The Iraq war is over? Nigga please!!!

Yes I used the 'N' word, as a brown bitch I feel I can do that and fuck anyone that says different...and Obama used a lot of words that were bullshit in a bucket tonight during his prime time speechifying on the...cough..War in Iraq. From Obama and his minions I get this horseshit tonight:

As Operation Iraqi Freedom ends, our commitment to a sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq continues. Under Operation New Dawn, a transitional force of U.S. troops will remain to advise and assist Iraqi forces, protect our civilians on the ground, and pursue targeted counterterrorism efforts.

There is NO democracy in Iraq, they are NOT civil, stable or self-fucking-reliant...civil war will break out sooner than later...Maliki was not elected yet he runs the country. What other realities do you need to know to realize that Obama didn't do much of anything but continue the Bush43 Bullshit.From Obama's speech, via McClatchy:

As we do, I’m mindful that the Iraq war has been a contentious issue at home. Here, too, it’s time to turn the page. This afternoon, I spoke to former President George W. Bush. It’s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset. Yet no one can doubt President Bush’s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security. As I’ve said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hopes for Iraqis’ future.

Obama praised Bush43...are you friggin kidding me? Bush43 and his henchman used 935 lies to drag us into Iraq. The Big O made a huge speechifying moment over pulling out around 100,000 soldiers but still leaving 50,000 of our citizens behind. The Big O never said anything about 'winning' the war in Iraq...because anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows there was no reason to enter and decimate Iraq...other than they had a nasty-ass dictator that had dissed Bush the First.

So yes...berate me for using the 'n' word on The Big O...fuck him and fuck his warmongering agenda...bastard ain't no better than Bush the Second...and that's a fucking fact jack. Tonight he was nothing more than a jive ass....well...you know..But wtf will you do about the lies and fuckery spewed by our President and his administration tonight during a prime time address..or the former Pres and his administration of assholes that perpetuated this horseshit on us and the people of Iraq?


Those fuckers 'leading' Iraq never met any benchmarks...none. That was all bullshit too. 

Richard Engel on what now for Iraq, from Rachel's show tonight.

Ok, so which of these morons is lying?

One of them is, no doubt about it. My money is on the fuckwit Governor.

You remember the recent story of the state of NJ losing out on a shitload of Federal education money because the assholes can't fill out their paperwork correctly. Well, the newly elected Rethug Chris Christie has tried to blame everyone, including the Obama administration, for their own fuckup. From TPM:

Former New Jersey Education Commissioner Bret Schundler, who was fired today by Gov. Chris Christie (R) amid accusations that he'd lied to the governor about an error in the state's application for federal Race to the Top money, is now saying that he did not mislead the governor at all.


The state lost out on $400 million in funds as a result of an error in its application, which provided budget numbers for the wrong years, causing New Jersey to lose enough points to miss out on the money. On Wednesday, Christie held a press conference in which he strongly blamed the Obama administration for the loss of federal funding, saying that Schundler had tried to fix an error in the state's application during his presentation to federal education officials, but they would not let him.

Then on Thursday, the federal Education Department released a video of the presentation itself, showing the officials pointing out the error to Schundler, who was unable to correct it. As a result, Schundler was fired for seemingly misleading the administration about what had happened.

But now he says he did not mislead them at all.

The Associated Press reports:

In an interview at his Jersey City home Friday, Schundler responded that he gave Christie the right story.

"In fact, I was very direct with him that we didn't get the panel the numbers," he said.

He also shared printouts of e-mails which he says show that he accurately told the governor's public relations office what happened during the meeting in question.

So one of these nitwits, or perhaps both, are lying through their pearly whites. $400 million is reason enough to get rid of both of these fucks in my humble yet vocal opinion. Good luck New Jersey, you folks are stuck w/Christie for at least four years.

More people believe in UFO's than Palin for Prez..

Laughing my brown ass off..from a poll paid for by CBS' 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair, more folks believe in ghosts and ufo's than Sarah Palin being a good President:

Do you think SARAH PALIN would have the ability to be an EFFECTIVE PRESIDENT?
        ALL     REP.     DEM.     IND.     LIB.     MOD.     CONS.
No     59%     40%     75%        63%     80%     70%        40%
Yes     26       47        12           21        15        19           41


Which one of the following do you think is the most likely to ACTUALLY EXIST?
                     ALL      MEN      WOMEN      UNDER 45   OVER 45
U.F.O.’s         30          37             22                 23               36

Ghosts           33%      22%           45%               43%            24%

Thank you America....I really needed a friggin great, big, belly laugh today. ;)

Is it over? Biden in Baghdad to celebrate w/Maliki and Company

Joe Biden is celebrating with the so-called government of Iraq today, commemorating the end of our ..cough..military mission there. From the CNN link:

Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Iraq on Monday to participate in a ceremony marking the end of the U.S. combat mission there, according to the White House.

While in the country, Biden will meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani, Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi and other political leaders "to discuss the latest developments in Iraq and to urge Iraqi leaders to conclude negotiations on the formation of a new government," the White House said in a written statement.

The United States' official combat mission in Iraq is scheduled to conclude on Tuesday. Roughly 50,000 troops, however, will remain in the country until the end of 2011. Their mission will be to will train, assist and advise the Iraqis.

I don't know about anyone else, but keeping 50k worth of our blood and treasure,in the form of soldiers, and the constant bombings in the Green Zone and the rest of the country there doesn't signal an end to shit for me. The Obama administration acts like it's all said and done...far from it boys and girls. Did the government of Iraq suddenly meet all those friggin benchmarks? Yeah right..From the NYT link:

Insurgents affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq  claimed responsibility on Saturday for a wave of car bombings, roadside mines and hit-and-run attacks this week in at least 13 Iraqi cities and towns, a deadly and relentless campaign whose breadth surprised American military officials and dealt a blow to Iraq’s fledgling security forces.

At least 56 people were killed in the attacks, in which insurgents deployed more than a dozen car bombs. Two of the assaults wrecked police stations in Baghdad and Kut, a city southeast of the capital, though American and Iraqi officials said measures taken by the security forces had prevented the attacks from inflicting an even higher toll.

Gee, I just can't wait for his speechifying tomorrow night on this issue. How bout you?

When the levees broke..The Big UnEasy cover-up

I have always said it wasn't Katrina, it was the Army Corp of Engineers that caused the flooding and deaths in New Orleans after Katrina hit the gulf. Lots of scientists and just regular folk agreed with me.

