two years. I fear we are going to be screwed. The writing’s on the wall.

OT via TPM Muckraker & The Hill:

Republicans wrote a letter to top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) demanding she tell Mollohan to step down. Pelosi’s response, via a flack: “I look forward to reading their letter to Speaker Hastert on Congressman DeLay, Congressman Ney, Congressman Doolittle and Congressman Pombo. . . I must have missed their letter on incarcerated Congressman Cunningham.”

Yes indeed. Let me finish laughing and pick myself up off the floor.

Richard Cohen wrote a piece that enabled the Bush boys again! He weeped and whined and wailed and moaned that he received about 4000 “nasty” email in response. Yeah, one of them was mine. I didn’t swear at him (I have a very large vocabulary and thus don’t need to swear to get my point across), but I certainly joined in on the general sentiment that he was writing to defend Dear Leader Bush.

Recommend that the next time y’all suggest writing letters to the WaPo, that you include strong words of caution: The writers at the WaPo are all a bunch of delicate, sensitive old ladies (You might include a picture of Margaret Dumont from one of the Marx Brothers movies). You might describe a scene involving croquet or tennis matches and cucumber sandwiches and pretty flower arrangements.

We simply must be very, very tender and sensitive to these delicate old ladies!

when i watch the senate & congressional proceedings, it just looks like empty, meaningless theater.

DonnaM – I share your fears. My husband and I are 10 years ahead of you, but in similar positions, and I, too, find myself worrying about what happens if the bottom truly drops out. Someone posted something recently about concerns in Asia that the dollar is close to collapsing, which I think would wreak real havoc and hardship on a lot of people. It can’t be good for the national debt to be so high, and for the dollar to be on the verge of collapse.

If there is anything to feel positive about it is that in your situation and mine, paying down your debt and being as liquid as possible puts us in a better position than those who are leveraged to the eyeballs. We lowered our mortgage rate when they were at bottom (we have our mortgage with the credit union, and getting the lower rate was a matter of asking for it), and shortened the term. We also gave up credit cards about five years ago, and I have to say that while I sometimes miss the occasional impulse buy, I sleep better at night knowing that the things I do buy I actually own outright.

Christy — there is an interesting article, front page of NYT, by Robin Toner on the Dem’s search for vision. Lots of references to the blog critique, including CTG, of Dem leadership. Worth a thread later?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05…..r=homepage

Also, re this thread, recall that one of Pelosi’s promises on MTP if Dems win the House is to reinstitute “pay as you go” budgeting, as in the Clinton years.

Donna, change the sons to daughters and we are virtually living the same lives. It’s scary. I plan to work the rest of my life, if for no other reason than I will have no choice.

Another thing that depresses me is how Americans have internalized conservative messages so that they are willing to accept less than they deserve. Back when unions were big in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, even non-union workers thought that if they worked hard they deserved a lifetime job, decent pay, a safe workplace, healthcare, and a pension. Now I see even liberals sniping at each other about these things. When unions fight for pay and benefits for their members I hear liberals pipe up that those workers should be happy they have healthcare or a pension at all and shouldn’t be demanding more. We are going to lower ourselves until we are like characters in a Victorian novel who are pleased that our betters deign to notice us and throw a penny our way.

Restrain your glee. If we manage to win Congress in November then WE will have to be the ones passing increases in the debt ceiling. The only way we wont is if the government suddenly starts running surpluses. And that, even under the best of cases, isnt going to happen for years.

I am old enough to remember when Republicans used to routinely harp on exactly this when the Dems were in charge. This is one thing that WILL come right back at us (unless we NEVER get back in charge in either house of Congress)

#10 and #30, you got it.

The republicans aren’t stupid (or *that* stupid), they’re just amoral.

If they can just hang on long enough by having us all shake our heads and say how horribly irresponsible they are, all the better.

If they bankrupt the country, the government – that evil entity that Reagan said was the problem, not the solution – will only consist of the military, some various property rights enforcement agencies, assorted administrativa, and that’s about it.

Regulatory power will have no funding. Social programs won’t be funded. Nothing from the legacy of FDR will have the money to operate. Everything collected in taxes will go to service the debt, or risk the collapse of the dollar economy.

I think that will happen anyway, but they’ve got theirs, don’t they?

Invest in the Euro and alternative energy companies. Buy some property in central/south America to avoid the hurricanes and any cold winters.

Reagan’s deficit financing t-bills are going to come due in the next few years. Something tells me those holding the t-bills won’t be rolling them over into new t-bills, just the ones we owe ourselves.

So the Reagan bump comes soon. In 15 to 30 years, the Bush thrash comes due.

teak111 @ 30
Are they trying to bury the country under debt on purpose?

Ummm, yeah. They can’t get the people to go along with eliminating every last bit of the social safety net, so bankrupt the country then we’ll have to start cutting. There’s the added bonus that most of their massive expenditures flow straight to their buddies pockets.

Once we do eliminate SS and medicare then someone will have to step up and supply those services to americans, for a small fee, of course.

Hopefully we’ll get our chance to start the clean up in the next couple years. I say Feingold starts out by announcing a huge new deal/tva/moonshot superprogram because that’s what we need, and it will drive ‘em absolutely bonkers*.

* umm, even more bonkers?

OT
Walter Shapiro at Salon jumps on the anti-media consultant bandwagon with an interesting observation

Political reporters (myself included) tend to shy away from this topic because, frankly, consultants tend to be our best sources. They are the people we turn to for the larger political perspective and a level of hired-gun honesty that is often unavailable from campaign staffers. It seems journalistically self-destructive to aggressively quiz these invaluable political insiders about their personal income. Not surprisingly, the only newspaper reporter in recent years who examined in depth the financial dark side of campaigns (the Washington Post’s Susan Glasser in 2000) immediately left the political beat to report from Moscow.

emphasis added by me.

and FYI the Kavenaugh hearing with Senate Judiciary at 2 pm today is on C-Span 3— which can be streamed.

