I would like to tell you a funny story about Dennis/Denise :shrug: depending on what the dress code of the day is?
This is Why I Am Not Voting for Obama....
- Thread starter AR182
- Start date
I would like to tell you a funny story about Dennis/Denise :shrug: depending on what the dress code of the day is?
The Little Red Hen Version 2012
"Who will help me plant my wheat?" asked the little red hen.
"Not I," said the cow.
"Not I," said the duck.
"Not I," said the pig.
"Not I," said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself." She planted her crop and the wheat grew and ripened.
"Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen.
"Not I," said the duck.
"Out of my classification," said the pig.
"I'd lose my rich friends," said the cow.
"I'd lose my independant voter card said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen, and so she did.
"Who will help me bake the bread?" asked the little red hen.
"That would be overtime for me," said the cow.
"I'd not be able to increase defense spending
," said the duck.
"I'm a illigal and dont speak english" said the pig.
"If I'm to be the only helper, I want to get paid with lower taxs for the rich ," said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen.
She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share but the little red hen said, "No, I shall eat all five loaves."
"Lobby money !" cried the cow.
"Republican leech!" screamed the duck.
"I demand tax cuts for the wealthy !" yelled the goose.
The pig just grunted in disdain as he was illigal.
And they all painted ' Tea party ' picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities.
Then the Willard the farmer came He said to the little red hen, "You must not be so greedy."
"But I earned the bread," said the little red hen.
"Exactly," said Willard. But we have wealthy corporate companies that are people too and what would they say not to get some bread.
We must have a strong military and maintain 289 military bases all over the world. We must spend billions on new planes, navy ships, and future wars with Iran and anyone else that gets in the way of our richness.
And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, "I am grateful, for now I truly understand."
But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her. She never again baked bread because she joined the Republicans Tea party and demanded abortions for all hens. There were no more eggs to be had in mudville. Willard was there.
Willard returned to his city life and his billion dollars. He counted money everyday . He lived in a 15 k sq ft house and had butlers to make the bread.
Willard was a fatcat .
"Who will help me plant my wheat?" asked the little red hen.
"Not I," said the cow.
"Not I," said the duck.
"Not I," said the pig.
"Not I," said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself." She planted her crop and the wheat grew and ripened.
"Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen.
"Not I," said the duck.
"Out of my classification," said the pig.
"I'd lose my rich friends," said the cow.
"I'd lose my independant voter card said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen, and so she did.
"Who will help me bake the bread?" asked the little red hen.
"That would be overtime for me," said the cow.
"I'd not be able to increase defense spending
," said the duck.
"I'm a illigal and dont speak english" said the pig.
"If I'm to be the only helper, I want to get paid with lower taxs for the rich ," said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen.
She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share but the little red hen said, "No, I shall eat all five loaves."
"Lobby money !" cried the cow.
"Republican leech!" screamed the duck.
"I demand tax cuts for the wealthy !" yelled the goose.
The pig just grunted in disdain as he was illigal.
And they all painted ' Tea party ' picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities.
Then the Willard the farmer came He said to the little red hen, "You must not be so greedy."
"But I earned the bread," said the little red hen.
"Exactly," said Willard. But we have wealthy corporate companies that are people too and what would they say not to get some bread.
We must have a strong military and maintain 289 military bases all over the world. We must spend billions on new planes, navy ships, and future wars with Iran and anyone else that gets in the way of our richness.
And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, "I am grateful, for now I truly understand."
But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her. She never again baked bread because she joined the Republicans Tea party and demanded abortions for all hens. There were no more eggs to be had in mudville. Willard was there.
Willard returned to his city life and his billion dollars. He counted money everyday . He lived in a 15 k sq ft house and had butlers to make the bread.
Willard was a fatcat .
Last edited:
CNBC HOST: Donald, you see the OPEC news this morning? Venezuela wants OPEC to stop pumping more, overproducing, they are saying, that, because Saudi Arabia is pumping above the limits it's supposed to be doing to help us out a little bit and Venezuela is complaining and right now you're looking at oil prices at about back around $82.
DONALD TRUMP: That's still very high, Becky, they should be at $30 if you look at free market. I think Saudi Arabia is doing Obama a big favor. Look, you have to do be a favor, I have to get elected, you can't do it like you've been doing the last three years driving it up to $150 because that's where it's going and I think Saudi Arabia is doing Obama a big fat favor. I think he asked for the favor and prices are coming down, but also the economy's going bad so maybe it won't help that much. but as soon as -- assuming if Obama got elected, you're going to see something with oil like you've never seen before, it will go through the roof. The favor will be repaid many times over.
..........................................................
:142smilie :142smilie
Like every President dont play this game to the fullest.