What makes this whole thing worse and downright fucking nauseating is that the Army Corp of Engineers rebuilt the levee's as fucked up as the first set. I wrote about that bullshittery here in May of 2007. It's from a National Geographic piece that exposed the Army Corp of Engineers construction of the...cough..new levees. The Nat Geo piece is quite extensive, or was as I haven't checked to see if they still include all the interviews with scientists and aerial footage of the flaw's in those new and improved levees.

Harry Shearer also agrees with me on many of the points I have made above. Harry made a film about the cover-up. It will show one night, tomorrow night. From the film's website:

In his feature-length documentary, The Big Uneasy, humorist and New Orleans resident Harry Shearer gets the inside story of a disaster that could have been prevented from the people who were there. As we near the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Shearer speaks to the investigators who poked through the muck as the water receded and a whistle-blower from the Army Corps of Engineers, revealing that some of the same flawed methods responsible for the levee failure during Katrina are being used to rebuild the system expected to protect the New Orleans from future peril.

The Big Uneasy is laced with computer imagery that takes you inside the structures that failed so catastrophically, and boasts never–before–seen video of the moments when New Orleans began to flood and the painstaking investigations that followed. The Big Uneasy marks the beginning of the end of five years of ignorance about what happened to one of our nation’s most treasured cities — and serves as a stark reminder that the same agency that failed to protect New Orleans still exists in other cities across America.

It's government at it's worst folks..pure and simple. And New Orleans is still at risk...but who cares...not the Army Corp of Engineers evidently, and dare I say it....the federal government, which includes the culpable parties known as the House of Representatives and the Senate and finally state and local governments and agency's.

If you wish to see the documentary, the theaters and showtimes can be found on this page at the films website.

I wish I could see it but my neck of the woods is run by rightwing nutters and the film isn't showing anywhere near me..closest is two hours away in L.A. I can't wait for the DVD to become available.

Oh, and read the MotherJones piece I link to above by David Corn which highlights much of what the movie exposes. It's sure to get you angry..at least if you have a pulse and care about people, it should. I still don't get why folks aren't up in arms about this fuckery the Army Corp of Engineers pulled...not once...but fucking twice on the City of New Orleans.

The Independent Levee Investigation Team Report (links to which are on the film's website) is very enlightening and depressing.From the Executive Summary of what went wrong in New Orleans:

In the end, it is concluded that many things went wrong with the New Orleans flood protection system during Hurricane Katrina, and that the resulting catastrophe had it roots in three main causes: (1) a major natural disaster (the Hurricane itself), (2) the poor performance of the flood protection system, due to localized engineering failures, questionable judgments, errors, etc. involved in the detailed design, construction,  operation and maintenance of the system, and (3) more global “organizational” and  institutional problems associated with the governmental and local organizations  responsible for the design, construction, operation, maintenance and funding of the  overall flood protection system.

Below is a very short trailer of the documentary.

FCC appeals tv indecency ruling

Those Seven Dirty Words are back.. from Jurist:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday appealed [PDF] a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that the agency's television indecency rule  is unconstitutionally vague in violation of the First Amendment. The July appellate court decision further held that the FCC's rule, which allowed broadcasters to be fined based on isolated expletives, chills protected speech, as broadcasters would err on the side of not airing controversial matter, rather than face the prospect of significant fines. The agency's appeal for rehearing and an en banc rehearing argues that the Second Circuit's decision conflicts with Supreme Court precedent, particularly the court's decision in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, the "Seven Dirty Words" decision. The FCC concluded its argument by asserting that, under the Second Circuit's prior ruling, the agency would be unable to develop a clear indecency rule, and:

    The panel's opinion may theoretically leave open the possibility that the FCC could return to something like its pre-1987 policy, which focused on Carlin's seven dirty words. During the time when that policy prevailed, however, "not a single enforcement action was brought." It is easy to understand why, in light of the freedom that policy gave to broadcasters to air indecent material so long as they "avoided certain words."

Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 40, there is no absolute right for the networks involved in the controversy to answer the FCC's petition for rehearing, and the court may issue a decision without hearing re-argument.

The US Supreme Court originally remanded the case to the appeals court after ruling in April 2009 that the FCC did not act arbitrarily and capriciously in changing its policy regarding fines for the broadcast of isolated expletives. That ruling overturned a previous decision by the Second Circuit, which held that the 2004 policy was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act for failing to articulate a reasoned basis for its change in policy. The Supreme Court declined to address the constitutionality of the FCC policy in its decision and remanded the case to the lower court for further consideration of the constitutional issue.

Morality has no place in civil law...none.

My summer vacation and other horror stories

Actually, my time in Oklahoma wasn't a horror story until I found a tick on my tit. Being a city girl, I freaked the fuck out and ran screaming over to my son's landlord, who lives next door, begging her to get it off of me. She took a pair of tweezers and jerked the little blood sucker off, then told me where they like to 'hide' on the human body, the warmest regions...use your imagination and I am sure you can figure out why I spent the next 36 hours refusing to get near my son's dog or sit on his couch and kept getting naked and looking at various places on my body in a mirror.

I am slowly putting up photos on my DeviantArt account which, if you are bored to death and wish to peruse, you can see them there or as my Photo of the Day here on Nutjob.I did manage to spoil the shit out of his great little cocker spaniel named Charlie.

The weather was friggin horrendous, the temps in triple digits with the humidity and dewpoints off the fucking charts. Of course the day I left the temps went down into the 80's and here at home they soared into the 105 degree range...evidently hell does follow me around the globe.

It's so green in OK I was in awe. I didn't take a lot of outdoor photos as the heat was insufferable damn it. Here in Cali, its nothing but brown or scorched and burnt, depending on where you live.

Strangers are friendly as all get-out, waving as you drive by or just being polite when you deal with them in stores or other common areas. Customer service is alive and well in the midwest, unlike Cali where all retail clerks act like they are doing you a favor helping you.

Since my son lives in the middle of no-friggin-where, on a dirt road with no name...needless to say I never ventured out alone as there was no way I would of found my way back to his house. Those dirt roads were awfully friggin narrow and my questions about how to pass an oncoming truck or farm vehicle were met with laughter. He also does not have more than six tv channels and internet was on his tiny-ass cell phone. I stayed up on baseball scores and that was the total sum of my internet usage whilst in the heartland.

My son did take me out and about however, so I got to see the beautiful countryside and meet his friends, all of whom were all very hospitable and quite talkative. My favorite photo that I took is my son holding a new-born calf that was rejected by her mom who gave birth to twins. He will help bottle-feed the calf until she is old enough to go back into the herd. The kid wants to go into ranching as a...cough...job, and although I believe he could do it..the chance to 'move up' is kinda slim don't ya think? Plus, no benefits and feeding cattle three times a day in the snow during winter doesn't sound too great either.