At 50 (51 in July), I am a single mom of a disabled adult and have only 30K available for retirement or savings or emergencies. I have no debt and no credit cards, a decision I made long ago after a bankruptcy and nearly losing my house (later sold). I am a hospice nurse, low on the earnings end of nursing, certainly much lower than the average incomes you see in papers and magazines which are based on inner-city nurses in hospitals and possible incomes. I have decent benefits, but work for a non-profit which only added a 403 2 years ago. I have 3 chronic illnesses and expect to need long term care later in my life. I worry constantly about my son and how he will manage in the future. I worry about my tiny stake in mutual funds in terms of my ability to develop any kind of retirement security. I do not see retirement at 65 as a reasonable possibility; I wll have to work as long as I can at some kind of nursing (I feel fortunate in this, the nursing shortage predicts I will always be able to find work). But even without debt, I feel I could be wiped out at any time.

Bush doesn’t care about me and neither do the VichyDems. I am still trying to figure out who does.

“Social Security is Grenada, Medicare is Vietnam”

Douglas Holz-Eakins,
Retiring Director, Cong. Budget Office

As little attention I pay to Economics, that quote really got my attention

An easy, 1 page read in McPaper from leading Econ./Pundits in the link below

GoodTimes

o/t Our county’s Election Commissioner resigned suddenly yesterday – days before the election – the good news ?, he’d Goss’d things up so badly, we wont be using elect. machines and no one thinks the ‘bugs’ will be fixed for Nov., so we’re going with paper – YAY!!!
Am personally excited by this, b/c one of Delay’s TRMPAC Monkey Boys is finally facing
real competition from a Dem. Military Mom

btw, didn’t know it, but this was the same guy in charge of the last Cuellar vote (03), where the count was ‘mysteriously delayed’ by 30 hours.
Seems the State Election Comm. is about to release it’s final -final report on their audit -hmmm wonder if there’s any connection to the sudden departure

Is anyone having a hard time loading blogspot and haloscan sites this am? Cant get Dependable, Eschaton or a number of others to come up.

Donna #52 – I like that as a slogan: Stop accepting less than you deserve – Vote Democrat!

zenurse (59) — yeah, I can’t open Blogger.com/home at all right now to edit some campaign sites I’m working on, took forever to open finished sites. It’s not just you.

O/T, but I loved your line in a previous post about a “three bisquit article from ABC lapdogs”. How about a graphic for future clips from bad articles, kinda like the Michelin stars?

gotta take the kids to school (3 teenagers) my goal has been to raise them have courage and be able to think “outside the box”. radical times are coming. this community we have is so important.– back later

If things get too bad, can’t we just sell a few States? Not too many. Say, Alaska can be sold back to the Russians, Hawaii to Japan or China, some of those NE states to Canada? Perhaps California can buy itself. It’s gonna be a bit harder to move some of those square ones in the middle though.

No, forget all that. Here’s a better idea. We should just sell Texas to Mexico. Cheap! Soon!

OT (and may not be news to anyone other than me) but MSNBC has been running the previous night’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann every weekday morning at 6:00 a.m. PT, 9:00 a.m. ET.

Second chance if you need it.

oklahoma kiddo (#9): just another one of those foreign influences affecting our government, and a MSM one at that

Third-world status here we come!

Now how will they blame this on Bill Clinton?

For some reason, I can’t get over the feeling that the Republicans have so much in common with the fundamentalist-Islamists, to wit, they are fatalists. By that, I mean that they have neglected the environment, ignored anything constructive which would save it, and generally let the whole government got to pot, fiscally, as well, which adds up to a “it’s all(God’s)(Allah’s) will.” Hence the passive, non-resistance of their followers who are going to pay the price. (Not to mention, all the rest of us.)

Tortoise! YEA! california buys itself, and texas to mexico. only can austin be a satellite of LA?

zennurse 57, my sister is a nurse who works for a state hospital. They like to rotate the nurses into different departments every year or two so that they learn other areas. My sister was recently rotated into the hospice department, immediately got depressed and within 3 months she was having anxiety attacks that sent her to the hospital thinking she was having a heart attack. She had to be reassigned immediately, and was told that most nurses don’t last longer than six months in the hospice. She couldn’t handle knowing her patients were going to die, that there was no hope for a cure. She did all that she could to make them comfortable but most healthcare professionals go into the business to make people well and it’s hard on them to lose one, not to mention all of them. You are truly a selfless person to make this your life’s work.

US debt clock running out of time, space

Sometime in the next two years, the total amount of US government borrowing is going to break through the $10-trillion mark and, lacking space for the extra digit that such a figure would require, the clock is in danger of running itself into obsolescence.

The National Debt Clock, which has kept track of the federal government’s red ink since the electronic billboard near Times Square was erected in 1989.

There you go, the Fed stopped reporting the M3 which is the report on the amount of money the Fed is printing, you have Bernanke whose moto is “Just Print More Money” and you have us going down the tubes of a third world country without the balls to deal with it.

Rawstory has a link up to an article with a pretty good overview of the CIA “shake-up” – in Asia Times, of course – no good analysis from American MSM.

Portents: The coming end of the CIA

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/F…..0Aa01.html

Yes, zenurse I’m having trouble too

zennurse — your story, like so many others here and “out there,” are the answer to the question, “If the economy is doing so well, why don’t the American people feel good about that?”

You’re right, the current political leadership has ignored the real human stories and focused only on the business pages. I read recently that the US now has more than 10 million people with annual incomes over $1,000,000. Fiscal sanity, as well as political ethics starts with stopping/reversing the Bush tax cuts.

If the Dem’s need a “vision,” then “follow the money,” recapture it, and use if for the “common good.” And repealing (rather than extending, as the Repubs propose), the capital gains tax cut is the equivalent of a real “excess profits” tax.

DonnaM (36) — you just described my household. My kids and I check the market every afternoon; when a certain stock or two go up, I point out they can buy another book for another college course, and then we sit down and do homework. When they go down, I tell them they’re going to have to work harder at school to buy that book. We’re in the same straights, doing reasonably well but aware this could all blow up with the greatest ease. I’ve moved some investments to non-U.S. holdings; I’m continuing to do all the other things that keep us in a liquid condition. Cooking at home (little-to-no takeout); drying my clothes on a line; fixing things, from clothes to appliances, rather than buying new; choking out 10 years on the same car to avoid car payments. It’s ugly sometimes, like the arguments with the tweenager about buying new jeans or the eight-year-old about no Yu-Gi-Oh cards, but it’s all we’ve got and it keeps the wolf from the door. I resign myself to the fact that if it gets very bad, we won’t starve; the kids and I keep a garden and we stock up on basics like dry beans. In some ways we are very blessed; the average person had no real inkling that the economy was going to collapse back in the 20’s. You can see it coming and you are doing the right thing. Good on you.

