Friday Nite Lite: Mini Laugh Edition
Posted: November 30, 2012 Filed under: Bailout Blues, Banksters, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Political and Editorial Cartoons | Tags: BP Oil, GOP, John Boehner, laugh riot, Liz and Dick, NHL 3 CommentsGood Evening…
My internet is running so slooooooow tonight. In fact, I could not even get the comic pages to load properly. So because of these technical problems, the post is going to be very short.
The first cartoon is funny, but I think the color is a bit off. Cagle Post – Political Cartoons & Commentary – » Boehner Ball
He needs to be orange…
On to Congress…Cagle Post – Political Cartoons & Commentary – » GENIUS IQ TEST
If that IQ cartoon is too small, click the link up top to see the larger image.
What is on the GOP Christmas list?
Cagle Post – Political Cartoons & Commentary – » 1950s Christmas
For those of us who love hockey, this next cartoon is perfect. Cagle Post – Political Cartoons & Commentary – » Wonderful Life
This next one is for Dakinikat: Cagle Post – Political Cartoons & Commentary – » Illegal Department
And the last cartoon for you…Cagle Post – Political Cartoons & Commentary – » Egypt President Morsi
Alright, now for something real funny, ‘Feel My Pudgy Hands Now!’… And Other Incredible Lines From Lindsay Lohan’s Awful Liz & Dick Lifetime Movie
Most reviews of the movie boiled down to one concrete point: “Liz & Dick is the best comedy of the year!” And that’s because the acting and the dialogue were, shall we say… so awful it’s good.
A la Tommy Wiseau‘s much-loved stinkerThe Room, this Lohan debacle contained an endless stream of terrifically terrible one-liners.
Luckily, for comedy’s sake, Vultureput together a two-minute compilation of the biggest doozies of the night.
I missed the show, but from the video it looks like it was a laugh riot. Go to that link and watch it…but don’t do it while you are eating or drinking.
This is an open thread, have a wonderful evening!
Do Delusional Republicans Think They Won the Election?
Posted: November 30, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: delusional Republicans, John Boehner, medicare, Mitch McConnell, safety net, Social Security, taxes 23 Comments
Honestly, I can’t recall ever seeing such childish behavior before in politics. The Republicans in Congress remind me of three-year-olds throwing tantrums because things aren’t going their way. Yesterday, the White House made a proposal for averting the so-called “fiscal cliff,” a fake crisis that the Republicans themselves created last year during the battle over raising the debt ceiling (which has never before been controversial).
CBS News reports on the Republicans hissy fits:
The White House made an offer to House Republicans today to avert the fiscal cliff that Republican aides familiar with the talks panned as “a joke”, “an insult” and “a complete break from reality.”
A Republican aide familiar with the offer that was presented to House Speaker John Boehner by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House congressional liason Rob Nabors confirmed that the $4 trillion package would raise $1.6 trillion in tax revenue up front. Republicans call that number too high and extreme to be offering two weeks into negotiations with a just a month left before the deadline.
The basics of the offer were an immediate return to the Clinton-era tax rates for income over $250,000; cuts in “entitlements, primarily Medicare sometime in the future; $50 billion in stimulus through infrastructure spending as well as extending unemployment insurance and the payroll tax holiday; and an agreement on raising the debt ceiling again. Mitch McConnell let it be known that he laughed out loud at Geithner’s proposal, and John Boehner and others whined about how mean Democrats are.
“Unfortunately many Democrats continue to rule out spending cuts that must be part of any significant agreement that will reduce our deficit” [….]
One Republican aide expressed outrage that the White House would ask for that with no reforms attached at all. Earlier today, Boehner said, that “there is a lot of things that I have wanted in my life but almost all of them had a price tag attached to them.
“If we’re going to talk about the debt limit in this, then there is going to be some price tag associated with it.”
So Republicans must be willing to pay a price too, right? Here’s what McConnell said about that to the Wall Street Journal:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he wanted changes to safety-net programs that focus on altering eligibility requirements, and suggested that if Democrats agreed both sides could move closer to a budget deal to avert the fiscal cliff.
In an interview in his Capitol Hill office, Mr. McConnell (R., Ky.) said if the White House agrees to changes such as higher Medicare premiums for the wealthy, an increase in the Medicare eligibility age and a slowing of cost-of-living increases for programs like Social Security, Republicans would agree to include more tax revenue in the deal, though not from higher tax rates.
“Those are the kinds of things that would get Republicans interested in new revenue,” Mr. McConnell said.
