Drew Barrymore is such a doll, so talented. She was on Letterman a couple of nights ago talking about this….she was terrific.

I remember a high profile case of a SF Lady with lots of $$ and living with some outrageous number of cats. Good intentions but the conditions got very squalid so she was arrested for animal abuse when in actuality she was trying to help the cats. A little mental…upset about the arrest and the cats being removed so failed to appear for her hearing and then thrown in the slammer. How does this help anything? There isn’t any understanding or compassion. So she’s a bit off. What was Bush? A mass murderer. Where’s the sense of balance, not to mention real justice. These ladies were eccentric…but fascinating.  

OK, SJ, we agree on something.

As someone who has been athletic my entire life and involved with kids and coaching…..while I don’t think it’s the greatest thing to have ‘posed nude’ on your resume..context has to be considered. This was in the past, she was 20, the kids were getting even, and Playboy seems to me to be pretty mainstream and OK while I’m not exactly for it…it isn’t diabolical either.

Kids aren’t going to want to run out and pose for Playboy just because their coach did in the past. Firing her was dumb if she was otherwise doing her job and it wasn’t a current thing. Imagine this will just help her. It’s much to do about nothing in a podunk town. 

Lee is such a doll. Jackie/Ari did help the Beales. There are plenty of people with money who live eccentrically and relatives aren’t going to change them.

Can’t wait to see the HBO movie this Sunday. 

He is a hypocritical, lying creep and worth $1B with no prenup and all his actions in public caught on tape including playing around with girls that are younger than his children.

She’s going to nail him and he deserves it. His one good film was ‘What Women Want’ other than that he’s just a drunken creep. 

My condolences to his wife for sticking it out this long undoubtedly for her children. Hope she gets a more decent man next time. 

Obama has said that small business is going to get tax relief including capital gains taxes because he realizes that they are the engine of jobs.

That US business taxes are among the highest in the world is FALSE. It is a much parroted line on the Right. The GAO just put out a report and it is SHOCKING as I have known for years that TWO THIRDS OF major corporations are evading all taxes—NOT PAYING ANY. And we are talking companies like Exxon and the evil Halliburon that moved it’s HQ to Bahrain to avoid taxes, and KBR has been domiciled in the Cayman Islands all to avoid taxes all Republicans.

"Today, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a study on taxes paid by corporations. In what Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND) mildly called "a shocking indictment of the current tax system," the GAO found that about two-thirds of corporations operating in the US did not pay taxes annually from 1998 to 2005.

Now most corporations in America are start-ups or small, mom and pop operations that have adopted a corporate form to lower their tax rates. And a greater percentage of large corporations do pay some taxes. But in 2005, with corporate profits reaching new heights as a percentage of national income, the GAO found that over one-fourth — 28% of large corporations paid no taxes. (It defined large corporations as those with assets of at least $250 million dollars or gross receipts of at least $50 million dollars.) They can tell you how to make $50 million dollars and not pay taxes.

Not surprisingly, the income collected from corporations has been declining as a percentage of GDP, with the burden transferred to your income and payroll taxes. According to a study by the Treasury Department, from 2000-2006, an average of 2.2% of GDP was collected in corporate taxes. This compares to an average of 3.4% in other industrial countries. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that, under current law, corporate revenues will decline to 1.9% of GDP by 2017.

 "America has the second highest business [tax]rate in the entire world,"says John McCain. "Is it any wonder that jobs are moving overseas? We’re taxing them out of the country." But the GAO study confirms what we already knew: whatever the nominal tax rate, US corporations pay an effective rate among the lowest in the industrial world. 

Yet the core of McCain economic agenda consists of breath-taking corporate tax breaks. He calls for cutting the top corporate rate from 35% to 25% and allowing corporations to write off investments in the first year. Combined, the Tax Policy Center wonks cost these at over $1.3 trillion over 10 years. Len Burman of Tax Policy Center estimates that in total, McCain would cut corporate revenues by about 50% from current levels. They’ll be making hundreds of millions of dollars and not paying taxes. This is no joke.

To pay for these tax breaks, sustain the Bush tax cuts, add more tax breaks AND balance the budget in four years, as McCain promises, will require heroic cuts in spending. Not military spending; McCain promises to increase that. How will he do this? On the stump, McCain promises to veto any earmarked spending. But that is a gesture, providing about $18 billion a year. (And he isn’t exactly consistent. McCain often tells folks who defend a local project that it is the process, not the individual project that he opposes.) Perhaps that’s why McCain calls for raising Medicare taxes on seniors with over $50,000 a year in income and taxing employer-based health care benefits for families. Working people and seniors will help pay the tab for the corporate tax give-away.