What is Trump so in the dark he needs a flashlight.
Stick to entertainment because politics is over his head.
maybe Rosey will chime in and blast him .:142smilie
DONALD TRUMP: That's still very high, Becky, they should be at $30 if you look at free market. I think Saudi Arabia is doing Obama a big favor. Look, you have to do be a favor, I have to get elected, you can't do it like you've been doing the last three years driving it up to $150 because that's where it's going and I think Saudi Arabia is doing Obama a big fat favor. I think he asked for the favor and prices are coming down, but also the economy's going bad so maybe it won't help that much. but as soon as -- assuming if Obama got elected, you're going to see something with oil like you've never seen before, it will go through the roof. The favor will be repaid many times over.
..........................................................
:142smilie :142smilie
Like every President dont play this game to the fullest.
What is Trump so in the dark he needs a flashlight.
Stick to entertainment because politics is over his head.
maybe Rosey will chime in and blast him .:142smilie
WASHINGTON -- In a speech in Orlando on Tuesday, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney outlined once again what he would do to replace President Barack Obama's health care law, which he has pledged to throw out if elected. In a follow-up statement to The Huffington Post, his campaign clarified that he would not tackle one of the central issues contained in the Affordable Care Act -- the prohibition of discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.
The approach Romney described centers around proposals to return much of the decision-making to the states while allowing for greater portability of coverage. He has long disavowed federalizing the individual mandate that he passed while governor of Massachusetts, which requires the uninsured to purchase coverage or face a penalty. And so attention has turned to the most closely related provision, a ban on discriminating against individuals with pre-existing conditions.
In his Tuesday speech, Romney said that under his plan, a person who is covered by his or her employer and has a pre-existing condition could not get dropped after switching jobs. The Obama campaign's policy director, James Kvaal, argued in response that such a concept was already law. Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, a person can't be excluded from health insurance coverage because of a pre-existing condition provided that he or she has had continuous coverage.
Romney aides insist that their proposal is more tailored to the modern economy, making it so that even individuals who leave big companies to start mom-and-pop shops won't be at the whims of insurers who discriminate.
The devil is ultimately in the details of the actual plan -- though as the Washington Post's Ezra Klein notes, there are precious few available. But even when (or if) that plan is produced, it will include an obvious hole.
For starters, there is the question of what happens to individuals with pre-existing conditions who lose their jobs rather than move to a new one? Often, COBRA coverage doesn't fully cover treatment costs or last long enough. Another, perhaps more pertinent question is what happens to people who enter the insurance market already suffering from a pre-existing condition?
Andrea Saul, a spokesman for the Romney campaign, addressed the latter point in a statement to The Huffington Post.
Fixing our health care system means making sure that every American, regardless of their health care needs, can find quality, affordable coverage. That is why Governor Romney supports reforms to protect those with pre-existing conditions from being denied access to a health plan while they have continuous coverage. And for those purchasing insurance for the first time, he supports reforms that empower states to make high risk pools more accessible by using cost reducing methods like risk adjustment and reinsurance. Beginning on his first day in office, Governor Romney is committed to working with Congress to enact polices like these that protect Americans? access to the care they need.
The statement confirms that under a Romney presidency, there would be no federal prohibition barring health insurers from discriminating against pre-existing conditions. Instead, his administration would push reforms that help eat away at the problem. It would allow "reinsurance," in which insurance companies pool resources for a joint plan to cover high-risk patients (essentially an insurance policy for health insurers); provide block grants of Medicaid dollars to the states while giving them flexibility to cover their uninsured population; and encourage the creation of high-risk pools.
The Romney campaign believes that while a combination of these reforms won't eliminate the problem of people entering the health insurance market with a pre-existing condition and encountering discrimination, it will decrease it.
The Huffington Post asked the progressive-leaning coalition Health Care for America Now if it had any research showing the effectiveness of different states' approaches to dealing with uninsured individuals with pre-existing conditions. The group tellingly did not, noting that it was a patchwork of messy data and policy.
The Obama administration, for its part, has viewed guaranteed and mandated coverage as going hand-in-hand -- a position that many conservatives have also held in the past. In its brief to the Supreme Court defending the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the administration wrote that under a plan that had the former but not the latter, "premiums would increase significantly ... and the availability of insurance would decline."
When asked to respond to Saul's statement, as well as to the Romney campaign's approach on a broader level, Obama's reelection campaign piled on, arguing that Romney was merely reshuffling old concepts and ideas.
"High risk pools and 'supporting the states' are both old Republican ideas that do very little to help people in need," campaign spokewoman Kaite Hogan said in an email. "When Romney talks about leaving responsibility for the uninsured to the states, he is actually talking about block-granting Medicaid with massive cuts in funding ? cuts that independent experts estimate would mean that up to 27 million people are kicked off the Medicaid roles. And high risk pools are just another idea that has been in place for decades and hasn?t solved the problem.