So, let me get this straight. Republicans want to force senior citizens to wait longer to get Medicare–meaning many older Americans would have no health coverage, since Obamacare permits insurance companies to charge older people three times as much as younger people. They also want to change the COLA for Social Security, which would, in effect, be a cut in benefits.
In return Republicans would accept mythical, unspecified “revenues” but no rate increases on the richest Americans. That sounds like a pretty bad deal to me, especially since President Obama ran for reelection on increasing the top tax rates and Democratic, Independent, and even Republican voters made it clear that they did not want chances to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security.
Since Obama won reelection quite handily, it’s hardly surprising that he isn’t offering specific cuts to social safety net programs. Why should he? Whichever party is responsible for cutting these programs is going to pay a significant price in 2014 and beyond. The White House attitude is that if Boehner and McConnell want such cuts, they should damn well spell out what they have in mind–not expect the President to do it for them.
In response to the tantrums, Ezra Klein writes:
We’re seeing two things here. One is that the negotiations aren’t going well. When one side begins leaking the other side’s proposals, that’s typically a bad sign. The other is that Republicans are frustrated at the new Obama they’re facing: The Obama who refuses to negotiate with himself.
That’s what you’re really seeing in this “proposal.” Previously, Obama’s pattern had been to offer plans that roughly tracked where he thought the compromise should end up. The White House’s belief was that by being solicitous in their policy proposals, they would win goodwill on the other side, and even if they didn’t, the media would side with them, realizing they’d sought compromise and been rebuffed. They don’t believe that anymore.
Perhaps the key lesson the White House took from the last couple of years is this: Don’t negotiate with yourself. If Republicans want to cut Medicare, let them propose the cuts. If they want to raise revenue through tax reform, let them identify the deductions. If they want deeper cuts in discretionary spending, let them settle on a number. And, above all, if they don’t like the White House’s preferred policies, let them propose their own.
It’s looking more and more like Obama is willing to go over the fiscal cliff and leave the Republicans holding the bag. Polls show it’s Republicans who will be blamed for the consequences.
The funniest Republican whining today came from Peggy Noonan, who really should stop commenting on politics and become a romance novelist.
At a news conference Thursday, Mr. Boehner looked frustrated. In fact, he looked exactly the way he looked at the end of the debt ceiling crisis in the summer of 2011—like someone who wanted a deal, was willing to gamble to get it, and failed. There has been “no substantive progress” toward an agreement, he said. In a meeting with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and in a Wednesday night phone call with the president, he saw no willingness to reform or cut entitlement spending. What about an increase in tax rates? “Revenues are on the table.”
In fact the Democratic position on entitlements seems to have hardened.
Which makes all kinds of sense, because everyone knows that voters do not want changes to their “entitlements.” earned benefits. Obama has figured that out, and so have Republicans. Neither side wants to be the one to make proposals for specific cuts in what’s left of the New Deal programs.
But Noonan doesn’t get it anymore than Boehner and McConnell do.
You watch and wonder: Why does it always have to be cliffs with this president? Why is it always a high-stakes battle? Why doesn’t he shrewdly re-enact Ronald Reagan, meeting, arguing and negotiating in good faith with Speaker Tip O’Neill, who respected very little of what the president stood for and yet, at the end of the day and with the country in mind, could shake hands and get it done? Why is there never a sense with Mr. Obama that he understands the other guys’ real position?
Um….maybe because Tip O’Neill was actually willing and able to negotiate in good faith, which Boehner is in thrall to Tea Party crazies?
It’s not as if Mr. Boehner and the Republicans wouldn’t deal. They’ve been weakened and they know it. A year ago they hoped winning the Senate and the presidency would break the stasis. They won neither. Mr. Obama not only was re-elected, it wasn’t that close, it was a clean win. If the president was clear about anything throughout the campaign, it was that he wanted to raise taxes on those he calls the rich. So you might say that a majority of the American people just endorsed that move….
The president would only benefit from showing he has the command and capability to meet, argue, press and come to agreement. It would be heartening to the country to see this, and would impress the world. And the Republicans would like to get it done.
OMG, that’s hysterical! “Those he calls the rich” Peggy says. The rest of her piece is a complaint about how difficult it is to make ends meet with an income of *only* $250,000. She even claims that raising taxes on those she doesn’t think are rich will hurt the economy.