It’s hard not to wonder about the pure, contrary, inanity of the current conservative position. Our military is by far the strongest in the world, while our trains are among the slowest and our sewers are collapsing. So they propose raising spending the military and cutting domestic investment. We suffer gilded age inequality, with the wealthiest 15,000 families — one-one hundredth of one percent of the population — capturing fully one-fourth of the entire income growth from 2000 to 2006. Their average income rose from $15.2 million per year to $29.7 million per year. Meanwhile, the rest of us — 133 million households that make up 90% of the country — divided up 4% of the nation’s income, adding about $305 to our average $30,354 income. So conservatives push for more tax cuts for the wealthy, while proposing to tax employer based health benefits. Corporate profits (prior to the recession) have catapulted to what is by far the highest percentage of national income in the past half century. So they want to cut corporate taxes, inevitably increasing the burden on labor. The economic future looks dim because consumers, drowning in debt, are cutting back. So they suggest cutting taxes on corporate investments will generate new investments and growth — as if companies don’t need someone to buy the products they make.

Maybe that will be Steve Martin’s next routine: How to sell more stuff and not have customers. Somehow, it doesn’t sound so funny. 

THAT IS A GOP PLOY TO CRY TAXES….CORPORATIONS THAT ARE NOT PAYING TAXES ARE MOVING OVER SEAS FOR CHEAP LABOR AND BECAUSE THEY ARE UNAMERICAN. 

"Historically recessions recover on their own"

There is NO historical comparison with THIS recession.

Since the WTO, NAFTA, etc the world is economy is just that…interlinked and interdependant. And America’s is 25% of the global economy and the world fears their own collapse from our.

There were not high speed computers in the 30s or even in the 80s as today and trading programs that can generate millions of complex options trades, buying and selling on both sides of the option in a blink of the eye.

There NEVER were over $700T of valueless unregulated derivatives in the hands of villians before when OUR economy is $14T, and the world’s is around $50T.

We don’t have any manufacturing, that’s new, we are the biggest debtor in the world, that’s new. We never have had the size of the banks we do today, Citigroup, AIG, etc. The 1932 Glass Stegall Banking Act put in place after the Depression was to prevent the same speculative factors/gaming the system that we have today that created the first crash.

So saying something isn’t good when there is no historical data because it never existed in this size and form which is why everyone has said WE ARE ON TOTALLY NEW GROUND isn’t logical a bit. Do republicans ever think things through?

Is a high speed train system ‘pork’? In other words it isn’t jobs, solving traffic and pollution problems without building new highways, and also providing a fast transport system in high traffic corridors, that can undoubtedly be funded at least in part with bonds. Is that pork, too?

How about the $100 billion in offshore tax evasion by GOP run corporations? For example Brown & Root/Halibuton 

The Defense Department has known since at least 2004 that KBR was avoiding taxes by declaring its American workers as employees of Cayman Islands shell companies, and officials said the move allowed KBR to perform the work more cheaply, saving Defense dollars. 

Are all the multi billion dollar no bid contracts to Halliburton, Blackwater, Exxon etc are those pork? Is it pork when the richest oil companies in the world on top of tax breaks that make their effective tax rate zero….and then they get goverment subsidies is that pork?

-Reached an agreement totackle the global financial crisis with measures worth $1.1 trillion.

-Resources available to theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) tripled to $750bn.

-Sanctions against secretivetax havens and tougher global financial regulation.

-G20 has committed about$250bn to boost global trade.

-Made progress in reformingfailed regulatory system.

-Historic IMF changes

"By any measure theLondon summit was historic.

"It was historic becauseof the size and the scope of the challenges that we face and because of thetimeliness and the magnitude of our response."

The deal gave leading indexes asignificant boost.

-A new Financial StabilityBoard will be set up to work with the IMF to ensure co-operation across bordersand provide an early warning mechanism for the financial system

-There will be greaterregulation of hedge funds and credit ratings agencies

A common approach to cleaningup banks’ toxic assets has been agreed

-G20 countries are alreadyimplementing the biggest economic stimulus "the world has ever seen"- an injection of $5tn by the end of next year.