This not incompetence, this is a concerted effort to destroy the USA as a functioning democracy and replace it with a fascio-capitalist oligarchy.

They really want to wreck it all, I’m convinced, and grab the filthy lucre for themselves and their cronies.

as teak111 @ 30 said,

Don’t the f-ing super rich have enough already?

What drives these soulless monsters? Can’t we give Cheney truth serum during his impeachment hearings? (No point in giving it to the Preznit, he’d just babble on about fish..)

Zennurse–”I wonder who does.” Exactly, sadly, truly…

cbl, link no work, am a big fan of 1 page economics, what is that shiny object.

Does anyone have a pointer to the origin of the biscuit thing? I had over 1300 comments to read yesterday and just couldn’t do it. If I know the thread, I can find it.

Thanks Rayne, I had a feeling.

To add to my whiny, poor me post above, needless to say, I am and have been constantly terrified that my son’s SSDI and Medicare/Medicaid will disappear under Bush. The group home he lived in until he was 19 was threatened with defunding at least 3 times, but Kennedy and Kerry fought for the programs. Social Security provides him an inadequate $710/month and he is supposed to live on it. I will not be surprised if it is cut again this year or next. Bush has no concept of people like my child and thinks that they are either malingering or just need that great Medicare that he’s created. It is a scary thing, because my son can’t handle understanding the implications of this; he just knows Bush is a real idiot and doesn’t care, wants war all the time and that he wants someone else running the country. He has a strong sense of justice.

scarecrow 74 said, If the Dem’s need a “vision,†then “follow the money,†recapture it, and use if for the “common good.â€

Sadly that will not happen. It will be the poor and middle class who will pay for the excesses of the wealthy just as they always do. Instead of closing the loopholes and cutting subsidies (corporate welfare) for big business or raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy it will be massive cuts in programs for the poor, the elderly, and veterans and taxes raised on the middle class.

zennurse (57) — you know, you have a potential career path when you get to a point physically where you can’t make the rounds. I think you could write content for healthcare sites, could do online health consults, too. I also see many roles now requiring RN with substantial computer skills for quality management. Your situation is challenging, but you are blessed with a clear-eyed perspective that too many lack, helps keep you away from the brink. And the nursing skill, too – I couldn’t do what you do, hospice or otherwise. (And nobody here would want me to, either…you can all breathe a sigh of relief that I won’t be at your bedside.)

teak111(#30) it’s a win win situation for the ‘thugs.

1) if the GOP loses the elections in ‘06 & ‘08 (or either) they give the democrats an even bigger mess to tackle. (Iraq, the debt, social security, health care, and on and on).

2) if the GOP pull it out again, they continue the bathtub drowning (with norquist’s tactics reversed, but with a more-or-less identical consequence).

nice future, eh?

Lurker (67):Now how will they blame this on Bill Clinton?

When the Democrats are back in charge and get this thing steered in the right direction again, how will they give the credit to Reagan?

kleverstein (#34): auction, not. foreclosure yes.

We care, zennurse. Fat lot of good that does ya, huh? Our views of the future are all certainly mood lowering. It’s not just the big bad fed government in trouble, either. States struggle to keep up as this crazy crowd shrugs its responsibilities off onto states’ shoulders.

But California found a few billion it hadn’t counted on in the budget; people are waking up all over the country (although I still don’t understand why they’re all so quiet) and I know our collective path won’t continue in this direction for much longer.

Signed, Pollyanna

zennurse
My dad died in the hospice unit of Evanston Hospital 10+ years ago. The folks in that unit were super special, as all hospice workers are.

My spouse wrote the first physician assisted suicide ballot measure and got the ball rolling for what happened eventually in Oregon. The upshot of all of the work and attention to the issue is that end of life care got better as did pain management.

Very important work. Thank you for doing it!!!

Tortoise (64) — umm, respectfully, hell no, Hawaii is NOT going to be sold to Japan or China. It should go back to the nation from which it was wrested under one of the first American attempts at regime change.

And Queen Liliuokalani had no WMD, either…

Perhaps freeing the territories should be a first step in economic turn-around; they would have the right to vote in exchange for the responsibility to take their future into their own hands.

margaret, your sister is working in a state hospital and I’m a hospice nurse. Her work has challenges and so does mine. Nursing is a wonderful world where there is endless choice and I have been fortunate to have a number of interesting roles, but they have all been related to death and dying in some way; I have always been drawn toward hospice, just had some other stops to make along the way, I guess, earlier in my career. I’ve been working for a hospice for 3.5 years, but have done end-of-life care in other settings, too. I can remember reading about hospice back in the early 80’s and just feeling this *click* of “getting it” on a very deep level. It isn’t for everyone, but I love what I do, just as I”m sure your sister has found a place where she feels her bowl is filled.

There has to be some openings for outflanking the Freeping Goopers on the right…and I don’t mean pearlclutching about abortion or flag burning either.
I’m talking about unsustainable deficit funding.
Crazed ‘ Leninist’ ( Fukuyama) Foreign policy adventures. Immediate withdrawal to the Murtha line is the only sane and sensible thing to do.
And here’s the big one…LAW-AND-ORDER!
Three strikes and your out.
Watergate
Iran/contra
Yellowgate
Life means life – no parole – no remand.
LAW AND ORDER IS NATIONAL SECURITY PRIORITY ONE!

We may even have a little leeway on the immigration hot potato – like say , ‘ Hell yeah, we’ll deport some neer-do-well’s. Folks that are proven fascists and proven America haters can just take it on the heel. Folks like Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo and Hector Carreon. I mean America love it or leave it!

They are conservatives, they have simply (and radically) redefined what that means. It no longer means limited government, it means authoritarianism loosely packaged in faux democracy, which means bribing the public with one delusional free lunch after another. The idea of effective government that pays its bills, one that endeavors to do more than build roads and armies, but that does not compromise the financial security of future generations, this creature does not seem to exists in political discourse these days.

