8 Feb 2011 | From Dallas to Grand Designs, television continually rubs desirable lifestyles in your face, making you feel inadequate in the process.
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Friday, December 02, 2011
Jackson Browne on powers-that-be reaction to OWS - 'I think they're freaking out'
1 Dec 2011 | Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Ex-Dallas mayor Tom Leppert, failed banker-turned Senate candidate, funds ‘End the Occupation’ site
17 Oct 2011
In what appears to be an effort to garner email addresses for his U.S. Senate campaign, a Texas Republican who formerly served on Washington Mutual’s board of directors has launched a website called “End Occupy,” which blames young Americans and their “false sense of entitlement” for the country’s current economic status.
“The Occupy Wall Street crowd represents the same flawed values that got our country into this economic mess,” Tom Leppert’s “EndOccupy.com” claims. “They possess a false sense of entitlement and think they should be receiving government handouts and run up the debt on an imaginary credit card by making hard-working Americans and future generations pay for the bill.” It goes on to ask for petition signatures, which will be sent to President Barack Obama.
But for Leppert, who’s running to replace Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), that allegation may just produce a round of laughter from the occupied streets of New York all the way to his home in Dallas, Texas, given his history. Leppert was one of the last chairmen of Washington Mutual’s audit committee, right before the company earned the title of largest bank failure in U.S. history, fleecing shareholders of $63 billion.
Before it went down, WaMu was cited as one of the worst offenders in offering the junk loans that inflated the housing bubble. When that bubble popped, WaMu was seized by government regulators, then sold to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion. Chase shortly thereafter received a $25 billion bailout financed by U.S. taxpayers, which it has since paid back.
Luckily for Leppert, he didn’t have to manage that morass, finding himself in a new job just before the crisis hit: Mayor of Dallas, an office he held from 2007-2011.
The rest of the story:
Matt Taibbi on judge's decision to reject the SEC’s latest settlement with Citigroup | Countdown
28 Nov 2011 | Keith and 'Countdown' contributor Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone discuss the remarkable decision by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff to reject a $285 million settlement between Citigroup and the Securities and Exchange Commission for misleading investors. Taibbi points out that banks take punitive settlements in stride, saying, “They recognize that every now and then they’re going to get dragged into court, they’re going to have to give a little bit of money to somebody, and then they get to walk away and keep doing it.”
Fox News criticizes Obama's Thanksgiving Day address | The Daily Show
28 Nov 2011 | Not only is Barack Obama not the first president to leave God out of his Thanksgiving address, he didn't even do that -- but that doesn't stop Fox from criticizing him.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Sanders: No Super Congress deal is the best deal
BLITZER: But as you know, the compromise in the works has always been there would be some tax increases, which is what you want, but at the same time there would be cuts in what's called entitlement spending, including Social Security and Medicare.
SANDERS: Well, I think that position is way out of line with what the American people want. I just saw a poll today. Seventy percent of Republicans, of Republicans say do not cut Social Security. Numbers are higher for Democrats and independents. In this economic moment when so many people are hurting, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are enormously important. They are life and death issues.
BLITZER: Are you open to reforms in Social Security, for example, raising the retirement age?
SANDERS: No. I'm open to reforms by lifting the cap taxable income so that millionaires contribute more into Social Security so that it will be solvent for 75 years. Let's be clear. Social security has not contributed to one nickel to the deficit.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Robert Reich: super committee is super trouble
Robert Reich explains how the Super Committee could reduce the deficit by raising taxes on the 1% and create jobs, rather than making cuts that will hurt working families.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Bill Moyers on Plutonomy
Bill Moyers signs off his last broadcast with an editorial discussion on why plutocracy and democracy don't mix.
How to succeed through supercommittee’s ‘failure’
By E.J. Dionne Jr. | The Washington Post
16 Nov 2011 | Here is a surefire way to cut $7.1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade. Do nothing.
That’s right. If Congress simply fails to act between now and Jan. 1, 2013, the tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush expire, $1.2 trillion in additional budget cuts go through under the terms of last summer’s debt-ceiling deal, and a variety of other tax cuts also go away.
Knowing this, are you still sure that a “failure” by the congressional supercommittee to reach a deal would be such a disaster?
Read it here.
16 Nov 2011 | Here is a surefire way to cut $7.1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade. Do nothing.
That’s right. If Congress simply fails to act between now and Jan. 1, 2013, the tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush expire, $1.2 trillion in additional budget cuts go through under the terms of last summer’s debt-ceiling deal, and a variety of other tax cuts also go away.
Knowing this, are you still sure that a “failure” by the congressional supercommittee to reach a deal would be such a disaster?
Read it here.
The frightening thought
"No politician, regardless of what party he's in, wants the people to suddenly be in charge. For the power to shift from those who are the elected officials to the people who elected them, which is actually the way it's supposed to be, that's a frightening thought." - Michael Moore, 15 Nov 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Dan Siegel: Totally futile to try shutting down ‘Occupy’ protests | The Rachel Maddow Show
14 Nov 2011 | Oakland Mayor Jean Quan’s legal adviser and longtime friend, Dan Siegel, explained to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on Monday night why he decided to resign his post.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Get ready for a passionless presidential race
Robert Reich | 14 Nov 2011
At this point neither the Republican right nor the mainstream media wants to admit the yawn-inducing truth that Mitt will be the GOP’s candidate. The right doesn’t want to admit it because it will be seen as a repudiation of the Tea Party. The media doesn’t want to because they’d prefer to sell newspapers and attract eyeballs.
The media are keeping the story of Rick Perry’s cringe-inducing implosion going for the same reason they’re keeping the story of Herman Cain’s equally painful decline going — because the public is forever fascinated by the gruesome sight of dying candidacies. With Bachmann, Perry, and Cain gone or disintegrating, the right wing-nuts of the GOP have only one hope left: Newt Gingrich. His star will rise briefly before he, too, is pilloried for the bizarre things he’s uttered in the past and for his equally bizarre private life. His fall will be equally sudden (although I don’t think Gingrich is capable of embarrassment).
And so we’ll be left with two presidential candidates who don’t inspire — at the very time in American history when Americans crave inspiration.
The full story:
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Van Jones on Occupy Wall Street | Countdown with Keith Olbermann
9 Nov 2011 | Van Jones, co-founder and president of Rebuild the Dream, discusses the connection the Occupy movement is making with more Americans around specific issues. Referring to the continued resistance by Republicans to the desire by a growing percentage of the public that government intervene in the country’s wealth disparity, Jones says to them, “Please just keep saying you want America’s government to be AWOL in the biggest crisis to hit us since the Great Depression.”
Mike Tyson impersonates Herman Cain in spoof campaign commercial
"The Tea Party loves crazy more than they hate black."
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Rural farmers unite to feed Wall Street protestors
How rural farmers, an unemployed chef and a protestor named Heather are getting 1,000 dinners served at Occupy Wall Street every night.
FULL STORY:
FULL STORY:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)