Mr. Obama wants to raise tax rates on those earning $250,000 or more, as we know, on the assumption that they are “the rich.” But if you are a man with a wife and two kids making that salary and living in Westfield, N.J., in no way do you experience yourself to be rich, because you’re not. You pay federal payroll and income taxes, state income and sales taxes and local property taxes, and after the mortgage, food and commuting costs you don’t have much to spare.
Tighten the squeeze on that couple, and they’ll change how they live. They’ll stop sending the struggling son to a neighborhood tutor, they’ll stop going out to dinner once a week, they’ll cut off the baby sitter, fire the guy who once a month does yard work, and hold back on new clothes. Also the guy will peruse employment ads in Florida and Texas, potentially removing from blue-state New Jersey his heartening, taxpaying presence.
Oh boo hoo hoo! I’m sick to death of this shit. You lost the fucking election. You spend four years refusing to cooperate with this president in an all-out effort to deny him reelection. Your plan failed. The people have spoken. Deal with it.
Friday Reads
Posted: November 30, 2012 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: crazy Ken Cuccinelli, Fox Faux Wars, Republicans, witch hunts 35 Comments
Good Morning!!!
Well, the brain of Fox Propaganda network is all on wars these days. First, there’s a “war on white men” and of course, women–those emasculating bitchy feminists–are in charge of it all. The Colbert Report has a nice send up of this side splitter.
Women are far more interested in getting married than men, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center .
But who’s fault is the discrepancy? Last night, Stephen Colbert teamed up with his buddy at Fox News, Suzanne Venker, to explain why the sisters are doing it to themselves.
With biting irony, Colbert praises Venker’s argument, which claims that since the sexual revolution “men haven’t changed much …. but women have changed dramatically. In a nutshell, women are angry. They’re also defensive.”
Plus, as Colbert can testify firsthand, men want to work out of the house, pushing paper for the Man while crammed into a tiny cubicle.
“What man wants the woman to provide the money while the man stays home to do what? Witness his child take the first steps? I’ve witnessed people walk before, and frankly babies aren’t that good at it,” said Colbert.
And yes, it’s time for Bill O’Reilly to reignite the War on Xmas. If only it were true! It would be great to go to the store without having your senses assaulted by songs, sales, and crap related to national Crass Consumerism Season, wouldn’t it? Yes, atheists are stopping xmas celebrations all over the country!! It’s a huge atheist conspiracy!!! Plus, O’Reilly doesn’t understand the first amendment issues surrounding it at all since christianity is just a philosophy! Tear down those philosophical nativity scenes in front of all those churches, gawddammit!
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly was more than happy to bloviate about the topic on Wednesday’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” getting into a near shouting match with David Silverman, president of American Atheists.At first, things started out cordial between the two as they discussed “this year’s Christmas controversy situation.”
“You’re an atheist, a nonbeliever, and I respect that, that’s fine. I don’t look down on you,” O’Reilly told Silverman. But later, after Silverman attempted to define what O’Reilly cared about, the caustic commentator characterized Silverman’s point of view as “insane” before flat out calling him a “fascist.”
Interestingly enough, during the course of the interview, O’Reilly also said, “It is a fact that Christianity is not a religion. It is a philosophy.”
So there you have it. Bill O’Reilly calls the leader of an atheist organization a “fascist” over “philosophical”—but not religious—differences.
Yes, it’s an atheist, fascist, philosophical kinda conspiratorial war thing!
So, just when you think the crazy can’t get any crazier … you find out that it’s DEMON sex that makes one gay! Wow! Isn’t scientific inquiry wonderful? Out, out damn demons! Quit making all people gay with your bad, bad demon sex!
The reigning scientific consensus on sexual orientation is that it’s an inherited, biological trait, but that’s just because scientists don’t know how to party. A far sexier explanation has been offered up by Christian magazine Charisma, which conducted its own investigation into the origins of homosexuality to reveal the real culprit: sex with demons.
“Can demons engage in sexual behaviors with humans?” the magazine asks. Why yes, they can! At least according to the article’s primary source, a former stripper-turned-ministry leader named Contessa Adams. Adams shares her decades-long struggle with demon sex, sparing no horrible, sexy detail …
Hey, just tell your parents a Demon made you do it!!!
So, more irrelevant Republicans are making pronouncements about fiscal policy. Newt Gingrich thinks the Congressional Republicans should not negotiate with the President since Republicans are the majority. Is it just me or are Republicans just really bad at math? Seventeen Republican Congressmen out the door in 2 years and we say hello to Speaker Pelosi again. All it takes is 25 House Republicans right now to wake up and care about the country.