The Dems would be wise to start defining themselves in terms of effective, “concise” government.

donnaM(#36): start scouting around for the best foreign currency to change your savings dollars into. sell your house and move into an apartment (this unless you have a really large amount of money). there will be plenty of opportunity to by another house at a lower price when the foreclosures start piling up.

There was a suprising column by Ben Stein (of all people) in Sunday’s NYTimes–even he feels the tax cuts have gone too far:

You’re Rich? Terrific. Now Pay Up

DonnaM — I hope/believe it is still possible. We need to remind ourselves, and the Democratic “leadership,” that during the 1930s, when the country was flat on its back, tens of millions out of work, farms drying up, no Social Security or Medicare, etc, this country creatively used deficit spending to put people back to work, provide SS, and invest in its people and its future.

If you tour the country today, you can find landmarks in very town, every park, across every river — an incredible legacy they left us, built by people who were put to work by a government that actually cared about its people. There is no reason this cannot happen again, only excuses and lies for why we haven’t done it yet.

Today’s “investments” are in upgraded armor and factories that produce autos that more and more resemble armored personnel carriers to get us safely to refueling stations. That is an awful legacy to leave outselves and our children, and we should hold our leaders to account for this. I don’t have the slightest problem determining which of our “leaders” gets it.

Raising the debt limit to $10 trillion…even I didn’t think they’d do it after only two months from the raise to $7.3 trillion. They’ve doubled the debt ceiling this year, people. This is like a hospital billing a last bunch of services on a patient they know is going to die soon.

The Bush Administration is the boldest, most accomplished gang of thieves the world has ever seen. They’re dazzlingly competent in terms of personal and corporate enrichment, the only terms that matter to them. Part snake-handling tent preacher, part MBA, part Hunt Brothers, part cat burglar, part serial killer. And the number of the beast is…screw the number, it’s in our house.

jhmay @ 82

If that happens you can be sure the Deciderator will get the credit, if it doesn’t it’ll still be Clinton’s fault

By then Bonzo will have reached sainthood and they’ll chisel his face on Mt Rushmore over Jefferson, using gangs of wetbacks

**note: I’m sure these points have already been made….haven’t had waded through the thread yet.

This is all by design. It works for the GOP on several levels.

- Digs such a hole that we can’t recover. They are intentionally giving Norquist his wish (drowning the Fed in the bathtub).

- Any attempt to arrest the bleeding will be under a different administration/congress. Most likely Democratic. Then the real pain felt by citizens will be directly associated with the Dems.

- Enriches the wealthy to the point in which they will be well insulated from any fallout and secures high-paying, post public service positions for all these wretches.

The only, and trivial point, that is a positive is that any Republican that is currently serving on “fiscal responsibility”….errr wait… they are already painting Bush and Co as not real conservatives. The public may buy it.

Top priority for this administration is to bankrupt the middle class. The wars, the tax cuts etc. are just a vehicle for that purpose. Because if the middle class is bankrupt , then the democratic party is bankrupt. Then we are left with a one party system and after Bush declares marshall law following this summers race riots (provoked by republican immigration policy)we have our little dictatorship.

I empathize with every poster in here struggling to do the right thing by saving, scrimping, etc., and my wife and I have been talking about the bottom dropping out almost daily. We would be in good shape financially in the “old america” but now feel we need more liquid cash in case of (if? or when?) disaster. Do we screw over our finely-tuned plans that would pay for our daughter’s college and our retirement or not? Huge questions!
We had friends in from Calgary over the weekend and he’s a financial guy. He is shorting the dollar and making lots of money doing so. He believes we are are in a world of hurt. The way he explained it: as the dollar drops, the debt China, the Sauds, etc. holds goes down so any new debt they finance will be at higher and higher interest rates; that will then drive our inflationary rates and interest rates waaaay up slowing our consumption-based economy to a crawl, or worse. Imagine what that will in turn do to the market. He told me to sell my rental house NOW, to be liquid.
It’s all so gloomy, and the worst of it is that it is/was avoidable. How to we turn this darkness into light? How do we tap/educate that huge GOP-voting bloc that is voting against it’s own economic interests? We need to be creative and we need to do it NOW.

Thanks, everyone, and Rayne- this is an option I consider often. I have done a very few medical related articles as a community healt program coordinator, and feel like there is a greater need for this now as the government has decided to get so involved in women’s reproductive and personal lives. I would also like to address the issue of pain management for nonterminal chronic pain like mine. It is a deeply slippery slope for patients and doctors both with government involved there as well.

Has anyone seen MI3, my son wants to know how it is?

And add Christopher Hitchens, Michelle Malkin and Andrew Sullivan to that list. Send these illegal scumbags back where they came from!

odball #4 –

Come on Fourth Estate, get yer act tegether

They do have their act together —

– The Fourth Estate — since 1994, a wholly owned subsidiary of GOP Corruption, Inc. Since 1997, has been the operational manager of the GOP Lies ‘R’ Us division of the K Street Crime Syndicate.

MI3 was designed for a target audience of young men – the reviews are OK. Your son will like it.

i wonder, how many REPUBLICAN and democrat legislators have offshore bank accounts? that would be a nice little investigative journalism assignment to tackle. how about cheney, rove, libby, bush?
of course, if you have the kind of money they have you can ride out a depression in relative comfort. they might have to cut back on chocolates and cigars, painful as that will be, but they should be otherwise secure. what a relief!

Conservative means

- borrow and spend with exploding government spending relative to GDP;

- parabolic debt and fiscal deficits;

- a busted budget;

- tax cuts for the wealthy and pain for workers;

- government interference in the personal choices of Americans;

- collusion between religion and state;

- religious education (aka intelligent design) in public schools;

- erosion of constitutional protections in the Bill of Rights;

- activist judges that decide elections and remove habeas corpus rights of individuals;

- all individual rights can be taken away by government when a President labels an individual at his whim an “enemy combatant”;

- torture in secret prisons;

- tax payer funds directed through cronies on pay-to-play basis;

- complete disregard for congressional convention and practice;

The multi millionaires hated Clinton b/c Clinton imposed a one time tax on rich folks. One such millionaire told me that Clinton’s tax cost him $100,000.00 and he was pissed off about it. That’s why millionaires hate Clinton and love Dubya. That 100K could have bought him another top of the line Mercedes.

The next dem pres should and probably will do the same thing – tax the rich. Regular folks like us, including Donna M, were not affected by Clinton’s tax, just the multi-millionaires.

rat or anyone?