-President Obama was said tohave played a key role in brokering the agreement on tax havens, resolvingdifferences between France and China.

-French President NicolasSarkozy said that the conclusions of the G20 summit were "more than wecould have hoped for".

-German Chancellor AngelaMerkel also praised the outcome.

She said the new measureswould give the world a "clearer financial market architecture" andthe agreement was "a very, very good, almost historic compromise".

-Poor benefit.The G20countries have pledged $100bn in aid for developing countries, more thanexpected.

 The entire mess created by US total deregulation of derivatives in 2002, led by Phil Gramm, 

resulted in over $700T in derivatives from $9T in 2002. That level and ungodly complexity of mess is NOT going to cleaned up overnight, and it is NOT going to be cleaned up by doing nothing, or by cutting taxes for the rich, as proposed by the GOP as their solution, and despite the HUGE tax cuts they rec’d under GWB.

That’s the last question I answer Deber…it’s not worth my time. 

That’s NOT what he said. That’s what he said if you get your ‘news’ from Fox. He supports the troops that were put into an illegal, immoral and unnecessary war due to GWB….he does NOT support the policies of GWB, and he was against the war in interviews that are on tape. What he has said is that it is time for the Iraqis to take control of their nation.

The phony war made it SAFE for war profiteers, arms dealers, and Exxon oil and Haliburton NOT Iraqis. Over 1 M are dead or maimed, their businesses are destroyed, car bombs go off everyday, the women can no longer go to college, wear secular clothes or work in good paying jobs as before. The Iraiqs who are excellent engineers have had their jobs taken over by the US, over 2.6 were displaced putting pressure on neighboring countries like Jordan and Syria.

Saddam was a creation of Reagan/Bush I. He was CONTAINED as both Powell and Rice are on tape saying before the illegal invasion that has wasted $3 Trillion dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives and will CONTINUE TO DO SO BECAUSE THE US FREELY USED DEPLETED URANIUM IN IRAQ—-A WMD—-WHICH HAS A SHELF LIVE OF OVER 4 BILLION YEARS AND HAS SHOT THE CANCER RATE UP OVER 10,000%

YOUTUBE ‘DEPLETED URANIUM BABIES’ AND SEE WHAT GWB GRATUITOUSLY DID TO THAT NATION SO HIS GOON FRIENDS AT BLACKWATER ETC COULD PROFIT. Bush’s own church leaders, the leaders of ALL MAIN RELIGIONS warned Bush not to go there it would be a disaster and it has been. There are PLENTY of dictator regiemes that are more dangerous that Bush & Cheney were just fine working with, the military junta in Burma because of the Haliburton gas pipline project there. The junta has committed all kinds of crimes against humanity—-Bush Inc wanted Iraqs oil and they put together their plan before Bush was even in office, in the PNAC document avail for ANYONE to read. In 1998 they wrote that they were going into Iraq, est 14 US bases etc [which exist all alone pipelines] We built the LARGEST US EMBASSY of any on Earth in that tiny country. It was all about oil….they knew there were no WMD. Rumsfeld ON 9/11 said they were going into Iraq.

Really, don’t you read. Is Fox News your only source. Have the info of a 12 year old who has been brainwashed by parents and can’t think for self.

To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. On this February day, as this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war.

Yet, this Chamber is, for the most part, silent — ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing.

We stand passively mute in the United States Senate, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events. Only on the editorial pages of our newspapers is there much substantive discussion of the prudence or imprudence of engaging in this particular war.

And this is no small conflagration we contemplate. This is no simple attempt to defang a villain. No. This coming battle, if it materializes, represents a turning point in U.S. foreign policy and possibly a turning point in the recent history of the world.

This nation is about to embark upon the first test of a revolutionary doctrine applied in an extraordinary way at an unfortunate time. The doctrine of preemption — the idea that the United States or any other nation can legitimately attack a nation that is not imminently threatening but may be threatening in the future — is a radical new twist on the traditional idea of self defense. It appears to be in contravention of international law and the UN Charter. And it is being tested at a time of world-wide terrorism, making many countries around the globe wonder if they will soon be on our — or some other nation’s — hit list. High level Administration figures recently refused to take nuclear weapons off of the table when discussing a possible attack against Iraq. What could be more destabilizing and unwise than this type of uncertainty, particularly in a world where globalism has tied the vital economic and security interests of many nations so closely together? There are huge cracks emerging in our time-honored alliances, and U.S. intentions are suddenly subject to damaging worldwide speculation. Anti-Americanism based on mistrust, misinformation, suspicion, and alarming rhetoric from U.S. leaders is fracturing the once solid alliance against global terrorism which existed after September 11.