All in all, it was an interesting and informative trip. I still see all the lush green, and that tick, in my minds eye whilst sitting in the friggin heat here in the south end of the San Joaquin valley.

And I really miss my son..

From our dept of WTF?

Trashcan Annie and the WND dipshit, Joey Farah, are fighting it out publicly?
Both of these toiletbowl turds are as useful as tits on a bullfrog...so why so much press for them both on the topic of gays and party affiliation? From the TPM link:

This story is just begging for some sarcastic 'strange bedfellows' remark.


Last week World Net Daily made headlines after it announced it was dropping Ann Coulter at the keynote speaker at their "Taking Back America" conference following news that she would be headlining GOProud's Homocon 2010. WND CEO Joseph Farah expressed 'concern' that by appearing she was supporting the idea that "that sodomy is just an alternate lifestyle."

Ann Coulter responded in typical Coulter fashion by calling Farah variously as "swine" and a "publicity whore" and later called WND "fake Christians."

Caught up? The latest development, according to the Daily Caller, is that Farah has taken to radio shows hosted by gay personalities to further skewer Coulter.

First, if folks in the LGBT community want to follow the republican way...it's their right..but personally, my pov is this.. why in the fuck would you support a group that goes out of their way to bash you and create laws that make you an outcast in our society and deny you civil rights?

Second, that Trashcan Annie suddenly supports the LGBT agenda is suspect in and of itself. The cunt has done nothing but bash gays and lesbians, not to mention her second favorite negative-connotation word is fag and it's various derivatives.

Finally, who the fuck gives a rat's ass what Joe Farah thinks or says and why in the blue hell would any show, that supports the LGBT agenda, have this fuckwit on and give him a soapbox to bash gays and lesbians?

Sigh...I am so confused...

Happy trails to moi....

I am heading out to the midwest. Wish me luck as I have never spent time in our nation's midsection. Will be visiting my son and dragging him, kicking and screaming, to see my mother whom he can't stand.

See you folks in a week, as there is no intertubes in the middle of no-friggin-where Oklahoma where my son lives.

Be good to yourselves and each other.

Rand Paul has no clue about Harlan County

Perhaps it's because I do know about the history of Harlan County that this fuckery pisses me off and has raised my blood pressure off the friggin charts tonight. I lived in western VA for a while and I remember old timers telling me about what went down in Harlan County, Kentucky, not once but twice. From Salon:

Next month's Details magazine has a profile of exciting Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul, the Republican libertarian who no longer speaks to the national press, because they keep trying to make him defend his beliefs, and he is not very good at that, because he is, I think, kind of dumb.

TPM digs in and finds that Paul supports mountaintop-removal coal mining. He thinks, of course, that it should be left up to private landowners, but he also thinks that flattening mountains makes them prettier and creates some really nice land that can be used to make a "sports complex."

But I found this bit much more illuminating. Driving through Harlan County, the site of a hundred years of bitter, bloody labor disputes, Paul reveals the breadth of his knowledge of Kentucky history:

Rand Paul and I are trying to remember why Harlan, Kentucky, might be famous. That's where Paul is driving me, on a coiling back road through the low green mountains of the state's southeastern corner, in his big black GMC Yukon festooned with RON PAUL 2008 and RAND PAUL 2010 stickers. Something about Harlan has lodged itself in my brain the way a shard of barbecue gets stuck in one's teeth, and I've asked Paul for help. "I don't know," he says in an elusive accent that's not quite southern and not quite not-southern. The town of Hazard is nearby, he notes: "It's famous for, like, The Dukes of Hazzard."That ignorant fuck couldn't hold the miners hard hat for the hundreds of men that fought for years and years to get safety procedures implemented in the mines of Harlan County. 

Yes, I am a unionist...yes, I support unions(although it gets harder every year), OSHA and anything else that takes the safety of miners above profits for the owners. Evidently Rand's dumb ass not only doesn't have a fucking clue, he supports Big Coal. ..to the eff'n hilt I might add as he loves the shit out of Mountain Top Removal.

Rand baby...in the 30's Harlan County coal miners took it to the hilt to get safety regs and fair wages for their work in the shitty-ass mines in their neck of the woods...its referred to as Bloody Harlan, you fucking idiot, for a reason. Try checking out this site which gives us the numbers and names of all the miners who have given their lives to earn a shitty living. Remember these words from the Governor of the state during the trials for the miners of Harlan who had the nads to strike in the 30's:

“there exists a virtual reign of terror (in Harlan County), financed in general by a group of coal mine operators in collusion with certain public officials: the victims of this reign of terror are the coal miners and their families… a monster-like reign of oppression whose tentacles reached into the very foundation of the social structure and even into the Church of god… the homes of union miners and organizers were dynamited and fired into… It appears that the principal cause of existing conditions is the desire of the mine owners to amass for themselves fortunes through the oppression of their laborers, which they do through the sheriff's office.”

 Then, in the 70's, the workers did it all over again you friggin asshole. Watch the movie, Harlan County USA, here for free, you corporate ass-kissing jackass, it will take 105 minutes of your worthless fucking life.

Or read the book, Hell in Harlan either in the Library of Congress or buy a copy online you fuckwad.

Christ-all-fucking-mighty...there is nothing I hate more than ignorance of our history as a nation of workers...nothing. And Rand Paul is as ignorant as they come. Buddha help those people if they elect that fucking moron..I swear on my grandmothers soul, they will live to regret it.

Am I pissed off tonight...oh hell yeah...because I know of what I speak...and I know Appalachia and most of that part of the world have given their lives and their souls for the dirtiest form of energy on the face of the fucking earth..and they gave their lives and their souls for pennies....fucking pennies.Generations have done it and continue to do it.

Below is a trailer for the movie on the 70's strike which can be watched online for gratis at a link above.



May your dumb ass rot in hell for all eternity Rand Paul. At the lowest level Dante wrote about.

Hot-tub Tommy will not face federal charges..

Personally, I didn't think he would. Holder's gang made the announcement. From TPM:

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay will not face federal charges related to his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Politico reported.


The Justice Department notified DeLay's lead attorney, McGuireWoods Chairman Richard Cullen, about the decision last week, the lawyer said.

"The federal investigation of Tom DeLay is over and there will be no charges," Cullen told Politico. "This is the so-called Abramoff investigation run by the Public Integrity section of DOJ. There have been a series of convictions and guilty pleas since 2005."