"States have had high risk pools for years and Congress has been funding high risk pools since 2002," Hogan continued. "Pooling sick people together doesn?t make coverage more affordable ? it?s a solution that has left millions of people without health insurance. Romney?s just doubling down on the failed ideas of the past, and he won?t show the leadership needed to address these problems."
Below, a look back at the biggest lies told during the health care reform debate:
Healthcare In America Is Already 'The Best In The World'
One of the more positive sounding admonitions from health care reform opponents was that the United States had "the best health care in the world," so why would you mess with it? Well, it's true that if you want the experience the pinnacle of medical care, you come to the United States. And if you want the pinnacle of haute cuisine, you go to Per Se. If you want the pinnacle of commercial air travel, you get a first class seat on British Airways. Now, naturally, you wouldn't let just anyone mess with someone's tasting menu or state-of-the-art air-beds. But like anything that's "the best," the best health care in the world isn't for everybody. The costs are prohibitively high, the access is prohibitively exclusive, and the resources are prohibitively scarce.
What do the people in America who "fly coach" in the health care system get? Well, at the time of the health care reform debate, they were participating in a system that was, by all objective measurements, overpriced and underperforming -- if you were lucky enough to be participating in it. As anyone who's fortunate enough to have employer based health care or unfortunate enough to have a pre-existing condition can tell you, health care for ordinary people already involved all of those things that we were told would be a feature of the Affordable Care Act -- long waits, limited choice, and rationing.
When the Commonwealth Fund rated health care systems by nation, the top marks in the surveyed categories went to the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the Netherlands. Ezra Klein examined the study, and observed:
"The issue isn't just that we don't have universal health care. Our delivery system underperforms, too. 'Even when access and equity measures are not considered, the U.S. ranks behind most of the other countries on most measures. With the inclusion of primary care physician survey data in the analysis, it is apparent that the U.S. is lagging in adoption of national policies that promote primary care, quality improvement, and information technology.'"
............................................................
another reason not to vote for Willard
bring back Insurance co power to exclude pre existing .
what a joke
Lobby wobby
how many more billions does Willard need for fawking Americans.
The approach Romney described centers around proposals to return much of the decision-making to the states while allowing for greater portability of coverage. He has long disavowed federalizing the individual mandate that he passed while governor of Massachusetts, which requires the uninsured to purchase coverage or face a penalty. And so attention has turned to the most closely related provision, a ban on discriminating against individuals with pre-existing conditions.
In his Tuesday speech, Romney said that under his plan, a person who is covered by his or her employer and has a pre-existing condition could not get dropped after switching jobs. The Obama campaign's policy director, James Kvaal, argued in response that such a concept was already law. Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, a person can't be excluded from health insurance coverage because of a pre-existing condition provided that he or she has had continuous coverage.
Romney aides insist that their proposal is more tailored to the modern economy, making it so that even individuals who leave big companies to start mom-and-pop shops won't be at the whims of insurers who discriminate.
The devil is ultimately in the details of the actual plan -- though as the Washington Post's Ezra Klein notes, there are precious few available. But even when (or if) that plan is produced, it will include an obvious hole.
For starters, there is the question of what happens to individuals with pre-existing conditions who lose their jobs rather than move to a new one? Often, COBRA coverage doesn't fully cover treatment costs or last long enough. Another, perhaps more pertinent question is what happens to people who enter the insurance market already suffering from a pre-existing condition?
Andrea Saul, a spokesman for the Romney campaign, addressed the latter point in a statement to The Huffington Post.
Fixing our health care system means making sure that every American, regardless of their health care needs, can find quality, affordable coverage. That is why Governor Romney supports reforms to protect those with pre-existing conditions from being denied access to a health plan while they have continuous coverage. And for those purchasing insurance for the first time, he supports reforms that empower states to make high risk pools more accessible by using cost reducing methods like risk adjustment and reinsurance. Beginning on his first day in office, Governor Romney is committed to working with Congress to enact polices like these that protect Americans? access to the care they need.
The statement confirms that under a Romney presidency, there would be no federal prohibition barring health insurers from discriminating against pre-existing conditions. Instead, his administration would push reforms that help eat away at the problem. It would allow "reinsurance," in which insurance companies pool resources for a joint plan to cover high-risk patients (essentially an insurance policy for health insurers); provide block grants of Medicaid dollars to the states while giving them flexibility to cover their uninsured population; and encourage the creation of high-risk pools.