“One of the things I would say to House Republicans is to get a grip,” Gingrich said in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.
“They are the majority. They’re not the minority,” he said, enunciating the words as if explaining the concept to someone who did not understand it. “They don’t need to cave in to Obama; they don’t need to form a ‘Surrender Caucus.’”
“So my number one bit of advice to the congressional Republicans is simple: Back out of of all of this negotiating with Obama. The president is overwhelmingly dominant in the news media. You start setting up the definition of success finding an agreement with Obama, you just gave Obama the ability to say to you, ‘Not good enough,’” Gingrich said.
The onetime presidential hopeful ridiculed the idea of the fiscal cliff, saying it was a manufactured crisis.
Rushie Limbaugh–who makes tons of money off of stupid–tells the Republicans to just walk away too. I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t know that the deal cut by republicans that caused the fiscal cliff deadline hurts them worse than it hurts the dems. Tax rates go back up to the Clinton years and we get a big ol’ fat cut in military spending. Hey, I’m just fine with that. The question is why are Mr. Limpballs and the Newt? Perhaps its because they’re part of the right wing outrage entertainment business and they’re probably out shorting US equities as I write this.
Would somebody explain to me how the people who elected Obama, who support Obama, who love Obama in the media, in the universities, who write the history, are going to write anything critical of the guy no matter what happens? Even if there is a second term recession, you’re gonna need a telescope to find it reported, just like you need a telescope to find Oprah’s network now. It won’t be reported as a recession. So what is the leverage that the Republicans have? To my mind the only leverage they’ve got is to walk away from this, to stop playing, to stop talking, to stop playing this game.
The Republicans lost. Now, they still control the House of Representatives but Boehner still runs the show there. But the only leverage that I can see that they’ve got is to back out of this and make sure that whatever happens, they don’t have any fingerprints on it. I know what you’re saying, and you’d be right. You’re saying, “But, Rush, but, Rush, no matter what the Republicans do, they’re gonna get blamed for it.” Yes, totally true. No matter what happens. If there is a reported recession, in fact, it will be said to be the Republicans in the House fault. No matter what happens, that’s going to be said, and no matter what happens, as we sit here now, the American people, the majority of whom, are gonna believe that.
So back out of this and make sure you don’t have any fingerprints on this at all. “But, Rush, but, Rush, aren’t your fingerprints going to be on it if you back out? Couldn’t the case be made that Republicans backing out and letting Obama have his way is, in effect, allowing this transformation to happen, can’t you say there would be fingerprints there?” Yes. But I’m telling you there’s another aspect to this that Obama is attempting to pull off here, and if the Republicans aren’t careful, it’s going to happen. Not only is he not worried about a recession in the second term, ’cause even if there is one, it will not be reported as such.
Part of Obama’s transformation of America is wiping out the Republican Party. And anyone who fails to understand that that is also part of Obama’s agenda at this moment, anybody who fails to understand that is really not paying attention and is too caught up in traditional conventional wisdom about, “Well, it was just another election. Well, yes, Obama won. Yes, we marshaled our forces, but we need to stand for pro-growth policies and all that rotgut.” Yes, we do. There’s no way we’re ever gonna be tied to pro-growth policies if our fingerprints are on this coming disaster.
For the life of me, I cannot in any way shape or form figure out what is wrong with these people. I just see vendettas and personal power grabs. As Harry Reid said yesterday: “I don’t understand John Boehner’s brain”. I swear they all must be sots like Boehner.Even the normally reasonable Republicans seem bonkers these days. I think they’ve all just gone nuts on ODs. They’re not even making sense. Susan Collins has decided that a Secretary of State or UN Ambassador should never go on a Sunday Show because it’s too “political”. John McCain and Lady Lindsey Graham think that giving misinformation on Sunday Shows–like say, Saddam Hussein definitely has massive amounts of WMDS and deserves to have his country invaded because of them--should be removed from consideration for any office.
Here’s a good example of crazy from Senator Jim Inhofe: Benghazi Will ‘Go Down As The Biggest Coverup In History’. Obviously, he’s forgotten the Iran-Contra affair which would have been a whopper had our president not been so damned senile during his last term. Then, there’s Watergate and oh, the crap they made Colin Powell tell the UN about Iraq. But, oh, no …Benghazi is a cover up and the worst.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) on Wednesday made a strong claim about the Obama administration’s handling of the Sept. 11 anniversary terrorist attack on an American compound in Benghazi, Libya, declaring that it was a conspiracy of historic proportions.