Here at home, people are warned of imminent terrorist attacks with little guidance as to when or where such attacks might occur. Family members are being called to active military duty, with no idea of the duration of their stay or what horrors they may face. Communities are being left with less than adequate police and fire protection. Other essential services are also short-staffed. The mood of the nation is grim. The economy is stumbling. Fuel prices are rising and may soon spike higher.

This Administration, now in power for a little over two years, must be judged on its record. I believe that that record is dismal.

In that scant two years, this Administration has squandered a large projected surplus of some $5.6 trillion over the next decade and taken us to projected deficits as far as the eye can see. This Administration’s domestic policy has put many of our states in dire financial condition, under funding scores of essential programs for our people. This Administration has fostered policies which have slowed economic growth. This Administration has ignored urgent matters such as the crisis in health care for our elderly. This Administration has been slow to provide adequate funding for homeland security. This Administration has been reluctant to better protect our long and porous borders.

In foreign policy, this Administration has failed to find Osama bin Laden. In fact, just yesterday we heard from him again marshaling his forces and urging them to kill. This Administration has split traditional alliances, possibly crippling, for all time, International order-keeping entities like the United Nations and NATO. This Administration has called into question the traditional worldwide perception of the United States as well-intentioned, peacekeeper. This Administration has turned the patient art of diplomacy into threats, labeling, and name calling of the sort that reflects quite poorly on the intelligence and sensitivity of our leaders, and which will have consequences for years to come.

Calling heads of state pygmies, labeling whole countries as evil, denigrating powerful European allies as irrelevant — these types of crude insensitivities can do our great nation no good. We may have massive military might, but we cannot fight a global war on terrorism alone. We need the cooperation and friendship of our time-honored allies as well as the newer found friends whom we can attract with our wealth. Our awesome military machine will do us little good if we suffer another devastating attack on our homeland which severely damages our economy. Our military manpower is already stretched thin and we will need the augmenting support of those nations who can supply troop strength, not just sign letters cheering us on.

The war in Afghanistan has cost us $37 billion so far, yet there is evidence that terrorism may already be starting to regain its hold in that region. We have not found bin Laden, and unless we secure the peace in Afghanistan, the dark dens of terrorism may yet again flourish in that remote and devastated land.

Pakistan as well is at risk of destabilizing forces. This Administration has not finished the first war against terrorism and yet it is eager to embark on another conflict with perils much greater than those in Afghanistan. Is our attention span that short? Have we not learned that after winning the war one must always secure the peace?

And yet we hear little about the aftermath of war in Iraq. In the absence of plans, speculation abroad is rife. Will we seize Iraq’s oil fields, becoming an occupying power which controls the price and supply of that nation’s oil for the foreseeable future? To whom do we propose to hand the reigns of power after Saddam Hussein?

Will our war inflame the Muslim world resulting in devastating attacks on Israel? Will Israel retaliate with its own nuclear arsenal? Will the Jordanian and Saudi Arabian governments be toppled by radicals, bolstered by Iran which has much closer ties to terrorism than Iraq?

Could a disruption of the world’s oil supply lead to a world-wide recession? Has our senselessly bellicose language and our callous disregard of the interests and opinions of other nations increased the global race to join the nuclear club and made proliferation an even more lucrative practice for nations which need the income?

In only the space of two short years this reckless and arrogant Administration has initiated policies which may reap disastrous consequences for years.

One can understand the anger and shock of any President after the savage attacks of September 11. One can appreciate the frustration of having only a shadow to chase and an amorphous, fleeting enemy on which it is nearly impossible to exact retribution.

But to turn one’s frustration and anger into the kind of extremely destabilizing and dangerous foreign policy debacle that the world is currently witnessing is inexcusable from any Administration charged with the awesome power and responsibility of guiding the destiny of the greatest superpower on the planet. Frankly many of the pronouncements made by this Administration are outrageous. There is no other word.

Yet this chamber is hauntingly silent. On what is possibly the eve of horrific infliction of death and destruction on the population of the nation of Iraq — a population, I might add, of which over 50% is under age 15 — this chamber is silent. On what is possibly only days before we send thousands of our own citizens to face unimagined horrors of chemical and biological warfare — this chamber is silent. On the eve of what could possibly be a vicious terrorist attack in retaliation for our attack on Iraq, it is business as usual in the United States Senate.