Cullen said that DeLay "voluntarily produced to the prosecutors over 1,000 emails and documents from the DeLay office dating back to 1997. Several members of Congress objected to producing official government records under Speech or Debate Clause concerns," Cullen said.

"DeLay took the opposite position, ordering all his staff to answer all questions. He turned over more than 1,000 documents, and several of his aides gave interviews and grand jury testimony."

Fucker still will face the state charges....but I ain't holding my breath on that shit either. They have drug that crap out for years already.

In Fl, residents don't have to be told about toxic soil or groundwater underneath them

This is absolutely criminal on a state and county level. Lockheed Martin, for the most part, did their job and notified the state regarding toxic compounds that had leeched into the ground water of a small FL town and removed the soil, 538 tons to be exact. Lockheed did not cause the leak, they acquired the plant in a huge buy-out of the Loral Corporation's assets. From the miamiherald link above:

In 1996, after the plant closed, Lockheed Martin bought the property as part of a $9.1 billion purchase of many of the assets of owner Loral Corp. At purchase, it did not conduct an environmental review. A year later, as Lockheed Martin began the process of selling the site, it did.


By January 2000, the company discovered a leak of trichloroethylene, TCE, a cancer risk in drinking water that can remain in groundwater for long periods. Other hazards found include 1,4-dioxane, an industrial chemical that can affect the central nervous system and forms contamination plumes in groundwater, and tetrachloroethylene, a cancer-causing agent that can seriously irritate the skin.

But the state never told the residents of Tallevast. As late as 2002, the state of FL said nothing to the residents about the known (at least my state of CA, and half a  dozen other state, federal, and international agencies considers it) cancer-causing chemical TCE in the soil and groundwater, or about tetrachloroethylene another carcinogen. When asked why, the following is a response from an official state spokeswoman:

Why didn't the state inform the community? ``I don't believe we had a regulation,'' a spokeswoman with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection told The Miami Herald in 2008

Wait, they needed a fucking regulation to tell property owners and life-long residents that their wells and soil were tainted with cancer-causing agents? They felt no moral need, no eff'n obligation what-so-fucking-ever to warn residents, tax paying residents? Are you friggin kidding me? 

The plant, when operational, manufactured nuclear reactor parts and nuclear weapons. Oh, and did I mention that Tallevast is primarily a black town? Not that the color of the residents skin had anything to do with the state screwing them over...of course not. Not in the great state of Floriduuuh.

China finally surpasses Japan.

It was only a matter of time:

After three decades of spectacular growth, China has passed
Japan to become the world's second-largest economy behind the
United States, according to government figures released early
Monday.

The milestone, though anticipated for some time, is the most
striking evidence yet that China's ascendance is for real and
that the rest of the world will have to reckon with a new
economic superpower.

The milestone was reached early Monday, when Tokyo said that
in the second quarter, the Japanese economy was valued at
about $1.28 trillion, slightly below China's figure of $1.33
trillion. The gross domestic product of the United States was
roughly $14 trillion in 2009. Japan's economy grew 0.4
percent in the second quarter, Tokyo said, substantially less
than forecast.

Ain't that friggin grand?

What balls they have!

Those wonderful folks that helped bring you Enron, the trumped up power shortage in the southwest, price of food and gas..and that nice little recession we have going now and then our government actually bailed the fuckers out thing.

They. Are. Scum...of the lowest form. But,

They are rich scum. I love the title: A 'Fat Cat' strikes back. From J.Alter:

President Obama and the business community have been at odds for months. But in July the chairman and cofounder of the Blackstone Group, one of the world's largest private-equity firms, amped up the rhetoric. Stephen Schwarzman - the leading John McCain supporter in a firm that, in 2008, gave more money to Obama - was addressing board members of a nonprofit organization when he let loose. "It's a war," Schwarzman said of the struggle with the administration over increasing taxes on private-equity firms. "It's like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939."


Attendees at the board meeting (who provided details on condition that they and the organization not be identified) were shocked. "War? Hitler? Poland? A little over the top for a proposal to make hedge-fund managers pay their fair share in taxes," one attendee says about the comments. Neither Blackstone nor the White House would discuss Schwarzman's statement, which came in the wake of strong, but less stinging, criticism this summer of the administration from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.

The USCOC is nothing but a mouthpiece for corporations, greed, money...just for starters. Hedge funds are so under-regulated it's friggin flat out payoff to the govt to look the other way. Stephen Schwarzman is a piece of corporate shit who only wants more and more and...without even breaking a sweat for it.

And we elect the people that give him what he wants. Fucking amazing.

Rightwing nutter convicted of threats against federal judge.

This fuckwad nutter blogger had his day in court and a jury of his 'peers' convicted him of making serious death threats against three, count em,THREE federal judges that upheld our nations gun laws in their rulings.

Hope ole Hal baby looks good in prison orange...and enjoys all the free time his disgusting ass will have cooling his heels in a federal pen. From Jurist:

A right-wing blogger from New Jersey was convicted by a federal jury Friday for death threats made on his blog against federal judges who upheld a gun control law. Harold "Hal" Turner, a one-time FBI informant on white-supremacist groups, was convicted in Brooklyn of a single count of threatening to assault and murder federal judges. Prosecutors alleged that Turner wrote on his blog that federal judges should die and posted the courthouse address and a map which prosecutors claimed showed his intent to intimidate and impede the judges from doing their job. Turner faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Federal prosecutors had tried twice before to convict Turner but both efforts ended with mistrials. The charges stem from comments Turner made on his blog against three judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit who ruled in June in favor of two municipal gun control laws in Illinois: William Bauer, Frank Easterbrook and Richard Posner.

Threats against judges, US attorneys, and assistant US attorneys have more than doubled over the last six years, according to a report [PDF] released in January by the US Department of Justice. The report found that judges, US attorneys, and assistant US attorneys received 1,278 threats in 2008, compared to 592 in 2003. Additionally, the report found that threats are not always consistently and promptly reported. In December 2008, Brian Nichols was sentenced to seven life terms to be served consecutively in addition to other punishment for shooting and killing a federal judge and other personnel in an Atlanta courthouse in an attempted escape. In April 2008, Ohio resident David Tuason was indicted for allegedly threatening to blow up the US Supreme Court building and attack black men, including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Other death threats have been reported in recent years against Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and now-retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

He faces up to ten years...and I pray to Buddha he gets all ten. These cocksuckers all need to feel the wrath of all Americans. They are extremists who many times own weapons and we all know how that shit can end...don't we?

Update on the Vick Dogs...