“This is gonna go down as the biggest coverup in history,” Inhofe predicted during an appearance on Fox News. “The administration deliberately covered this up and misrepresented what happened in Benghazi.”
He later stood by his claim when pressed by Fox News’ Bill Hemmer.
Does having black people in office make these guys lose their marbles? How do they all seem to have such a tenuous grasp on reality? Is it they see that the 1950s or the 1850s are finally gone? WTF is it with these folks? They LOST. THEY LOST. They lost by A LOT!!!
What can you do with pretzel logic like this? Republican Rep. Chris Gibson says he won’t be bound by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist’s pledge not to support any tax increases because his congressional district number changed. Yup, the pledge only was good for one set of geography and not the new one.
I wish that I was a world famous fantasy or SF author so that you could think this was all satire, or Huxley-like, or some kind of dysfunctional dystopia novel, but it ain’t and I’m not. This is the ONE of TWO political parties that call the policy shots in our country. Nope, Republican office holders have turned our country into the Great Zombie Wasteland. They are all completely delusional.
And, now for yet another result of Fox convincing all the white men of Angry White Menistan to think the country is against them … one more old angry white man shoots a young black teenager.This time its about loud music coming from a car in a convenience store parking lot. He’s going all in for the Stand Your Ground defense. Yes, this is the dysfunctional dystopian American created by the likes of the Southern Strategy, the repeated meme that some foreigner stole the presidency, and there are wars on Xmas, Guns, and White Men. Don’t like some one’s music? Shoot now and say you saw a gun later. Don’t ever think we solved a lot of this with the the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. We’re taking their freedom to stomp us all under their boots. Seventeen year old Jordan Davis is dead because some drunk white dude felt put out by a car stereo in a parking lot.
In what could become another test of Florida’s broad self-defense law, a software developer charged with killing a Jacksonville teenager said he reached for his gun and fired eight rounds only after he was threatened with a shotgun.The suspect, Michael Dunn, 45, of Satellite Beach, was arrested Wednesday on charges of second-degree murder and attempted murder.
Dunn told his lawyer that the victim, Jordan Davis, 17, who was parked at a convenience store in Jacksonville on Friday night with three other teenagers, pointed a shotgun at him through a partly rolled-down window, threatened to kill him and began to open the door. The shooting occurred after a dispute over loud music coming from the teenagers’ sport utility vehicle.
Davis, a junior at a Jacksonville high school who had moved from Georgia two years ago to live with his father, died after being shot twice.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said officers had not found a shotgun in the car.
Dunn and his fiancee, Rhonda Rouer, fled the convenience store in his Volkswagen Jetta after the teenagers left because he was afraid they would return, his lawyer, Robin Lemonidis, said. He did not call the authorities; the police arrested him the next day, finding him because a witness noted his license plate number.
This is what we get when folks like Limpballs, Jim Imhofe, Susan Collins, Bill O’Reilly, the Lady Lindsey, McGrumpy and the lot of those so-called conservatives lie their customers into angry paranoia.
Susan Rice. Eric Holder. Van Jones. Lisa P. Jackson. Valerie Jarrett. Shirley Sherrod.
What do these folks have in common?
They are all black public servants appointed by Obama and witch hunted by Republicans on completely bogus story lines. Sixty Six percent of that list are also women.
How much crazy do we have to put up with? You’d have think the last election would’ve told Republicans something loud and clear but it obviously didn’t. Some people never learn.
Meanwhile, Fox says there is no war on women and Mississippi is one JUDGE away from ensuring women can’t access their constitutional right to abortion. Virginia Republicans are likely to nominate Ken Cuccinelli, Va. Attorney General for Governor next year.
IN THREE YEARS as Virginia’s attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli II (R) has demeaned his office by using it as a blatantly partisan bully pulpit to attack Obamacare, illegal immigrants, homosexuals and climate-change scientists. Now he has managed to bully Virginia’s Board of Health into a stance — unprecedented in state history — that could force most of the commonwealth’s 20 or so abortion clinics to close.
The fight is not over yet. Not by a long shot. Some constitutional rights are more equal than other. Two legs good. Three white legs better. What is on your reading and blogging list?
Thursday Evening: Crime and Books
Posted: November 29, 2012 Filed under: Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, immigration, just because, War on Women, Women's Rights | Tags: book reviews, Cleveland Texas Gang Rape 4 Comments
Good morning…no, it’s evening!
I am really out of it today. Anyway, I just have a few links for you tonight, regarding crime…courts and books.