We are truly "sleepwalking through history." In my heart of hearts I pray that this great nation and its good and trusting citizens are not in for a rudest of awakenings.

To engage in war is always to pick a wild card. And war must always be a last resort, not a first choice. I truly must question the judgment of any President who can say that a massive unprovoked military attack on a nation which is over 50% children is "in the highest moral traditions of our country". This war is not necessary at this time. Pressure appears to be having a good result in Iraq. Our mistake was to put ourselves in a corner so quickly. Our challenge is to now find a graceful way out of a box of our own making. Perhaps there is still a way if we allow more time.

"All the rabid, wild-eyed bigots yelling, “Kill him!” and “Terrorist!” and “Socialist!” while they carried stuffed monkey plush dolls at the McCain-Palin rallies."   Exactly. They are deliberately inciting violence against Obama….if anyone did that at a protest about Bush they’d be arrested by the Secret Service immediately. 

Palin sat there and said nothing at her rallies when they were shouting "kill him". 

On the other hand…..there is NOTHING anyone could possibly say to me that would make GWB & CO OK….so same with the otherside. 

Some actually said that 80 million attended the 2/15/03 protests. I got up early and watched it on Internet News live from around the world….so impressive. 3M in Rome….every capital was PACKED. And San Francisco was too. It was AMAZING. And TOTALLY ignored by the WH and the US Press. So we’re supposed to care about 250K around the country largely representing the NRA, and corporate lobbyists. Righto. 

What is unacceptable is the protestors with racist signs directed at Obama. Which anyone with eyes could see.

"It’s been two days now since angry conservatives hosted a series of tea parties across the country, and the fallout has some Republicans nervous.

While the anti-tax sentiment of the protests may have been sincere, the images pulled from the events have often been offensive, embarrassing, or politically problematic.

It is a development that has tripped up the GOP before. The rallies outside McCain-Palin events included some of the same bile that was seen at the tea parties: charges of fascism, terrorism and other malicious criticisms leveled at Barack Obama. And it did the Republican ticket little good in its efforts to bring moderate voters to the cause."

"Not everyone sees the connection. But some Republicans and Independents do view the fallout between the tea parties and the McCain-Palin rallies in a similar way: bad for the GOP.

"It is not clear-cut that the tea-party phenomena helps the GOP, unless they have a specific measure or policy (like Prop. 13 in 1978, and income tax cuts after that) to coalesce around," said Steven Hayward, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "Right now it reminds me a bit of the free-floating ‘angry moderates’ of 1992 who fueled the Ross Perot candidacy, and that is the hazard for Republicans I think. I think the crazies at the rallies are a problem, but probably out of proportion (they always get the media attention) to the real breadth of sentiment underneath, which I think is largely authentic."

Self-professed middle-of-the-road political types were even more biting in their critiques. "My own sense that is I don’t see anything going on that is good for Republicans," said Doug Bailey, a longtime Republican consultant who helped co-found the centrist reform movement Unity08. "I just don’t get it. It may be, and I don’t doubt this, that there is a large segment of the American public that can and is riled up about taxes and can be riled up about one thing or another. But a large segment, in terms of numbers, doesn’t amount to a couple hundred people demonstrating in Washington or wherever. That’s a non-event … Nobody likes taxes. So, of course, I’m sympathetic myself. I might throw a tea bag myself. But the fact is, that it is particularly ineffective for the Republican Party when it is Rush Limbaugh and the likes stirring it up. That just doesn’t speak to the middle."

Of course, because the series of nationwide tea parties were geared towards a specific day (Tax Day), the political ramifications of the events seem naturally limited. "Those tea parties will be long forgotten by, oh, say tomorrow," said Stu Rothenberg, of the Rothenberg Political Report. "Do you really think that next November, when people go to the polls, the April 15 tea parties will be on their minds?"

That said, plans are in place for more protest in July. More significantly, as the GOP continues to stake their future on a wave of populist anger at the government and economy (witness: Texas Gov. Rick Perry talking about secession), the likelihood only increases that the most vocal and offensive elements of that anger will come to personify the party….it brings out the wackos."

GOOD!  The GOP is just further destroying themselves.  Media Matters and other Non-Partisan think tank/watch dogs have discovered that corporate lobbyists, Fox, the NRA etc are all behind the ‘protests’ funding them etc. 