The Romney campaign believes that while a combination of these reforms won't eliminate the problem of people entering the health insurance market with a pre-existing condition and encountering discrimination, it will decrease it.
The Huffington Post asked the progressive-leaning coalition Health Care for America Now if it had any research showing the effectiveness of different states' approaches to dealing with uninsured individuals with pre-existing conditions. The group tellingly did not, noting that it was a patchwork of messy data and policy.
The Obama administration, for its part, has viewed guaranteed and mandated coverage as going hand-in-hand -- a position that many conservatives have also held in the past. In its brief to the Supreme Court defending the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the administration wrote that under a plan that had the former but not the latter, "premiums would increase significantly ... and the availability of insurance would decline."
When asked to respond to Saul's statement, as well as to the Romney campaign's approach on a broader level, Obama's reelection campaign piled on, arguing that Romney was merely reshuffling old concepts and ideas.
"High risk pools and 'supporting the states' are both old Republican ideas that do very little to help people in need," campaign spokewoman Kaite Hogan said in an email. "When Romney talks about leaving responsibility for the uninsured to the states, he is actually talking about block-granting Medicaid with massive cuts in funding ? cuts that independent experts estimate would mean that up to 27 million people are kicked off the Medicaid roles. And high risk pools are just another idea that has been in place for decades and hasn?t solved the problem.
"States have had high risk pools for years and Congress has been funding high risk pools since 2002," Hogan continued. "Pooling sick people together doesn?t make coverage more affordable ? it?s a solution that has left millions of people without health insurance. Romney?s just doubling down on the failed ideas of the past, and he won?t show the leadership needed to address these problems."
Below, a look back at the biggest lies told during the health care reform debate:
Healthcare In America Is Already 'The Best In The World'
One of the more positive sounding admonitions from health care reform opponents was that the United States had "the best health care in the world," so why would you mess with it? Well, it's true that if you want the experience the pinnacle of medical care, you come to the United States. And if you want the pinnacle of haute cuisine, you go to Per Se. If you want the pinnacle of commercial air travel, you get a first class seat on British Airways. Now, naturally, you wouldn't let just anyone mess with someone's tasting menu or state-of-the-art air-beds. But like anything that's "the best," the best health care in the world isn't for everybody. The costs are prohibitively high, the access is prohibitively exclusive, and the resources are prohibitively scarce.
What do the people in America who "fly coach" in the health care system get? Well, at the time of the health care reform debate, they were participating in a system that was, by all objective measurements, overpriced and underperforming -- if you were lucky enough to be participating in it. As anyone who's fortunate enough to have employer based health care or unfortunate enough to have a pre-existing condition can tell you, health care for ordinary people already involved all of those things that we were told would be a feature of the Affordable Care Act -- long waits, limited choice, and rationing.
When the Commonwealth Fund rated health care systems by nation, the top marks in the surveyed categories went to the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the Netherlands. Ezra Klein examined the study, and observed:
"The issue isn't just that we don't have universal health care. Our delivery system underperforms, too. 'Even when access and equity measures are not considered, the U.S. ranks behind most of the other countries on most measures. With the inclusion of primary care physician survey data in the analysis, it is apparent that the U.S. is lagging in adoption of national policies that promote primary care, quality improvement, and information technology.'"
............................................................
another reason not to vote for Willard
bring back Insurance co power to exclude pre existing .
what a joke
Lobby wobby
how many more billions does Willard need for fawking Americans.
At least four scientists associated with Iran's nuclear program have been assassinated since 2010 and a fifth - Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, now head of the AEOI - was wounded.
Last month, authorities hanged 24-year-old Jamal Fashi for the murder of one of the scientists, Massoud Ali-Mohammad, in January 2010.
Iran said Fashi confessed to travelling to Tel Aviv to receive training from Israeli intelligence agency Mossad before returning to Iran to plot the assassination, details that were greeted with derision by Israel.
Israel has a policy of not commenting on the allegations but an unnamed Israeli source previously said the daylight killings had provoked panic in the scientists' colleagues which hindered Iran's nuclear progress.
..............................................................
I dont undertand how Isreal can send assasins into Iran and kill their citizens.
They have not declared war on Iran.
And they wonder why all the shitstorm comes to them all the time.
No one can prove Iran will try to destroy Isreal if they get a nuke.
Iran would be blown into hell 20 times over.
Who is the rational moral leaders in this situation.
How can that decision be made when such blowback is guaranteed .
:shrug:
Last month, authorities hanged 24-year-old Jamal Fashi for the murder of one of the scientists, Massoud Ali-Mohammad, in January 2010.
Iran said Fashi confessed to travelling to Tel Aviv to receive training from Israeli intelligence agency Mossad before returning to Iran to plot the assassination, details that were greeted with derision by Israel.