This first link was posted in the comments and I think it should get front page attention, since we have been covering this case from the very beginning.
Lawyer Says 11-Year-Old Gang Rape Victim Was a ‘Spider’ Luring Men Into Web
We cover a lot of depressing stuff on this site: rape, anti-abortion laws, more rape, etc. But this article on a defense attorney who likened an 11-year-old survivor of gang rape to a conniving spider who lured her rapists into a web might actually be the most soul-suckingly disheartening story I’ve ever read.
20-year-old Jared Len Cruse is accused of gang-raping an 11-year-old Cleveland, Texas girl along with twenty of his male friends over the course of four months; you may remember our coverage of the story last year. But because she said “yes” when defense attorney Steve Taylor asked if she had been a “willing participant” and acknowledged that she hadn’t made an “outcry” until questioned after sex tapes of the assault started circulating around Cleveland High School, Taylor argued that she was “the reason” that twenty teenagers and adult men raped a child on videotape.
“Like the spider and the fly. Wasn’t she saying, ‘Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly?'” Taylor asked.
I actually feel nauseous.
I feel sick too, but it actually gets worse.
Former Cleveland Police Department Sgt. Chad Langdon, the lead investigator on the case and a much-much-MUCH-needed voice of reason, testified that an 11-year-old cannot legally give consent for a sexual encounter, because she is eleven years old.
Prosecutor Joe Warren asked Langdon what he would say if it had been his own sons involved in the case. “Oh, then it would have totes been the little girl’s fault,” he said. Just kidding! “I would not whitewash it or sweep it under the rug,” he responded.
Oh, by the way? Cruse is already serving an eight-year sentence on convictions for aggravated robbery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. But that’s irrelevant, right? Given that the child he raped is a total devious slut.
According to the Houston Chronicle, he’s the second of the 20 male defendants who are being tried for sexually assaulting the girl; the first, Eric McGowen, was convicted and received a sentence of 99 years in prison, so at least that’s promising. Seven juveniles have received probation and six adults got 15 years in the slammer after pleading guilty in exchange for plea deals. Is there anyone in the area who wasn’t involved in assaulting this girl, I mean, anyone who wasn’t lured in to her whorish web?
Let me say this again, for all the assholes out there who have been blaming the victim since the very first reporting of this disgusting crime…THE VICTIM HERE IS ELEVEN YEARS OLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh yeah, the victim is a girl…which probably factors into the shit we have been seeing with this case.
In connection with the subject of rape, finally someone is doing something about the f’d up laws, that say a rapist has rights to custody/visitation of the child they “fathered.”
Bill Strips Rapists’ Parental Rights In Arkansas, Ends Custody, Visitation
A Democratic legislator in Arkansas wants to strip convicted rapists of their rights to children conceived during the rape.
State Rep. John Charles Edwards (D-Little Rock) has introduced legislation that would take away the parental rights of convicted rapists who father a child during the rape. He said the bill, which was inspired by a Georgetown Law Journal article , would prohibit men convicted of rape from seeking custody of or visitation rights with the child conceived. Edwards said this would allow the victim to sever a potential lifelong relationship with her rapist.
“We had no protection for a woman who had conceived a child through rape,” Edwards told HuffPost.
Read the rest at the link.
The ACLU had a post up on their blog that also touches on the subject of crime…this time the suspects are immigrants.
A Policy Gone Bad: What Happens When a County Enforces National Immigration Law
Banjoville has a cop that waits as the Spanish Mass is held at the Catholic Church, then he proceeds to pull over any “brown” skinned drivers…for reasons like busted tail light, or no signal used when turning right out of the church parking lot.
When I read this quick review below, I immediately thought of Boston Boomer, this looks right up her alley. Quick Reads: “The Injustice System” by Clive Stafford Smith
The Injustice System: A Murder in Miami and a Trial Gone Wrong
By Clive Stafford Smith
VIKING
Accused of a sensational double murder in 1986 Miami, Trinidadian millionaire Kris Maharaj seemed destined for death row, and ended up there thanks to a conviction-hungry prosecutor and a hapless defense attorney (now a circuit court judge). This memoir, which reads like a true-crime thriller, describes how defense lawyer Clive Stafford Smith got his client off death row by uncovering brazen misconduct, both judicial (one judge actually solicited a bribe from the defendant) and prosecutorial (withholding evidence). It also turned out that the murder victims, presented in court as upright businessmen, had been laundering cash for a drug cartel, and skimming off the top. Smith’s account leaves us utterly convinced of his client’s innocence and delivers a powerful indictment of the system we rely on for justice.