Organizers of the radical anti-Obama “tea party” protests have been trying to claim that the events are rising up spontaneously. Many of these organizers, such as Eric Odom, are claiming that the tea parties are being held by “regular American[s] in protest of government spending and extreme taxation.”

However, as Media Matters recently documented, Fox News has been aggressively promoting the anti-tax protests:

Specifically, Fox News has in dozens of instances provided attendance and organizing information for future protests, such as protest dates, locations and website URLs. Fox News websites have also posted information and publicity material for protests. Fox News hosts have repeatedly encouraged viewers to join them at several April 15 protests that they are attending and covering.

The network has also been pushing the movement’s talking points, saying that people are “angry,” “upset,” and “feeling disenfranchised,” which is why they’re organizing this “nationwide grassroots movement.” Promising “fair and balanced” coverage, hosts such as Glenn Beck, Neil Cavuto, and Sean Hannity are all planning to broadcast live from the events. The Fox broadcasts are in turn being used by the tea party organizers to promotetheir protests.

Think Progress has put together a video illustrating Fox News’s active role in promoting the “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties.” :

Fox News isn’t the only right-wing organization involved in building up these so-called “grassroots” events. The tea parties have been heavily backed by corporate lobbyists. The principle organizers of many of the local events are actually the lobbyist-run think tanks Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Works, and Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions. The groups are heavily staffed and well funded, and are providing all the logistical and public relations work necessary for planning coast-to-coast protests.

With its aggressive advocacy for the anti-Obama protests, it looks like Fox is quickly dropping its “fair and balanced” slogan to become the “voice of opposition” to the Obama administration.

Steve Young:

"Fox hosts will be showing up at the tea party protests, but the leading figure by far is Fox’s newest leading man, Glenn Beck. Part politico, part drama queen, part comic, part Paul Revere, part Howard Beale, Beck has been alerting the countryside since a good millisecond after Justice Roberts muffed Obama’s swearing-in.

The Socialists are coming! The Socialists are coming!

But Beck is no one note patriot. He’s also warned us of every Obama’s extremist wrong-headed country-direction-taking political agenda and how undemocratic they are.

The Marxists are coming! The Fascists are coming!

Yes, picture Paul Revere, if Paul Revere had choked back tears as he sounded the alert.

One if (choke) by land. Two if (choke) by sea. Three if by (choke) Democrat.

Beck claims, “I’m not a journalist (pause, chokes back tear, and hit it…). I’m just a guy who cares about this country.”

Along with promoting the tea-bagging events (he’ll be live from the Sacramento protest), Beck is behind the”9-12 Project.” His mission statement says that “We want to get everyone thinking like it is September 12th, 2001 again.”

Is there anything more patriotic than having the day after the most horrific attack on the American mainland feeling in the pit of your stomach?  Beck believes it’s how we take our country back…um, I guess, from the ones we just elected. 

(Actual 3/13/09 Beck on Fox News broadcast text, prefaced by video of 9-11 attack)

“Are you ready to become that person you were (quiver, choke), that day (choke) after 9-11? On 9-12. I told ya, (voice shaking) for weeks, you’re not alone… You are the secret. You are the answer. (Choke, long pause) I’m sorry. I just love my country and I fear for it. (Long pause, wipe away tear).”

That he didn’t have on a raincoat and tell us that he was mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it any more had to be an oversight.

Beck and Fox News claim this isn’t political. Perhaps it is coincidence that these non-politicalprotests happen to start barely a month after Obama took office. Really.  Who had a chance to find a tea bag during the eight years before?

The fact is, this is political and that’s all well and good. The original tea party boys would be proud. But isn’t about time that we finally retire the Fox News “Fair and Balanced” moniker. For years, led by O’Reilly, Fox News has attacked the New York Times, NBC and any number of other media outlets of being left wing demagogues. But Fox News continually puts out the message they are only telling it like it is. I think we can put that to rest. After this week, anyone who believes Fox News is fair and balanced probably thinks that Keith Olbermann will one day bring on a guest who doesn’t agree with him." 

Glen Beck…another joke.  