They have slowly brought them into the limelight. I have followed their progress from the day they left their hell on earth. I am a person that despises BSL's (Breed Specific Legislation) because I had a battered and abused Pit for years until my girl Baby died from cancer. She was the sweetest dog I have ever known and folks...I have known a boat-friggin-load. From BadRap.org via People Magazine:

After Michael Vick's 51 pit bulls were seized from his property in April 2007, two rescue groups took most of them in -- Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah, and BAD RAP (Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pit Bulls) in San Francisco. Several other groups around the country also opened their doors to the dogs: the Georgia SPCA, All or Nothing Rescue, Our Pack, Richmond Animal League, Recycled Love, the Animal Farm Foundation, the SPCA for Monterey, Out of the Pits, and Animal Rescue of Tidewater.

That was background on this story, just in case some of you have been under a rock for over three-fucking-years. From the recent article in People Mag:

The little black-and-white dog knocked into furniture and hid things in his crate. He couldn’t go up or down stairs, didn’t know how to climb onto a couch. Flushing toilets and clanging pots sent him running from the room. He wasn’t a bad dog—he simply didn’t know any better; he’d never lived in a house. His lack of social grace earned him the name Jonny Rotten. “He was a caveman,” says Cris Cohen, a Burlingame, Calif., car-dealership manager who provided Jonny with a foster home. “He had no manners.”

That was understandable. Jonny was one of 51 pit bulls seized in April 2007 from Bad Newz Kennels, the Smithfield, Va., dogfighting ring run by Michael Vick, then quarterback of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons. Although too young to have been a fighter, Jonny probably had his mettle tested a few times, and like most of the other Bad Newz dogs, he’d spent his entire life either locked up in a pen or chained to a rotating axle in the woods, with little or no positive interaction with people or other dogs.

After the raid on Vick’s property, Jonny and the other dogs were deemed evidence and put into shelters to be held until the investigation was complete. Conditions varied, but even the best dogs can break down after a few months of confinement. With Vick’s dogs, this wasn’t much of a concern; it was assumed they all would be destroyed upon the delivery of a verdict.

This story has a fairy tale....or tail...ending...I love it and I am glad that after all the hard work of BadRap and the folks in Utah, BestFriends, many of these dogs have been put back into homes and they are well-adjusted. The rest are working their way...slowly, back into society. I believe mutha fuckas...I believe they will all, or the majority of them will end up within our society as 'good dogs'.

In fact, rescuers argued from the start that rather than be condemned as a whole, the dogs should be individually assessed and treated—and this has turned out to be one of the great lessons of the Bad Newz dogs. Generalizations and preconceptions are as unhelpful and counterproductive for pit bulls as they are for people.

Consider one of Vick’s other victims, Hector. A handsome brown dog with a black snout and deep scars on his chest, he had clearly been a fighter. Yet from the start he had nothing but love for the world. After moving through a few foster homes, he was adopted by Roo Yori. The director of care and enrichment at Animal Farm Foundation in upstate New York, Yori is best known as the human companion of Wallace the Pit Bull, a national flying-disc champ.

Hector shares his new home with Yori and his wife, Clara; Wallace; a rat terrier named Scooby; Angus, a black Lab mix; and a toy Australian shepherd called Mindy Lou, who runs the show with an iron paw. Hector fitted in from the start and never had a problem with anyone, human or canine. Under Yori’s guidance, the ex-fighter blossomed, earning several temperament awards and eventually becoming certified as a therapy dog, working with the sick and elderly, as well as troubled teens.

So what conclusions can we draw from the fates of Vick’s pits? “We know so little about dogs like these because so few of them have been allowed to live,” Dr. McMillan says. “We’re learning a lot, but the work still doesn’t permit concrete conclusions. These dogs really represent the start of these kinds of studies.”

Still, we now know for certain that while it may be faster and easier simply to exterminate dogs recovered from illegal fighting rings, it’s not the only option. Look how far Jonny has come. Cohen formally adopted him last year, and he, too, is a therapy dog, working in a program that encourages kids who are learning to read. The children who take turns reciting stories to him don’t know him as a pit bull or a Vick dog. No one knows him as Jonny Rotten, either. Along the way he acquired a new name. Now he’s Jonny Justice. (emphasis mine of course)

I love you Jonny, I really friggin do, sweet boy... ;)

TX AG busts Obama's chops on new drilling moratorium

Evidently these oil-lovin' fuckers just can not buy a friggin clue. From Jurist:

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) on Wednesday filed a legal challenge [complaint, PDF] to the Obama administration's new offshore drilling moratorium, claiming it violates federal law. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, argues that the moratorium was created in violation of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which requires the US Department of the Interior to "cooperate with the relevant departments and agencies of the Federal Government and of the affected states." The act, which affects all decisions relating to the "exploration, development, and production of minerals in the Outer Continental Shelf," also says states are entitled to an opportunity to participate in the process. Abbott said that the federal government ignored his state throughout the process:

    Under federal law, affected states are guaranteed the right to participate in offshore drilling-related policy decisions, but the Obama Administration did not bother to communicate, coordinate or cooperate with Texas. Worse, the Secretary of the Interior failed to consider the economic consequences of his decision, which will cost the Texas economy millions of dollars - and threatens far too many hard-working Texans' jobs.

In addition to requesting the moratorium to be reversed, the complaint also requests that no future moratoriums be allowed unless Texas is given a reasonable opportunity to participate in the process and "due consideration is given to economic, social, and environmental values of the renewable and nonrenewable resources contained in the [Outer Continental Shelf]."

Last month, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued a new six-month drilling moratorium, citing new evidence regarding safety concerns after the BP oil spill. Unlike the previously ordered moratorium, which a federal judge blocked in June, this one is not based on the depths at which drilling occurs. Instead, the moratorium affects drilling with specific technologies, although the applicable technologies are most often used during deepwater drilling and will not affect shallow water drilling operations. The new plan, the government says, offers more specifics on the types of drilling that will and will not be blocked. More than 200 million gallons of oil leaked from a broken pipe in BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig, surpassing the Exxon Valdez oil spill as the worst in US history.

Yes, it's costing jobs....no one denies that fact. But unless and until the Oil Industry spends money to figure out what technology must be developed to insure we never get another gusher like the Deepwater Horizon, our country/government can not allow these greedy fuckers to continue ocean drilling. It's as fucking simple as that. The technology and the whole ball of wax that is deep ocean drilling must be examined with a friggin fine tooth comb...our ecosystem can not take any more of their fuckery...their, being the Oil Industry, who btw, hasn't spent a fucking dime on safety technology or cleanup technology in mutha fucking decades people.