What does “shorting the dollar” mean?

Is the general the twin look-alike brother of Karl Rove, now there is a though…
Wasn’t the NSA responsable for telephone espionage before 9/11 outside the USA, say at places like, Afganistan, Irak, Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, you know, AlQaeda recruting land…I would not call that a success…for the NSA…on the other hand, they did a nice job prior to 2004, didn’t they, those few chosen ones…

“conservative” is a polite word for “reactionary”. That nomenclature is just lipstick put on that hog.

Bayh on c-span now – Democratic Nat’l Security Agenda –

INCREDIBLY DISAPPOINTING.

Unbelievably incredibly disappointing.

Elections should not be about ideology – Republicans have a 10-12 point advantage if we go with ideology. Shouldn’t lash out at the administration. Started off with 9/11 changed everything. We’ve never had to deal with suicide-ology. (Does he even know about the anarchists?) We’ve never had to deal with terror of mass destruction at home. He mentions on one hand that we need a strong economy, but later says that it was idiotic to make the last elections about social security and medicare.

NEVER really mentions dealing with the situation by addressing education, not supporting dicators and suppression, encouraging economic support for the poor, holding to our values, etc. He barely will look anyone in the eye except on fluff. Over and over – don’t challenge the administration, but then admits that the only gains in 2006 will be as a result of how unhappy people are with the Republican leadership.

I’m so happy to know that he thinks Dems should abandon ideology bc it is a “loser.”

*s*

The on budget deficit for this year (which includes borrowing mostly from Social Security) is projected to be about $518 billion dollars. This does not include supplemental spending for things like Iraq, Afghanistan, or hurricane relief. If the most recent $109 billion supplemental goes through unscathed then you can expect a final on budget deficit of between $600 to $630 billion.

Off budget borrowing mostly from Social Security will be $181 billion partially masks the size of yearly deficits. Extensions of tax cuts and capital gains tax cuts affecting mostly the wealthy, the decreasing rate of corporate taxation will be partly offset by the increasing bite that the Alternate Minimum Tax will take on middle income households.

If this depresses you, I won’t bother telling you how Social Security surpluses that you are paying for now you will have to pay again (with interest) in the period from 2018 to 2040.

No, what I wanted to point out was that beyond Social Security, Medicare, interest on the national debt, and defense spending is that part of the budget which is termed discretionary spending and which comprises most of what we think of as the federal government. You know all those agencies that look after your health (NIH, CDC), keep your air and water reasonably clean, verify the quality of the food supply, the Congress, the courts, science research, all that. Well, all this spending we have been doing elsewhere is going to increasingly put pressure on all this.

zennurse @ 106 -

Exchanging dollars you don’t have for something else (like Euros) with the promise to provide the dollars at a future date. The idea being that in the future you can acquire those promised dollars for less than they cost now. In the instance above, you can spend less of those Euros you have in hand to get the promised dollars.

Its a bet that the exchange rate will favor other currencies over the dollar. Pretty sure bet when you look at our balance of trade.

zen, “shorting” anything means you are essentially betting against it, betting it will go down in price. Just googled “shorting the dollar” and learned that Gates and Buffett are both doing it. Found this too: http://registeredrep.com/fixed…..llar_work/ As my Calgary friend warned…be ready!

What you folks lable conservative, is anything but. Today the true conservatives are liberals. Stop mislableing and start winning elections. These so-called conservatives are, in actuality, rabid, reactionary, radical rightwingers.

Plano tex (105) — I’ve got another perspective on that “tax the rich” approach. We know they will squeal like hell, as if we were taking food from between their over-whitened and capped teeth if we tell the rich they must cough up. We’re going to need to be more effective at how we handle this transition to a more realistic tax on the upper decile.

First, we develop an “investment” strategy; we need to position taxes as a form of investment in our society. THEY “get” investment; you can sell them almost anything if they believe it’s a good investment. We create a tax policy that gives preference to the following: job creation here in the U.S., purchasing of American-made equipment and technology, investment in new technology, including green/alternative energy and biotech start-ups here in the U.S. We create a tax policy that encourages investment by foreign entities in the U.S. in the same things. If we can improve the standard of living among the middle class, their consumption alone will help bring up the lowest decile, along with the additional income taxes they will pay to provide services. We can only improve the middle class’ condition if they have more and better jobs.

I’m right there, only have 20 hours of contract work a month right now because my county is one of the most depressed in the country. There is real estate unsold for over a year here, prices dropping out of the bottom. The biggest cloud hanging over our heads is the Delphi bankruptcy and the threat that GM will also tank. What if these companies were able to concentrate more fully on green transportation or conversion of existing vehicles to new alternative energy? It would remake the industry and the entire state — and it would make some people at the top decile very, very wealthy.

Don’t get me wrong; the disgustingly wealthy could stand to squeal a bit in pain. I know a guy who has condos worth millions EACH, in Naples FL, Park City UT, Maui Hawaii, Northern Michigan and more…this guy can afford 100K without batting an eye. But he’d wrench his elbow trying to whip out his wallet and call his investment manager on his cell phone if you told him you could make him even wealthier with a nominal investment of, say, 100K…

Thanks, *ilson, got a dreary, cool, windy day here. Hate to pay Cruise for much right now, but boy, do I owe this boy a movie!!.

I have just realized that I’ll be in a stupid computer class @ work tomorrow, so will miss any court action until after. I’ll eat lunch in my car with the radio on, I guess. Can’t even log on to internet there.

I often have the fantasy of Bush, Cheney et al as well as other silly rich celebrities living a year of my son’s life or mine, or yours. Barbara Bush or Ken Lay, Abramoff or O’Reilly, the Hilton girl or the woman I read about in NYC who used 4 different creams for her neck alone, each costing >$90. Where do these people get thier entitlement? No wonder there is no empathy. Bill and Melinda Gates at least have made educated and targeted efforts to improve the lives of others; I just wish someone would recognize that many of these needs now exist in the US, thanks to 5 years of Bush.
(/rant)

rabble-rousing helps in taxing the rich. Financial shark Joseph Kennedy famously said: “I’d rather lose half my money to Roosevelt than all of it to the Communists.”

re:105

I have been somewhat puzzled by the fact that nothing has been done to prepare the ground for the inevitble raised taxes to match revenues to spending before the whole thing crashes.