France is about the size of Texas, with less than double the population of California, and is the 5th largest world economy with the #1 healthcare system in the world, and bullet trains that go 200 MPH+ with no fatalities ever. France has its problems as all countries do and I find it highly amusing that the right call Obama a socialist AND a fascist….two mutually exclusive terms….not to mention that it was GEORGE BUSH who SOCIALIZED THE BANKING SYSTEM and got us and the entire world into this ENORMOUS MESS. Mr. Obama has done more good in a couple of months than Bush did in 8 years. For one, he has the G20 at least admiring America again—which is rather important given our trade deficits.

The GOP always cries socialist and taxes etc about the Democrats…..just coughing up the same old rhectoric. Obama is not raising taxes on 95% of the people, AND DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTS ARE ALWAYS THE ONES WITH THE BEST ECONOMIC RECOVERY. OBAMA MUST CLEAN UP AFTER BUSH #II AS CLINTON HAD TO AFTER BUSH #I

Since 1948, the Standard & Poor’s 500 total return (capital gains plus dividends) has averaged 15.6% when a Democrat was in the White House and only 11.1% when a Republican was in the White House. You get a similar result if you look at growth in real gross domestic product. Under Democratic presidents, the average since 1948 has been 4.2%. Under Republican presidents it has been only 2.8%.

But then he goes on to argue that Kennedy should really be classified as a Republican (he cut taxes), Nixon as a Democrat (wage-price controls), George H.W. Bush as a Democrat (he raised taxes), and Bill Clinton as a Republican (free trade; and he might have added eliminating the budget deficit, supporting the Fed, reforming welfare, other policies that would normally be thought of as conservative). He argues that if you make these switches in party assignments, then the US stock market and economy has performed better under “Republican” presidents (which, remember, now includes Kennedy and Clinton) than under “Democrats” (which now includes Nixon and the first Bush). 

Economic statistics are available from the Congressional Budget Office and the Commerce Department.

Although I realize that FACTS are difficult for the "Faith" crowd. 

 The French have been burning cars as long as there have been cars to burn….it’s their schtick. Probably because they aren’t armed to the teeth with assault weapons like this nation of gun nuts.

The US leads the industrialized world in gun related homicide rates, is has a larger percentage of its citizens in prison than ANY country on Earth, and more females in prison than ANY other country on Earth thanks to the GOP that is privatizing prisons and corporations like Citigroup sell prison bonds to build more and earn $$ based on how many are in jail.

We also have a literacy rate that is 55 among world nations.

Our infant mortality rate is 48 among nations.

Our freedom of the press is 44 among nations.

Our overall health is 72 [again World Health Organization that also put France at #1]

France is also the most visited country on Earth.

This is the country that won WII in multiple theatres all over the globe in under four years and has now been in occupying a country that is 2/3s the size of California with 1/2 our population, which had no army, no WMD [except those sold to Saddam by the earlier Bush/Reagan admin], and which had no air force….yet we’ve been there for nearly twice as long as WWII. How do you say INCOMPETENCE?

But then I guess the right wingers never read ‘War is a Racket" written by one of the most decorated Marine Major Generals in US history who said it is just the biggest money machine for the very rich…..and Fox was the WH propaganda arm in the lead up to that immoral, illegal atrocity that cost the US $3T.

Anyone who wishes to read ‘War is a Racket" could find it online for free. But that wouldn’t be any Republican because they can’t think for or investigate for themselves….they just tune in and find out what the drug addled, dropout, fat boy tells them.

War is a Racket. Major General Smedley Butler

http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm 

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. 

Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.

Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn’t they? It pays high dividends.

But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?

What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?

Yes, and what does it profit the nation?

Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn’t own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became "internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington’s warning about "entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.

It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people – who do not profit. 

————

"How can that even happen in a socialistic paradise?" I think that Mr. Sarkozy is doing a terrific job with a multicultural nation that is experiencing tremendous change from outside forces, and a banking/monetary crisis brought on by THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DEREGULATING DERIVATIVES SO THAT THEY [IE MEANINGLESS BETS] WHEN FROM $9 Trillion in wold value in 2002 when the world economy was $50-60T to over $700T today when the world economy has lost value.

BushCo CREATED an economy that in actuality is a casino built atop a house of cards built over quicksand……and Obama, in concert with the banks and the G-20, is rescuing it. We came very close to the edge of global depression….and would be there today under the incompetence of Bush that gave us a $3T phony war, Katrina, 911 on HIS WATCH WHEN WARNED BY MANY NATIONS AND THE FBI, etc etc etc.

Oh, but at least we have the nice photos of him playing air guitar. And his legacy of stumbling to try to put a coherent thought or sentence together.