Nor are human lives trade-able in exchange for profits....that above all else folks..BP has caused the loss of life too many fucking times (both on rigs and on land)...and the Oil Industry can thank those worthless fucks for the moratorium.

From our dept of WTF?

Orly got Alito to go along? Are you fucking kidding me? Seriously, is this a friggin joke? From TPM:

Birther queen Orly Taitz has spent the better part of a year fighting a $20,000 fine slapped on her by a federal judge for filing frivolous birther lawsuits contesting President Obama's eligibility to hold the office. A few weeks ago, she applied to the Supreme Court to reverse the fine.

When Justice Clarence Thomas denied her application, she vowed to apply to each of the other justices in turn. The next justice she applied to was Samuel Alito, who has now referred the matter to the to the entire court.

As per her usual, she did it ass-backwards too...read the rest of the writeup. I now firmly believe that Justice Alito is mentally-challenged...a nice way to say he is eff'n retarded. This shows us how far up the federal ladder an idiot and/or rightwing nutter can go folks...sad ain't it? Damn sad.....scary really.

Lest we forget: Big Coal companies suck ass

From The Progress Report;

In Coal We Don't Trust

On April 5, an explosion of methane gas ripped through the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, eventually killing 29 of the 31 miners at the site. The tragedy was the worst mining disaster in decades and shed light on the unsafe working conditions in mines run by Massey Energy and other industry leaders. Yet more than four months later, federal officials say they still don't know the cause of the explosion, although they reject a theory "put forward by Massey, that a huge crack in the floor of the mine may have allowed an influx of the explosive gas methane." Regulators from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and the state of West Virginia have so far interviewed 166 people in their investigation and are now going to subpoena Massey executives, including CEO Don Blankenship. Despite this devastating incident, Blankenship and other coal barons continue to put profits over public safety, polluting the political environment by throwing large sums of money at candidates who will help them weaken regulations.

PROFITS OVER PEOPLE: MSHA has cited Massey's Upper Big Branch Mine for more than 3,000 violations, with 638 since 2009. The fines assessed against the mine amount to $2.2 million; at the time of the April explosion, Massey had paid just $791,327. This week, MSHA issued new sanctions on the Upper Big Branch mine, saying "officials there failed to report five cave-ins and 20 lost-time work accidents in the months before a fatal blast killed 29 men." Since April, Blankenship has been receiving some long-overdue scrutiny for his record of putting coal profits over fundamental safety and health concerns. Blankenship, a right-wing activist millionaire who sits on the boards of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Mining Association, used his company's ties to the industry-dominated Bush administration to paper over Massey's egregious environmental and health violations. At a Labor Day rally last year, Blankenship called safety regulators "as silly as global warming." Even after the Upper Big Branch disaster, Massey officials prevented miners from attending funerals of the 29 victims and even "required a worker to go on shift even though the fate of a relative -- one of the victims of the April 5 disaster -- remained unknown at the time." Last month, five former employees sued a Massey subsidiary saying that it "forced them to work off the clock to avoid paying overtime." Yesterday, the Labor Department "filed for full reinstatement" of a miner who was fired by Massey after blowing the whistle on the unsafe practices at Massey mines. The miner is a witness in the federal criminal investigation into the Upper Big Branch explosion.

HURTING THE BOTTOM LINE: Massey is also starting to take a hit financially. The Upper Big Branch Mine is unlikely to reopen this year, and the explosion contributed "to a second-quarter loss of $88.7 million, or 88 cents per share, in the period." Yesterday, the Rainforest Action Network announced that major Wall Street banks are backing away from companies that practice destructive mountain top removal mining. The organization reports, "Bank of America, which was one of the 'syndication agents' on a $175 million revolver loan to Massey in March 2008, is no longer on the deal or any others with the company. JPMorgan, similarly, underwrote $180 million in debt securities in 2008 to Massey and was also the lead manager on a $233 million share deal (joint with UBS) that same year. JPMorgan no longer has any financial ties to the company." Reducing the power of the coal industry is actually good news for West Virginia, the heart of the industry, despite what many politicians state. Despite $118 million in coal-mining annual income, West Virginia has the nation's lowest median household income, worst educational services, worst social assistance, and highest percentage of its population with disabilities. Nearly a quarter of West Virginia children are in poverty. A West Virginia University study found that the "human cost of the Appalachian coal mining economy outweighs its economic benefits." Although the coal industry generates more than "$8 billion a year in economic benefits for the Appalachian region," the value of the premature deaths due to the mining industry are valued at a minimum of $42 billion.

POLITICAL INFLUENCE: Rep. George Miller (D-CA), along with co-sponsors Reps. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) and Nick J. Rahall (D-WV), has introduced legislation to improve mine safety by hiking financial penalties for mine-safety violations. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that it would generate "$200 million in increased revenues during the next decade." Naturally, Blankenship is against the bill. "We need to let businesses function as businesses," he said last week at the National Press Club. "Corporate business is what built America, in my opinion, and we need to let it thrive by, in a sense, leaving it alone." Blankenship and other coal barons are now doing all they can to make sure that there won't be more regulations, including by donating large sums of money to industry-friendly candidates who will look the other way at their misbehavior. Blankenship and other Massey employees have donated thousands of dollars to West Virginia congressional candidates Elliott "Spike" Maynard and David McKinley. Maynard and Blankenship are especially tight. In 2006, when Maynard was chief justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and Massey had millions of dollars of cases pending before the court, Maynard and Blankenship went on an expensive vacation in the French Riviera together. Later that year, Maynard voted with the majority in favor of Massey. McKinley has hired Blankenship's old "chief political consultant" to help his campaign. The Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky also reports that several coal executives, including Blankenship, are pooling their money to take advantage of the Supreme Court's Citizen United decision loosening corporate campaign finance laws by forming a 527 group to help elect coal-friendly Republicans. Why a 527? Because according to the IRS, they can hide their activities until "next year, long after the Nov. 2 election." Coal executives are even planning to influence the minds of West Virginia's future leaders at a younger age, by teaching schoolchildren about the wonders of coal.

Teaching children about the wonders of coal. You fuckers are so full of shit your eyes better be brown. 

Oh and George Miller , Democrat, rocks! Congress needs to support and pass his legislation. Any bets on which way that bill will go?

Rep Weiner is right- Mosque is an issue elected officials need to get the hell away from.

Rep Anthony Weiner is one of the few elected officials that refuse to give an opinion or pov on the famed mosque in NYC near the twin towers. I totally agree that everyone else is makingit a political football and the separation of church and state makes it wrong for any elected official,or wanna-be elected official,to give us their two-friggin-cents on this non-issue.