OT but I just received another concerned email about setting up the Web second tier (being pushed by ATT and Verizon), a bill now before Congress. I contacted not only my Congressmen, but also my Provost and Dean because as I read it, there will be a serious impact on email and other connections with colleagues and institutions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America where I work. It will make it much more expensive for schools and scholars there to access key websites that have been set up in part for this purpose, also for general global communications. Will this in fact be the case? And if yes, all the more reason to press against this move, and with urgency.

Hey zenn — what theater is the movie playing at in your town; AMC? Cinemark? Goodrich? other?

I’m asking because I need to buy some gift certificates from the kid’s school; it’s their fundraising mechanism, they get 10% or more from some vendors. I’ll be glad to spring for gift certs for you if the movie’s playing at a qualifying theater; I can write off the donation portion, after all. You can check the list of vendors at http://www.glscrip.com, and should be able to check the theater through Yahoo (http://movies.yahoo.com/, use the Browse feature to find nearby theaters).

Just trying to think like a conservative once in a while, at least when it comes to write-offs. ;-)

(Stephen, you’ll correct me if I’m wrong, of course. Heh.)

Bubbas: they are taking YOUR money and giving it to the war profiteers, while our soldiers go without body armor.

Not a 10 word slogan, but it’ll get the job done.

OT~
I’m not even certain this is OT. Because I am at work and have not time today for FDL, I logged on to leave this message: I have been calling the Senate for the past 30 minutes, as I can, to urge them re:General Hayden’s nomination. The number I am using is toll-free and reaches the main switchboard. You can ask for any senator or representatives office and be put through. (Sen Feinstein and Obama’s phones are tied up w/incoming calls so I will try later.)

Here is the number:1-888-355-3588

the right wing, the neocons etc. have destroyed the meaning of the words liberal and conservative. both concepts, in the original are needed for a good society. we need to have the generosity of true liberalism. we need to have the good judgement and restraint of true conservatism.

the neocons and the bushwhackers are not conservatives. they are radical, apocalyptic rightwingers and, it almost goes without saying insane into the bargain. that’s the reason that people who are classical conservatives are angry with bush.

i am a liberal, but i have some conservative tendencies, especially with money. i have never been in credit card trouble. the bush adminisitration and republican congress are NOT conservatives, they just give the word a bad name.

precision in language matters.

God,that was a horrible sentence.

Has anyone else noticed that the comments here seem to work like the Mad Hatter’s tea party?
Move over, Move over.

{{{zen}}}}

The “great economy” that some want to tout is based upon creating jobs, on debt, that are war related and not value/hard asset creating; and taking away the non$$ support structure in the job market – doing away with pensions and healthcare as a component of much of the job market. Those things “create” jobs – they don’t create economic strength and they don’t add value to the country for the debt run up and they don’t provide security for the bulk of the population and eventually the debt burden and destruction of healthcare and pension safety nets cause implosion.

mudkitty (#113): you have besmirched the word liberal. the republican congress and the bush administration are NOT liberals. neither are they conseervatives. see post #122 if you don’t understand what i mean.

Sharkbabe, I love Cute Overload.
People who have gotten mad at me for being such a “Bush Basher” have partially forgiven me because I send them really cute puppy pix.
I can hear them thinking: “She can’t be TOO evil if she likes cute puppies….” lol

Rayne- AMC Loews.

Thanks, Mary, {{{{}}}}you too.

Zennurse #57
Who cares about you? We all do! This community is a family.
I have read your posts, first as a reader, (I prefer “reader” to lurker) and in every one of them your caring, compassionate voice is evident in your writing. Your patients are so lucky to have you and so are we!
I totally agree with your assessment on the future for people on fixed incomes. This cabal doesn’t give a damn about the low and middle income people.

Can we stop calling them “conservatives” now?

No, we should keep calling them conservatives. That’s because conservatism has changed into something other than what it used to be. Conservatives are deliberately spending all that money because it is part of their grand plan to “starve the beast” and bankrupt the government so it cant afford to spend money on “social programs” or environmental protection. There is nothing unintentional or negligent about it. It is entirely intentional.

Conservatism is not a stable doctrine, not a set of universal principles. It is a doctrine of convenience, power and relativism posing as an expression of stability and universal moral values. The recent posts of Digby and Glenn Greenwald make this clear. Let’s not fall into the trap that has been set by the right which says that what we really need now is “true” conservatism. Nothing could be further from the truth, which is that conservatism will morph into whatever convenient doctrine will keep power for the republicans.

Rayne says:
May 9th, 2006 at 8:35 am

The contributions you mentioned are deductible to the extent they exceed the fair market value of anything the donor received in exchange. A good example: you contribute money to your favorite public radio station(s) and receive a compact disc you selected, for example. The receipt from the station will tell you how much of your contribution is deductible for income tax purposes, so long as you are itemizing your deductions.

zenn — do me a favor and double-check with the theater, make sure they’ll take these (they are issued by AMC-Loews, but I’d rather make sure the franchisor will accept without flak.) AMC offers these two options; I’d rather buy the first one, actual tickets, since the donation rate for the kid’s school is so good:

AMC Theater/Loew’s Single Ticket $8.75 16% Good for one admission. No change given. Good at any AMC theatres, Loews theatres, Cineplex Odeon theatres, Magic Johnson theatres and Star theatres, excluding Canadian theatres. Subject to surcharge in the New York City area, AMC premium locations and IMAX locations. Valid seven days a week. No expiration date.
AMC Theatres $25 7% A prepaid card redeemable for all purchases at AMC Theaters nationwide. After 18 months of non-use, a $2 per month service fee will be deducted from the remaining balance except where prohibited by law. Tickets purchased with this card may be subject to a surcharge in the New York city area. For movie showtimes, theatre locations and gift card balance visit http://www.amctheatres.com. Call 1-800-255-0311 for gift card balance by phone.

Pop me an email at rayne_today -at- yahoo.com.

After reading all theses posts, I am ready to flee to another country – any suggestions?