And since we are on the topic of books. Here is the yearly list for New York Times Book Review’s 100 Notable Books of 2012 – NYTimes.com
The year’s notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review.
Take a look at the list…see if anything interest you.
This is an open thread.
Creating Fiscal Strife
Posted: November 29, 2012 Filed under: Catfood Commission, Economy, Federal Budget, Federal Budget and Budget deficit, George W. Bush, Global Financial Crisis, House of Representatives, Medicare, Politics as Usual, Republican politics, Republican Tax Fetishists, Super Committee, The Bonus Class, the GOP, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: fiscal cliff 15 Comments
One of the things that drives me crazy as an economist and a citizen looking at this so-called “fiscal cliff” is that our fiscal strife has been created by the people least likely to suffer from its resolution. Congress gave the Bush administration authority to start a series of unfunded, reckless wars that have lasted well over a decade. Congress passed the Bush administration’s reckless tax cuts and generous loopholes that have benefited the few at the cost of the many. The Bush administration’s and Congress’ lack of oversight and deregulation of the financial services’ industry created a low-risk, gambling casino with the national investment and savings accounts and the debt markets. This led to a huge recession. These are the roots of our fiscal problems. But, the discussions around cleaning up messes in the District mostly surround Social Security which has nothing to do with the national debt and deficit and items that have become more necessary to average Americans since Congress and the Bush Administration broke the country with its bad policies.
Here’s some of the latest examples. Closing loopholes and unnecessary deductions for certain constituents is a good idea. However, which of these things are on the chopping block? Inkling its way up the priority list is the major middle and working class deduction and source of household wealth: the mortgage interest deduction. I have no problem with eliminating second mortgages, mortgages on boats, and mortgages on second properties. These benefit very few people and really serve little policy purpose. Capping the deduction–with an annual COLA adjustment to the median price and below-based mortgages is also fine. However, what are we likely to see?
As the Obama administration and lawmakers on Capitol Hill scramble to defuse automatic spending cuts and tax increases set to take effect Jan. 1, a herd of sacred cows — from Social Security and Medicare to deductions for charitable giving and mortgage interest — are in danger of losing their untouchable status.
Members of both parties have largely steered clear of detailed proposals so far. But plans put forth in the past year by President Obama and Mitt Romney to place limits on annual total tax deductions are likely to crimp the mortgage-interest deduction for certain taxpayers. Top congressional Republicans also have expressed openness to limiting total tax deductions as part of an overall budget deal. In addition, the presidentially appointed Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission suggested scaling back the mortgage-interest deduction as part of its own set of tax-related proposals.
Current law allows homeowners to deduct the interest paid on mortgage balances up to $1 million, including on second homes, as well as on $100,000 worth of home-equity loans. The deduction overwhelmingly benefits wealthier families, partly because they tend to have larger mortgages and pay more interest, and partly because most low- and middle-income Americans do not itemize deductions on their tax returns. It also tends to favor homeowners on the East and West Coasts, as well as those in large cities such as Chicago, where average home prices are higher.
Edward Kleinbard, a tax expert and law professor at the University of Southern California, said the mortgage-interest deduction represents the kind of government “extravagance” that the country no longer can justify, given its fiscal troubles.
“We simply cannot afford wasteful government subsidy programs anymore, and this is one of the most important examples of that,” Kleinbard said. “It’s very much a subsidy to those Americans who need it least.”
Mitch McConnell continues to service Grover Norquist and the Club for Growth. He’s back on his high horse for no tax increases for the wealthy. Ending tax cuts for the wealthy endlessly shown to have no ill-impact on the economy. There is also no real benefit to extending them.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) slammed the door Thursday morning on Democratic demands to raise tax rates on families earning more than $250,000 per year.
“We’re insisting on keeping tax rates where they are, first and foremost, to protect jobs and because we don’t think government needs the money in the first place,” McConnell said on the Senate floor.
“The problem, as I’ve said, is that Washington spends too much. But if more revenue is the price that Democrats want to exact, then we should at least agree to do it in a way that doesn’t cost jobs and disincentivize rates, as we all know raising rates would do,” he said.
McConnell’s comments came a day after Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) shot down a proposal by a senior GOP lawmaker, Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, to agree to extend tax rates only for families earning below $250,000 and resume the battle against higher tax rates on the wealthy next year.
Boehner said President Obama and Democrats should focus on finding ways to cut spending and reform entitlement programs.