If you need something to do this Thursday evening...Perseid has arrived!

About 100 meteors per hour can be seen streaking across the sky during the peak, which NASA geeks say will be just after 10 p.m. Thursday. From the folks at NASA whom I worked for, as a sub-contracting program manager on various satellites in the 70's and 80's:

The show begins at sundown when Venus, Saturn, Mars and the crescent Moon pop out of the western twilight in tight conjunction. All four heavenly objects will fit within a circle about 10 degrees in diameter, beaming together through the dusky colors of sunset. No telescope is required to enjoy this naked-eye event: sky map.

The planets will hang together in the western sky until 10 pm or so. When they leave, following the sun below the horizon, you should stay, because that is when the Perseid meteor shower begins. From 10 pm until dawn, meteors will flit across the starry sky in a display that's even more exciting than a planetary get-together.

The Perseid meteor shower is caused by debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle. Every 133 years the huge comet swings through the inner solar system and leaves behind a trail of dust and gravel. When Earth passes through the debris, specks of comet-stuff hit the atmosphere at 140,000 mph and disintegrate in flashes of light. These meteors are called Perseids because they fly out of the constellation Perseus.

Swift-Tuttle's debris zone is so wide, Earth spends weeks inside it. Indeed, we are in the outskirts now, and sky watchers are already reporting a trickle of late-night Perseids. The trickle could turn into a torrent between August 11th and 13th when Earth passes through the heart of the debris trail.

2010 is a good year for Perseids because the Moon won't be up during the midnight-to-dawn hours of greatest activity. Lunar glare can wipe out a good meteor shower, but that won't be the case this time.

As Perseus rises and the night deepens, meteor rates will increase. For sheer numbers, the best time to look is during the darkest hours before dawn on Friday morning, Aug. 13th, when most observers will see dozens of Perseids per hour.

Hope some of you get off your asses and watch. ;)  Hell, pop some popcorn and grab a chair.

There are thousands of Willy Browns...

I was feeling quite shitty today, after having a real treat of a fucking doctors appointment with an orthopedic surgeon, that is a specialist in pain management, who is supposed to know her shit, but apparently didn't feel it was important enough to do her fucking homework and read through my file, I brought over weeks ago, before she actually saw me today.  She will charge my insurance company a few hundred bucks for her time and the cunt isn't worth one dime of it....in my humble yet quite vocal opinion.

The author of the following commentary, Leonard Pitts Jr, is a Pulitzer prize-winning writer. To paraphrase a line from the movie Parenthood: You have to pass a written and a driving test to get a drivers license but any asshole with a dick between his legs can become a parent.

  As these words are written, he lies brain dead and on life support at Miami Children's Hospital. By the time you read this, there's a good chance he will have been disconnected and declared dead. He is, or he was, two years old. His father, 23-year-old Lee Willie DeJesus of Homestead, is in jail, having been denied bond. Prosecutors expect to charge him with first-degree murder.

According to a confession police say DeJesus supplied, here is what happened: Monday night while the child's mother was at work and he was supposed to be babysitting, DeJesus strapped on a pair of boxing gloves and took aim at his son. He hit him. And hit him. And hit him. And hit him. And hit him.

And hit him. Up to 15 times over 15 minutes about the head, face and torso, including one punch that knocked the little boy off the bed, causing him to strike his head on the floor. DeJesus told police he was trying to teach his son to box.

This is a requiem for intelligence.

You know, common sense, basic brain function. When a man thinks a two-year-old is ready to learn the manly arts of self-defense and proceeds to teach them by beating the stuffing out of him, is that not a sign that the last flickering candle of cognition has been well and truly snuffed? Is it not a signal that plodding, atavistic stupidity has finally seized the day, planted its flag, ascended the throne?

There is no blame game here, not child protective services, not this time...just an ignorant sumbitch without a clue...and the fact that there are thousands of children like Willy Brown out there at risk every single fucking day. 

Is Ernie Istook smoking crack?

And his buddy John Bohner as well...wtf is up w/these two fuckwits and their hatred of the 14th Amendment to our Constitution? Ernie is a member of Nutter University, otherwise known as the Heritage Foundation. Watch him spew his fuckery below:



It's always the undocumented folks fault. Why in the blue hell isn't it the assholes that hire them who should be tarred and feathered, not to mention brought up on charges. These people would not be coming from 1000's of  miles away if there weren't any jobs!!! They come up here and work for shit wages that NO american will do for the wages paid.

So, a hearty FUCK You Ernest Istook! You are our Fuckwit of the Week!

Gates to cut contractors? Really?

I have called them the fourth branch of our federal government and that isn't a fucking stretch if you think about it folks. Gates recent announcement of an annual ten percent cut in funding, aka jobs, for contractor's sounds good, but something tells me it's just more smoke and friggin mirrors. From TPM:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in announcing  new cost-saving measures for the Pentagon, said the DOD will dramatically cut funding for service support contractors, by 10 percent each year for the next three years.

He cited a "dramatic increase in the use of service support and advisory contractors" over the last 10 years -- from 26 percent of workforce spending in 2000 to 39 percent last year. And that's "not counting contractors supporting the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Gates also noted that the department last year said it'd cut the number of contractors by 33,000 by 2015.

"I'm not satisfied with the progress made to reduce our over-reliance on contractors," he said.

The president's deficit commission is reportedly wrestling over how to cut the fat from the DOD's budget.

And as TPMmuckraker has reported, the number of contractors -- both support and security -- has spiked in Iraq and Afghanistan, leading the Congressional Research Service to ask, "Can contractors undermine U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan?" 

As TPM notes, the federal govt has been increasing the number of contractor's contract's for years in both Afghanistan an Iraq....so really....is it as big a deal as Gates is attempting to make it sound? When you add, then turn around and subtract...aren't you back to square one? Also, I would bet my brown ass that the feds have added more than ten percent worth of contracts yearly since we invaded Iraq...

Its about love you hateful bastards.

Its about one of the most basic of human emotions: The ability to love and be loved by another human being, and declare that love in a ceremony that is legally binding. As it was written quite succinctly by the Judge in his ruling, filched from TPM:

"Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians,"

The judge, Vaughn Walker, who has now been threatened, ruled Tuesday that the worthless bastards who created and pushed California's Prop 8. did so unconstitutionally.  From his over 100 page ruling:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

*snip*
 

In the absence of a rational basis, what remains of proponents' case is an inference, amply supported by evidence in the record, that Proposition 8 was premised on the belief that same-sex couples simply are not as good as opposite-sex couples. FF 78-80. Whether that belief is based on moral disapproval of homosexuality, animus towards gays and lesbians or simply a belief that a relationship between a man and a woman is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women, this belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate.