Israel has a policy of not commenting on the allegations but an unnamed Israeli source previously said the daylight killings had provoked panic in the scientists' colleagues which hindered Iran's nuclear progress.
..............................................................
I dont undertand how Isreal can send assasins into Iran and kill their citizens.
They have not declared war on Iran.
And they wonder why all the shitstorm comes to them all the time.
No one can prove Iran will try to destroy Isreal if they get a nuke.
Iran would be blown into hell 20 times over.
Who is the rational moral leaders in this situation.
How can that decision be made when such blowback is guaranteed .
:shrug:
Carville: What if the rich lost 40% of their wealth?
James Carville speculates: What if it had been the rich that lost 40% of their wealth? The outcry would be deafening.
James Carville: If the wealthy had suffered as much, there would be national panic
He says politicians, clergy, academics, media too often ignore middle class
Carville: The scandal is the middle class is shrinking and no one seems to care
Editor's note: James Carville is a Democratic strategist who serves as a political contributor for CNN, appearing frequently on "The Situation Room" as well as other programs on all CNN networks. He and Stan Greenberg are the co-authors of "It's the Middle Class Stupid" to be published in July by Penguin Press.
(CNN) -- Let's imagine that yesterday there was a front page story in The New York Times that read the following:
"The recent economic crisis left the top 1% of Americans in 2010 with no more wealth than in the early 1990s, erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity, the Federal Reserve Monday.
"A hypothetical family richer than the median net worth of the top 1% of the nation's families had a net worth of $77.3 million in 2010, compared with $126.4 million in 2007, the Fed said. The crash of the stock market, in addition to the collapse of housing prices in Greenwich, Connecticut, the Upper East Side of New York City, Beverly Hills, Highland Park in Dallas and the North Shore of Chicago, directly accounted for three-quarters of the loss."
What do you think the reaction would be to that?
The elite would call for the suspension of habeas corpus, the government would call out the National Guard, invade Honduras and the Supreme Court would announce that it is in session 24/7 to take any action deemed necessary to help their friends.
Family net worth drops nearly 40%
The Wall Street Journal would have a black border on the newspaper. The Financial Times would go from pink to gray. CNBC would play funeral music for nine months. Steve Schwarzman would compare it to the H-word. Cable networks would roadblock all coverage.
Minimum wage laws would be suspended, the 40-hour work week would be thrown out, perhaps they would even do away with child labor laws to get productivity up so profits could increase to make up for lost revenue.
OK, we know that story did not appear in Wednesday's New York Times, and we would certainly agree that a massive loss of wealth in the top 1% would wreak economic havoc on the country. But there was, if anything, a worse story on that front page with only minor variations from our hypothetical scenario.
The story said that the recent economic crisis left the average American family in 2010 with no more wealth than in the early 1990s, erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity, reducing their net worth by almost 40%.
How are you coping? Share your economy story with CNN iReport
And the response of the national elite, the people Paul Krugman refers to as "very smart people" or I like to call the "chin-scratchers," was a barely audible whimper.
To put it bluntly, the middle class in this country has been screwed, blued and tattooed.
Rising health care costs, job insecurity, declining real estate values, massive cuts to public education and public safety (no Mitt, we don't need fewer police officers, we actually need more of them and yes, the federal government has a large hand in this.)
It is a depressing state of affairs when about two-thirds of our fellow citizens are caught in an economic trap that is wrecking their lives financially and emotionally.
And the reaction to all of this has been limp at best.
The Republicans say that if we just give the rich more tax cuts, it will make everyone's life better -- seems as though we've tried this before, doesn't it?
The Democrats have done some things that have been helpful, such as payroll tax cuts and the Affordable Care Act, but there is much more work to be done. As far as other institutions around the country, the response has been pathetic.
Opinion: Why the middle class has taken a big hit
There is an entire industry devoted to denying that this is even a problem.
I read a piece written by Andy Kessler in The Wall Street Journal, stating that thanks to "consumption equality," the wealthy work their 60- to 80-hour weeks inventing things for the masses, but there's not much they can buy with their money that the middle class can't afford.
You can only afford a product, because some rich person invented it for the masses, just like they did with smartphones, hard drives and affordable air travel.
Who cares if you can't afford to send your children to college or pay for your health insurance premium or what you owe on your house is more than what it's worth? Hey, you can buy them a cell phone, now that they don't cost $4,000, and talk to them as they stand in line for a job interview at McDonald's.
Where are our nation's institutions that should be raising holy hell about this? Lets start with my own Catholic Church: They are spending all of their time hunting down masturbators and birth-control takers.
Academics: Have you ever heard of the Princeton Center for Middle Class Studies? Not hardly.