$10,000,000,000,000.00: Product of Political Cowardice & Reckless Tax Cut Fever

When Bush took office the ceiling was less than $6,000,000,000,000. An increase in the debt ceiling of over 50% in less than 5 years, who could have predicted? When Bush took office his own staff was predicting a continuation of surpluses for decades and he promised tax cuts would only return the surplus and even taking under consideration the most conservative of economic estimates, would never contribute to the deficit. What happend to all of those “hard choices” that Bush promised to make?

If Bush tax cuts are extended this bloating of the debt is going to continue. Contrary to apologist GOP spin, the tax cuts are the number one leading cause of the bloated deficit, not 9/11, not economic woes, not increased homeland security spending, not even the Iraq war, although it is ending up costing a sizeable share and the billions of wasted dollars lost in corruption start to add up.

The good news is that reckless taxcuts are something that is relatively easy to fix even if it takes political courage to do so.

I can’t stand to watch this anymore – Michael McFaul w/Hoover is amazingly mediocre.

egregious # 120
“Not a 10 word slogan, but it’ll get the job done.”

here, how about this ?

Thanks for the Money, Sorry ’bout Your Kids . . .

Love,
Haliburton

Stephen — I’d only take the 16% or the 7% as a write-off (see examples above). It’s not much per purchase, but over the year it adds up to hundreds of $$ since we use these gift certs for gas, food, restaurants, entertainment.

By gutting our treasury through war profiteering and crony capitalism, the neocons are attempting to model the USA on Mexico or any other third world country. No social safety net of any kind, whatsovever. Our parents will move in with us, or we will move in with our parents, just like in the Philippines or Latin America. Mom and pop can live in the basement with their own rice cooker.

Diane (133) — Australia or New Zealand. Aussie colleges are very inexpensive, BTW.

That’s the message U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson seemed to send during an April 28 talk in Dallas.

Jackson, a former president and CEO of the Dallas Housing Authority, was among the featured speakers at a forum sponsored by the Real Estate Executive Council, a national minority real estate consortium.

After discussing the huge strides the agency has made in doing business with minority-owned companies, Jackson closed with a cautionary tale, relaying a conversation he had with a prospective advertising contractor.

“He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years,” Jackson said of the prospective contractor. “He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something … he said, ‘I have a problem with your president.’

“I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘I don’t like President Bush.’ I thought to myself, ‘Brother, you have a disconnect — the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn’t be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don’t tell the secretary.’

“He didn’t get the contract,” Jackson continued. “Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don’t get the contract. That’s the way I believe.”

Rayne @ 75:

My kids and I check the market every afternoon; when a certain stock or two go up, I point out they can buy another book for another college course, and then we sit down and do homework. When they go down, I tell them they’re going to have to work harder at school to buy that book.

It’s none of my business, but I hope you’re speaking figuratively here. Using market fluctuations to determine spending on necessities is lunacy.

Oh wait, you’re talking about their college funds gradually accumulating? That makes sense. I still wouldn’t watch the fluctuations more closely than a month-to-month time scale; you’ll just drive yourself crazy.

No coincidence that with the debt ceiling hike gold is now trading over $700 per ounce as I write for the first time in 25 years. People are simply losing faith in the US dollar under Republican stewardship. This is the sort of issue where old fashioned Republican “probity” supposedly would have reassured investors and traders…

Alex Jones is right. America is being destroyed BY DESIGN.

OT: Summary of some good, usable info on Hayden at TPM Muckraker. Baltimore Sun reporter Siobhan Gorman provided the original article. Make sure your congress critters have this information.

Mary … just dropped back to cspan – wanna say fuck you to these fools

all those antiwar demonstrators mean the democrats have a real problem – rachel whatshername playing ms. my generation

dean supporters – 61% dean supporters said out of iraq but “young dean supporters said stay in iraq and stabilize’

this is the democratic answer?

I can’t help but be thankful that I don’t have kids – I think the moniker for the generation inheriting this mess should be Gen-Fucked!

Diane @ 133

Moved to Paris 10 years ago, watch on now with mounting horror.

Mother last month encouraged me to apply for citizenship. Within a year I expect I’ll be able to demand political asylum instead.

BTW, taxes are murderously high here, but things work and the society functions, and everyone is taken care of. I have only nothing but respect for the French now, every day more.

Apple, what a sweet thing to write, thank you so much. Of course I know my lovely community cares and is always here. But does Hilary care? Barack? Russ does, but can’t yet get in the game. Does the head of the NIH care? Who is the head of the NIH, anyway, and whose side are they on? How many weenies in thier freezer? How about the FDA? Um, no. And the head of the SSA, not so much because nobody fights anymore, nobody rebels and nobody takes risks with this admin which behaves like the Mafia. Do they all have guns to thier heads? I guess I’m just so tired of being implicated in this horror by virtue of the fact that I am american, despite the fact I support nothing relating to any of these wise guys. I’m daily and achingly aware of my powerlessness in the face of a bureaucracy that refuses to budge in favor of the little guy and a minority party that doesn’t listen and won’t act. At what point can Bush be removed for simple lack of confidence? At 30% +/- 3, aren’t we there yet? How can Congress continue to pretend he is a leader? How can they continue to show up there and do nothing to remove him?

guess it wasn’t /rant, after all.

new thread – new news

Cash in assets, max out all cards – & hit the road!

I have a solution to America’s financial problems- first, the 18 families that are going after the estate tax can shut up and pay up. why should every other taxpayer finance their jabba-the-hut level of greed?

and, ta-dah- corporations are no longer “persons.” and if they have offshore affiliates, they pay taxes too…if they shelter income in another country, they are breaking my new law about giving back to the goddamn place that made them rich. If they want to be a company in another country, then let them live with the laws there, and live there, too.

and my deficit spending would go for small energy farmers who supply to local communities, who employ local people, and who also let local members of the community buy a stake in their energy futures.

Halliburton can pay back all the money they stole from the American taxpayers by not doing the jobs they got by no-bid contracts, and pay a penalty, too. And the govt can establish a “no war profiteering” oversight committee like during the Truman administration to make sure no one profits off of, say, supplying bombs to destroy a place and then getting paid to rebuild it.

Gas for cars can be price-fixed, free market be damned, and taxed like heck (this will be immensely unpopular, so Americans need a little reality show about the real cost of living in exurbia and other ways of global warming) to pay for the costs of solarcell trains, etc. that can carry cars, too, and the rails that have been disgarded…and this can also be done with American labor.

that’s a start, but better than what’s on the table now.

oh yeah, and there’s that universal health care thing, too, so families don’t have to worry that an illness will move them from Evanston to Cabrini Green.

and teachers need to be paid more…what has a CEO done that’s more important than the best teachers? honestly. especially when profits depend upon decimating the middle class.