The fate of the Bush-era tax rates — which will expire for all income levels in January — has dominated the debate over the slew of tax increases and spending cuts that are set to begin next year.
McConnell scolded the president Thursday for sticking fast to his campaign pledge to seek higher taxes on the rich, and made clear that raising tax rates on anyone is unacceptable.
The debate over Medicare is likely to be equally absurd. Medicare needs some reworking. Most of its problems comes from the pharmacy benefit which currently allows Big Pharma to price gouge participants and the taxpayers. But, you wouldn’t know that from the conversation. Republicans are playing games with Amercan’s health. They appear to be clinging to the Ryan’s voucher plan which would be disastrous for the majority of retired seniors.
The austerity crisis talks have hit a peculiar impasse. The problem isn’t, as most analysts expected, taxes, where Republicans seem increasingly resigned to new revenue. It’s Medicare. And the particular Medicare problem isn’t that Democrats are refusing the GOP’s proposed Medicare cuts. It’s that Republicans are refusing to name their Medicare cuts.
Politico quotes a “top Democratic official” who paints the picture simply: “Rob Nabors [the White House negotiator], has been saying: ‘This is what we want on revenues on the down payment. What’s your guys’ ask on the entitlement side?’ And they keep looking back at us and saying: ‘We want you to come up with that and pitch us.’ That’s not going to happen.”
That’s partly politics. If nothing else, Republicans are respectful of Medicare’s political potency. Recall that a core Republican message in both the 2010 and 2012 elections was that Democrats, through Obamacare, were cutting Medicare too much. Republicans, already concerned about their brand, don’t want to rebrand themselves as the party of Medicare cuts.
But it’s partly policy, too. The fact is that short of converting the program to a premium support system — a non-starter after they lost the 2012 election — Republicans simply don’t know what they want to do on Medicare.
Scour the various outlets for Democratic policy ideas and you’ll find plenty of proposed Medicare cuts. President Obama’s 2013 budget, for instance, includes hundreds of billions in Medicare cuts (see pages 33-37), and caps the program’s long-term growth at GDP+0.5 percent. More recently, the Center for American Progress released a 46-page proposal for cutting Medicare by almost $400 billion.
Republicans, meanwhile, have focused their energy on a long-term effort to convert Medicare to a premium-support model. Paul Ryan’s 2013 budget kept the Affordable Care Act’s Medicare cuts for the next 10 years and proposed to convert the program to a premium-support model in the future. Mitt Romney’s platform proposed reversing Obamacare’s Medicare cuts and offered a vague framework for converting the program to a premium-support model in the future.
If you dig deep into the Republican think tank world, you can find a few proposals that focus on the near-term.
The current fiscal ‘cliff’ framework appears to place a lot of burden on those least able to take it as well as those least responsible for creating the problems.
Cut through the fog, and here’s what to expect: Taxes will go up just shy of $1.2 trillion — the middle ground of what President Barack Obama wants and what Republicans say they could stomach. Entitlement programs, mainly Medicare, will be cut by no less than $400 billion — and perhaps a lot more, to get Republicans to swallow those tax hikes. There will be at least $1.2 trillion in spending cuts and “war savings.” And any final deal will come not by a group effort but in a private deal between two men: Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). The two men had a 30-minute phone conversation Wednesday night — but the private lines of communications remain very much open.
No doubt, there will be lots of huffing and puffing before any deal can be had. And, no doubt, Obama and Congress could easily botch any or all three of the white-knuckle moments soon to hit this town: the automatic spending cuts and expiration of the Bush tax cuts, both of which kick in at the end of this year, and the federal debt limit that hits early next.
Go to the Politico story for a concept of what’s at stake and at issue.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday there had been “no substantive progress” in fiscal-cliff negotiations in the two weeks since congressional leaders met with President Obama.
Boehner, addressing reporters after a meeting with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in the Capitol, called on the White House to “get serious” about the talks and warned of a “real danger” that Jan. 1 would come without a deal if President Obama did not offer up specific spending cuts he would be willing to accept.
“Despite claims that the president supports a balanced approach, the Democrats have yet to get serious about real spending cuts,” Boehner said. “Secondly, no substantive progress has been made in the talks between the White House and the House in the last two weeks.
“Listen, this is not a game,” he added. “Jobs are on the line. The American economy is on the line, and this is a moment for adult leadership.”
The Speaker criticized the president for holding “campaign-style rallies” instead of engaging in serious talks.
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