The press: There is much more coverage on George Zimmerman's wife than on the destruction of the middle class in this country.
The lobbyists: Give me a break. When was the last time you heard of a lobbyist for the middle class? The point here is that we are reading the most significant economic story of our time and its effect on the psyche of the people who should know better is minimal.
In the words of Warren Buffett, "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
The big scandal in America is that our middle class is shrinking, and no one seems to care. Maybe someone somewhere somehow should consider doing something else.
...............................................................
Willard wants more tax cuts for the rich.
Willard wants more military spending.
Willard wants Corporate America to get richer.
Willard could care less that middle class America has lost 40% of their wealth.
:0074
James Carville speculates: What if it had been the rich that lost 40% of their wealth? The outcry would be deafening.
James Carville: If the wealthy had suffered as much, there would be national panic
He says politicians, clergy, academics, media too often ignore middle class
Carville: The scandal is the middle class is shrinking and no one seems to care
Editor's note: James Carville is a Democratic strategist who serves as a political contributor for CNN, appearing frequently on "The Situation Room" as well as other programs on all CNN networks. He and Stan Greenberg are the co-authors of "It's the Middle Class Stupid" to be published in July by Penguin Press.
(CNN) -- Let's imagine that yesterday there was a front page story in The New York Times that read the following:
"The recent economic crisis left the top 1% of Americans in 2010 with no more wealth than in the early 1990s, erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity, the Federal Reserve Monday.
"A hypothetical family richer than the median net worth of the top 1% of the nation's families had a net worth of $77.3 million in 2010, compared with $126.4 million in 2007, the Fed said. The crash of the stock market, in addition to the collapse of housing prices in Greenwich, Connecticut, the Upper East Side of New York City, Beverly Hills, Highland Park in Dallas and the North Shore of Chicago, directly accounted for three-quarters of the loss."
What do you think the reaction would be to that?
The elite would call for the suspension of habeas corpus, the government would call out the National Guard, invade Honduras and the Supreme Court would announce that it is in session 24/7 to take any action deemed necessary to help their friends.
Family net worth drops nearly 40%
The Wall Street Journal would have a black border on the newspaper. The Financial Times would go from pink to gray. CNBC would play funeral music for nine months. Steve Schwarzman would compare it to the H-word. Cable networks would roadblock all coverage.
Minimum wage laws would be suspended, the 40-hour work week would be thrown out, perhaps they would even do away with child labor laws to get productivity up so profits could increase to make up for lost revenue.
OK, we know that story did not appear in Wednesday's New York Times, and we would certainly agree that a massive loss of wealth in the top 1% would wreak economic havoc on the country. But there was, if anything, a worse story on that front page with only minor variations from our hypothetical scenario.
The story said that the recent economic crisis left the average American family in 2010 with no more wealth than in the early 1990s, erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity, reducing their net worth by almost 40%.
How are you coping? Share your economy story with CNN iReport
And the response of the national elite, the people Paul Krugman refers to as "very smart people" or I like to call the "chin-scratchers," was a barely audible whimper.
To put it bluntly, the middle class in this country has been screwed, blued and tattooed.
Rising health care costs, job insecurity, declining real estate values, massive cuts to public education and public safety (no Mitt, we don't need fewer police officers, we actually need more of them and yes, the federal government has a large hand in this.)
It is a depressing state of affairs when about two-thirds of our fellow citizens are caught in an economic trap that is wrecking their lives financially and emotionally.
And the reaction to all of this has been limp at best.
The Republicans say that if we just give the rich more tax cuts, it will make everyone's life better -- seems as though we've tried this before, doesn't it?
The Democrats have done some things that have been helpful, such as payroll tax cuts and the Affordable Care Act, but there is much more work to be done. As far as other institutions around the country, the response has been pathetic.
Opinion: Why the middle class has taken a big hit
There is an entire industry devoted to denying that this is even a problem.
I read a piece written by Andy Kessler in The Wall Street Journal, stating that thanks to "consumption equality," the wealthy work their 60- to 80-hour weeks inventing things for the masses, but there's not much they can buy with their money that the middle class can't afford.
You can only afford a product, because some rich person invented it for the masses, just like they did with smartphones, hard drives and affordable air travel.
Who cares if you can't afford to send your children to college or pay for your health insurance premium or what you owe on your house is more than what it's worth? Hey, you can buy them a cell phone, now that they don't cost $4,000, and talk to them as they stand in line for a job interview at McDonald's.
Where are our nation's institutions that should be raising holy hell about this? Lets start with my own Catholic Church: They are spending all of their time hunting down masturbators and birth-control takers.
Academics: Have you ever heard of the Princeton Center for Middle Class Studies? Not hardly.