A strong middle class is necessary for democracy. So, all those cos that are defining success as a measure of downward mobility for all but their stockholders are not good for democracy, are they?

/rant…for now.

Can someone tell me what a debt ceiling means in a quick sentence, please?

No, we must continue to call them conservatives. That is what they are and this is the result when conservatives govern.

Conservative motto:
“Never let facts get in the way of ideology.”

Don’t let them get awya with old canard that the conservatives who are botshing things at the present time “are not really conservatives”. They are.

ccmask says:
May 9th, 2006 at 9:11 am

It is a limit on the amount of money the Federal government can borrow.

LindyH #144

Thanks for that link. It is interesting how the Administration is selling these guys. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Goss was confirmed on his promise that he would be a nonpartisan reformer. He was, of course, an underachieving political hack who had passed up years of opportunities to reform or even exercise oversight of the CIA when he was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Now Hayden is being sold on the basis that he is a good administrator, a fact which the TPM Muckraker article undercuts. He is also a “people” person, this to get around the fact he has no experience doing intelligence with real human agents. Also being active military is being portrayed almost as if it were an accident. What?! So that’s why he wears that uniform. I never knew!

Still the Administration is saying, trust us, even though 2/3 of the American people don’t. I guess they want us to forget how Porter Goss got there.

As the the Clusterfuck administration continues it’s acccelerated internal rot- it will become very difficult to find people who want to join a group who is liquifying in public- for the last two years of it’s non-effectiveness.

thanks Stephen…is the sky the limit here or what?

And zennurse–I care about you!

ccmask 152 –

The Debt Ceiling is the legal limit on what the Federal Government can borrow; if the ceiling isn’t raised, the Borrow and Squander GOP Government can’t pay it’s bills. Social Security checks don’t get mailed, etc., etc.

ccmask says: “…is the sky the limit here or what?”
May 9th, 2006 at 9:21 am

I don’t know for certain. Let’s head over to the new thread.

Thanks to you, too, ccmask.

By the way-Ronnie Raygun movie on right now on TCM–That Hagen Girl with Shirley Temple.

And now, I will EPU my butt upstairs….

I spent 6 years living in Texas. It made me realize that a lot of people had a fundamentally different world view than I had experienced while living in more liberal environments.

Many people believed that what they had what was soley due to their own individual efforts and that people who had less, well, it was their own fault. There was no concept of appreciation for growing up in an environment that afforded them a good education or wealthy parents that provided an example of how to succeed.

Since less fortunate people have only themselves to blame, why should the more fortunate help them. Since the fabric of society played no role in the success of the more fortunate, they have no obligation to support and maintain it.

I hated this harsh and cruel point of view and was glad to move back to a more progressive community.

I attended a trade show in Dallas last year and I could’t wait to leave it all behind. What a dreary place,IMO. Right before the hurricane, I attended another show in New Orleans and I loved it immediately.

Can we stop calling them “conservatives” now?

No, you cannot and should not stop calling them “conservatives”, at least if you want to make “conservatism” a toxic term like I do.

Fiscal responsibility really has nothing to do with what conservatism really is. What it is is a black mark on America, against all of the ideals that made us start this country.

Harald (141) — I’m trying to teach my kids that the market has an immediate impact on how a segment of the population responds. I’m also trying to teach them several other key things, ugly but true: the investor class dictates what happens to their lives and the only way to surmount this is to become an investor; there are trade-offs between money spent and money invested (I bought shares in Apple instead of buying an iPod and I showed them we can do a lot more with the money invested than we can with an iPod). This is what most kids in the lowest deciles never learn; many of them will struggle to ever have a bank account with a sustained balance. I’d like to ensure my kids teach other kids the same things, especially their friends who don’t have parents teaching them this kind of stuff. So yeah, we do watch the market EVERY DAY, although we may only track a couple of stocks (not the whole college fund portfolio) and monitor how management and consumers’ and investors’ decisions affect value.

And truthfully, watching CNBC gradually migrate from Bush sycophancy to Bush skepticism and now Bush suspicion over the last 9 months has been extremely entertaining. Heh.

No, we can NOT stop calling them conservatives.

This has been their game all along, they’ve just wrapped themselves in the trappings of ’sensible, small government’ types so they could gain access to the treasury and bleed it dry.

Donna and all-I feel the same way, secure but not. This “Government” is the burden those with tax breaks won’t have to pay. Couldn’t sleep the other night thinking I should sell everything and buy gold. Then today heard on CNBC china was going to take more of it for themselves-dollars are already worthless. What will the Halliburton detention camps be used for? Why diid we have a silent majority before? Because Americans are afraid to loose want they have for principles. In the meantime forces are coming full circle. True compassionate conservatives, constitutionalists, liberals can fight the same fight together-we should watch our language. You should find our common voice of unity. Anyone wanting to be president should walk through the FDR memorial and realize that so many ideals that FDR expressed and congress put into action re: care , compassion and justice are engrained american values. And they have always been opposed by the greedy. Sadly our congress is part of the ruling class like the rubber stamp party bosses of the USSR. It always gets the blood flowing to watch Mr. Smith goes to Washington, or to borrow a quote from Gary Cooper in John Doe and then realize that ideals can be unified by a voice willing to express them. FDL is a great starting point- perhaps the tipping point to a new Democracy.

The Republicans see that the party is going to end soon. So they have a last orgy of treasury looting while they still can.

Just think about it!

A person making a million dollars a year could give it all to the US government, and it would still take 10 million YEARS to pay off our current debt ceiling.

US Debt Ceiling $10,000,000,000,000
A million a year $1,000,000
Years to pay off 10,000,000

So those millionaires need the tax break, don’t you see? With all that debt to pay off, they need some relief.

They call it “Middle Class tax relief,” and believe me, they’ve relieved the Middle Class of just about all we’ve got!

Ed

I think y’all should look up the word conservative in the dictionary, and then you’ll find that it doesn’t and never has applied to the GOP.

I prefer the term “Bushist fascist,” myself.

Said twenty times real fast.