*snip*
 

The arguments surrounding Proposition 8 raise a question similar to that addressed in Lawrence, when the Court asked whether a majority of citizens could use the power of the state to enforce "profound and deep convictions accepted as ethical and moral principles" through the criminal code. ... The question here is whether California voters can enforce those same principles through regulation of marriage licenses. They cannot. California's obligation is to treat its citizens equally, not to "mandate [its] own moral code."

It was a joyous moment here at my house when the ruling was released. The real only beautiful thing in an otherwise shitty day. But it was wonderful and made me dance a gentle happy dance, even with my screwed up, fucked up back killing me so bad I was doped up to my brown eyes all day...hell, even now.

I called a friend Karen, who wasn't home, to tell her of the joyous event..I left a rambling, dumb-assed message about it on her answering machine. I hope she doesn't think I was drunk..I was just on pain pills dear woman. 

Robert Reich cuts through the bs...

When the video, from his Countdown appearance tonight,(alert, its at the bottom of this post) is available I will post it...until then, here is RR's post from his blog today on the topic of Bush's tax cuts for the rich and how full of shit the rightwing nutters are on this issue:

The economy is slouching backward because consumers can’t and won’t spend enough to revive it. Congress is about to recess for the summer without doing anything to fill the gap. And it looks like the only issue it will be debating when it returns is who, if anyone, should pay more taxes next year – just the very rich, everyone, or no one? The cuts enacted by George W. Bush will expire in January, and with midterm election pending in November we’re about to be treated to months of tax demagoguery.

Here’s a guide to the perplexed.

From a strictly economic standpoint – as if economics had anything to do with this – it makes sense to preserve the Bush tax cuts at least through 2011 for the middle class. There’s no way consumers – who comprise 70 percent of the economy – will start buying again if their federal income taxes rise while they’re still struggling to repay their debts, they can’t borrow more, can no longer use their homes as ATMs, and they’re worried about keeping their jobs.

But the same logic doesn’t apply to people at the top, earning over $250K, who represent roughly 2 percent of tax filers. Restoring their marginal tax rates to what they were during the Clinton administration (36 and 39 percent) won’t inhibit their spending. That’s because they already save a large portion of what they earn, and already spend what they want to spend. (During the Clinton years the economy created 22 million net new jobs and unemployment dropped to 4 percent.)

But restoring those top marginal tax rates will help bring down the long-term debt, pulling in almost a trillion dollars of revenues over next ten years. That’s not nearly enough to make a major dent in the nation’s projected deficits, but it’s not chicken feed either. It would at least signal to financial markets we’re serious about cutting that long-term deficit – and the rest of us will chip in when the economy strengthens.

So-called supply-side economists don’t like raising taxes on anyone, of course, and argue that raising them on the well-off will slow economic growth. They say people at the top will have less incentive to work hard, invest, and invent.

Unfortunately for supply-siders, history has proven them wrong again and again. During almost three decades spanning 1951 to 1980, when America’s top marginal tax rate was between 70 and 92 percent, the nation’s average annual growth was 3.7 percent. But between 1983 and start of the Great Recession, when the top rate was far lower – ranging between 35 and 39 percent – the economy grew an average of just 3 percent per year. Supply-siders are fond of claiming that Ronald Reagan’s 1981 cuts caused the 1980s economic boom. In fact, that boom followed Reagan’s 1982 tax increase. The 1990s boom likewise was not the result of a tax cut; it came in the wake of Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increase.

A final reason for allowing the Bush tax cut to expire for people at the top is the most basic of all. Although Wall Street’s excesses were the proximate cause of the Great Recession, its fundamental cause lay in the nation’s widening inequality. For many years, most of the gains of economic growth in America have been going to the top – leaving the nation’s vast middle class with a shrinking portion of total income. (In the 1970s, the top 1 percent received 8 to 9 percent of total income, but thereafter income concentrated so rapidly that by 2007 the top received 23.5 percent of the total.) The only way most Americans could continue to buy most of what they produced was by borrowing. But now that the debt bubble has burst – as it inevitably would – the underlying problem has reemerged.

Why make it worse? George W. Bush’s 2001 tax cut was a huge windfall for the wealthy. About 40 percent of its benefits went to the tiny sliver of Americans earning over $500,000. So rather than debate whether to end the Bush tax cuts for the top and restore the top marginal tax rates to where they were under Bill Clinton, we should be debating whether to raise the highest marginal tax rate higher than it was under Bill Clinton and use the proceeds to give the middle class a permanent tax cut.

I’m not suggesting this, mind you, but just to get the debate started: How about restoring the top rate to where it was under John F. Kennedy (76 percent), or under Dwight Eisenhower (91 percent)?

I really never re-post someone else's entire work. But Reich makes so much sense, I hope to hell he doesn't get pissed at me. We have conversed, via email, in the past and he gave me permission to re-post his writings...so I am using that for this specific issue.  I love that man, he breaks it down for yahoo's like moi to understand.


Beloww is Ezra Klein' pov on the same fuckery:

How dumb is the general voting population on this horseshit? Only time will tell...

Wikileaks War Logs renew cry for judicial review..

Not here in America of course...in the U.K. From the Guardian:

 The prospect of a judicial review into previously covered-up civilian shootings in Afghanistan has opened up after human rights campaigners launched an attempt to take the Ministry of Defence to court.

This follows the disclosure in the Guardian that a series of unusual civilian shootings involving two British army units, are documented in last week's WikiLeaks publication of thousands of leaked US military files.

A formal letter was sent to the defence secretary, Liam Fox, at the weekend by a lawyer, Phil Shiner, on behalf of the peace campaigner Maya Evans. Shiner said: "I am sure we will be able to get this into court."

The campaigners say the killings "require to be investigated as suspected war crimes" under the legislation that set up the international criminal court. They call on the MoD to conduct a proper investigation of the allegations.

Since the details of civilian shootings recorded in the war logs were revealed, MoD officials have not disputed their general accuracy, but ministers have failed to give any explanation, or order any public investigation.

Shiner told Fox the documents reproduced in the Guardian "Identify ... the killing of at least 26 civilians and the wounding of a further 20 by British forces".

This is a relatively small fraction of the hundreds of civilian killings admitted to by US forces in the course of filing war logs which were later leaked. Most British units barely figure in the civilian casualty reports collected in the field by US intelligence.

Disgustingly, our troops have murdered far more civilians than any other country over there.  Of course our troop numbers far exceed any of the other nations as well.