The press: There is much more coverage on George Zimmerman's wife than on the destruction of the middle class in this country.
The lobbyists: Give me a break. When was the last time you heard of a lobbyist for the middle class? The point here is that we are reading the most significant economic story of our time and its effect on the psyche of the people who should know better is minimal.
In the words of Warren Buffett, "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
The big scandal in America is that our middle class is shrinking, and no one seems to care. Maybe someone somewhere somehow should consider doing something else.
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Willard wants more tax cuts for the rich.
Willard wants more military spending.
Willard wants Corporate America to get richer.
Willard could care less that middle class America has lost 40% of their wealth.
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7 hours ago
Romney offers few specifics in speech to Latino leaders
Posted by
CNN National Political Correspondent Jim Acosta and CNN Political Producer Rachel Streitfeld
Lake Buena Vista, Florida (CNN) ? In a speech to a skeptical audience of Latino leaders outside Orlando Thursday, Mitt Romney offered few specific on hot-button immigration policies but said he could be a compelling alternative to President Barack Obama.
The presumptive GOP nominee told the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials he would streamline the process for family members of legal immigrants to enter the country, and would adjust upward the caps on immigration and temporary visa allocations for some countries.
? Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker
But Romney skirted the headline issue this month: Obama's recently announced order that would effectively allow the children of some undocumented workers a path to legal status.
Romney criticized the president's move as being "temporary" and a nakedly political calculation, while not detailing how he would propose to address those illegal immigrants afforded temporary status under Obama's new policy.
"Last week, the President finally offered a temporary measure that he seems to think will be just enough to get him through the election," he told the Latino leaders seated around tables in a cavernous ballroom. "As President, I won't settle for stop-gap measures. I will work with Republicans and Democrats to find a long-term solution."
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Even tho Rubio was borned in Cuba he might help Willard dig out of this hole with Latinos
maybe not ... what a buffoon:142smilie
He aint saying shit about what he will do, its too easy just to say I will work on this and that.
:142smilie
wow just wow
Romney offers few specifics in speech to Latino leaders
Posted by
CNN National Political Correspondent Jim Acosta and CNN Political Producer Rachel Streitfeld
Lake Buena Vista, Florida (CNN) ? In a speech to a skeptical audience of Latino leaders outside Orlando Thursday, Mitt Romney offered few specific on hot-button immigration policies but said he could be a compelling alternative to President Barack Obama.
The presumptive GOP nominee told the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials he would streamline the process for family members of legal immigrants to enter the country, and would adjust upward the caps on immigration and temporary visa allocations for some countries.
? Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker
But Romney skirted the headline issue this month: Obama's recently announced order that would effectively allow the children of some undocumented workers a path to legal status.
Romney criticized the president's move as being "temporary" and a nakedly political calculation, while not detailing how he would propose to address those illegal immigrants afforded temporary status under Obama's new policy.
"Last week, the President finally offered a temporary measure that he seems to think will be just enough to get him through the election," he told the Latino leaders seated around tables in a cavernous ballroom. "As President, I won't settle for stop-gap measures. I will work with Republicans and Democrats to find a long-term solution."
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Even tho Rubio was borned in Cuba he might help Willard dig out of this hole with Latinos
maybe not ... what a buffoon:142smilie
He aint saying shit about what he will do, its too easy just to say I will work on this and that.
:142smilie
wow just wow
if you are talking about invoking executive priviledge
Clinton administration
The Clinton administration invoked executive privilege on fourteen occasions.
In 1998, President Bill Clinton became the first President since Nixon to assert executive privilege and lose in court, when a Federal judge ruled that Clinton aides could be called to testify in the Lewinsky scandal.[7]
Later, Clinton exercised a form of negotiated executive privilege when he agreed to testify before the grand jury called by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr only after negotiating the terms under which he would appear. Declaring that "absolutely no one is above the law", Starr said such a privilege "must give way" and evidence "must be turned over" to prosecutors if it is relevant to an investigation.
George W. Bush administration
The Bush administration invoked executive privilege on six occasions.
President George W. Bush first asserted executive privilege to deny disclosure of sought details regarding former Attorney General Janet Reno,[2] the scandal involving Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) misuse of organized-crime informants James J. Bulger and Stephen Flemmi in Boston, and Justice Department deliberations about President Bill Clinton's fundraising tactics, in December 2001.[8]
Bush invoked executive privilege "in substance" in refusing to disclose the details of Vice President Dick Cheney's meetings with energy executives, which was not appealed by the GAO. In a separate Supreme Court decision in 2004, however, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted "Executive privilege is an extraordinary assertion of power 'not to be lightly invoked.' United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1, 7 (1953).
"Once executive privilege is asserted, coequal branches of the Government are set on a collision course. The Judiciary is forced into the difficult task of balancing the need for information in a judicial proceeding and the Executive?s Article II prerogatives. This inquiry places courts in the awkward position of evaluating the Executive?s claims of confidentiality and autonomy, and pushes to the fore difficult questions of separation of powers and checks and balances. These 'occasion
Further, on June 28, 2007, Bush invoked executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas requesting documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor,[10] citing that:
The reason for these distinctions rests upon a bedrock presidential prerogative: for the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch.
On July 9, 2007, Bush again invoked executive privilege to block a congressional subpoena requiring the testimonies of Taylor and Miers. Furthermore, White House Counsel Fred F. Fielding refused to comply with a deadline set by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain its privilege claim, prove that the president personally invoked it, and provide logs of which documents were being withheld. On July 25, 2007, the House Judiciary Committee voted to cite Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten for contempt of Congress.[11][12]
On July 1, less than a week after claiming executive privilege for Miers and Taylor, Counsel Fielding effectively claimed the privilege once again, this time in relation to documents related to the 2004 death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman. In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Fielding claimed certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting ?implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests? and would therefore not be turned over to the committee.[13]
On August 1, 2007, Bush invoked the privilege for the fourth time in little over a month, this time rejecting a subpoena for Karl Rove. The subpoena would have required the President's Senior Advisor to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a probe over fired federal prosecutors. In a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, Fielding claimed that "Mr. Rove, as an immediate presidential advisor, is immune from compelled congressional testimony about matters that arose during his tenure and that relate to his official duties in that capacity...."[14]
Leahy claimed that President Bush was not involved with the employment terminations of U.S. attorneys. Furthermore, he asserted that the president's executive privilege claims protecting Josh Bolten, and Karl Rove are illegal. The Senator demanded that Bolten, Rove, Sara Taylor, and J. Scott Jennings comply "immediately" with their subpoenas, presumably to await a further review of these matters. This development paved the way for a Senate panel vote on whether to advance the citations to the full Senate. "It is obvious that the reasons given for these firings were contrived as part of a cover up and that the stonewalling by the White House is part and parcel of that same effort", Leahy concluded about these incidents.[15][16][17][18]
As of July 17, 2008, Rove is still claiming executive privilege to avoid a congressional subpoena. Rove's lawyer writes that his client is "constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony."[19]:scared
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why is it you are only concerned when Obama does it.
Rove is still claiming it .......:142smilie
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Regardless of who invokes Executive Privelege,
we should be able to smell the fart in the elevator and know when reindeer games are being played.
Fast and Furious is certainly on of these examples, Holder has been pussy footing around this issue, the inconsistency of their veiled testimonies is enough evidence.
Holder and Obama Lied, People Died !
The same chant went on when geee Wiz fed us a shit sandwich about WMD's :shrug:
we should be able to smell the fart in the elevator and know when reindeer games are being played.
Fast and Furious is certainly on of these examples, Holder has been pussy footing around this issue, the inconsistency of their veiled testimonies is enough evidence.
Holder and Obama Lied, People Died !
The same chant went on when geee Wiz fed us a shit sandwich about WMD's :shrug:
fact is all Presidents use EP and Ronnie just singles out Obama.
Fact is that we probably have no real understanding of why they did Fast and F or what the agenda really was.
We underlings are not privy to behind the scenes secret meetings and such just to satisfy Skuls skeptisim.
how did the Border agent die anyway.
What was he doing so they shot him ?
He could have been shot with any other gun ?
wtf is the big deal.
Lock your lips tighter than Hillary and Willy that went for years . Nothing came of that. They are still working on a billion banked.
Got to love America.
Fact is that we probably have no real understanding of why they did Fast and F or what the agenda really was.
We underlings are not privy to behind the scenes secret meetings and such just to satisfy Skuls skeptisim.
how did the Border agent die anyway.
What was he doing so they shot him ?
He could have been shot with any other gun ?
wtf is the big deal.
Lock your lips tighter than Hillary and Willy that went for years . Nothing came of that. They are still working on a billion banked.
Got to love America.
Sorry Scott, I was talking about the Executive direction from Homeland Security, that Obama has approved, he can't choose which LAWS he wants to enforce.
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His Executive Privilage claim makes him look like he's hiding something though, why didn't he use it 8 months ago.
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- Feb 26, 2001
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RAYMOND
power corrupts
Just look at Congress and the Senats room full of millionaires.
its pathetic.
and that is the real problem in America
The President is a showpiece as we will see if Willard gets in there.
Ronnie
you got a whole list of schit that Obama is hiding
If Willard gets in there I cant wait to see you all over his ass to divulge his college grades
should be interesting
