News And Views

I just saw Jerry Falwell on CNN. He made the usual wild statements but one hovered above all others. He said concerning the Mark Foley episode that they had made it through Bill Clinton and the Foley matter was minuscule in comparison. What the hell!@? Now we know the right wing Christians see pedophilia as a smaller issue than consensual sex between two adults. This must be the Republican Jesus I mentioned the other day. As a matter of fact it is a good Republican Jesus fit. More false religion. Speaking of that, from the Denver Post:
Ted Haggard, one of the most prominent evangelical pastors in the nation, resigned today as president of the National Association of Evangelicals amid allegations that he carried on a three-year sexual relationship with a male prostitute. Haggard, founder of the 14,000-member New Life Church, has denied the accusations but said in a statement released by the church today that he could "not continue to minister under the cloud ....hope to be able to discuss this matter in more detail at a later date," Haggard's statement said. The former prostitute, Mike Jones, 49, of Denver, went public with the accusations on Tuesday, saying he felt compelled to do so because he believes Haggard, a strong opponent of same-sex unions, has been hypocritical. Haggard is married with five children. .....Jones says he was contacted three years ago by Haggard for sex - he thinks through a gay newspaper advertisement or an online ad he posted on rentboy.com. Today, Jones showed the Denver Post an envelope addressed to him from "Art," a name Jones says Haggard used - sent from an address in Colorado Springs. Jones said the envelope came to him with two $100 bills inside. Jones also played a recording of a voicemail left for Jones from "Art." Jones refused to reveal what the topic of the voicemail was about because there could be legal problems and he wants to consult with an attorney. Ok, innocent until proven guilty, but there appears to be more gays in high places in the Republican Party faithful, be it in the closet, than in the Democratic Party. Maybe those Log Cabin Republicans know something we don't. Republican Jesus.

The rich get richer..faster:
Over the past quarter-century, and especially in the last 10 years, America's very rich have grown much richer. No one else fared as well. In 2004, the richest 1 percent of households - 719,910 of them, with an average annual income of $326,720 - had 19.8 percent of the entire nation's pretax income. That's up from 17.8 percent a year earlier. The study...also found that the richest one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans - 129,584 households in 2004 - reported income equal to 9.5 percent of national pretax income... However, median, or midpoint, family income rose only 1.6 percent between 2001 and 2004...Those are very sluggish income-growth rates compared with the four years between 1998 and 2001, when median family income grew by 9.5 percent and median family real net worth grew by 10.3 percent. Education has widened income inequality...But education hasn't been a ticket to income growth lately. Between 2000 and 2005, workers with four-year college degrees saw their wages fall 3.1 percent, adjusted for inflation. Some conservatives fear that Democrats will seek to redistribute wealth by revamping the tax code to address income inequality. They defend the status quo by pointing to tax data showing that the rich contribute the greatest share of taxes. In 2003, the wealthiest 10 percent held 37.2 percent of national income, a 50.2 percent share of all federal tax liabilities and a 69.6 percent share of individual income tax liabilities, according to a Congressional Budget Office tax study.
7 % of the population works at minimum wage and 12% are below the poverty level. That many again are not far from it. Can you say can't get blood from a turnip? Can you say greedy unpatriotic rich? Not all of them of course, just the whiners. More equitable pay and emphasis on work over wealth when writing tax policy would go far to fix this problem. Is it a problem? Look at the graphic on the linked page. The highest gap was right before the great depression.

Fair and Balanced is up to it again: The only thing they have is FEAR its self.

Republican leader insults our military.
According to the #2 Republican in the US House, Congressman John Boehner, the Iraq mess is all the fault of the US troops on the ground in Iraq. Boehner only moments ago had the following to say about who is to blame for Iraq:

GOP HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER JOHN BOEHNER: Let's not blame what's happening in Iraq on Rumsfeld.
WOLF BLITZER: But he's in charge of the military.
BOEHNER: But the fact is, the generals on the ground are in charge, and he works closely with them and the president.....Do Republican candidates around the country agree that the Iraq mess is the fault of US troops in Iraq?
Of course we also have Rumsfeld saying right to the troops face that we go to war with the military we have not the one we want. Or the Presnit making a joke out of the search for weapons of mass destruction. The idea that Republican patriots are anymore patriotic or moral or keeping us safer etc. than Democratic patriots is a stretch at the least. Only better to Republican Jesus.

Rummy, Cheney, you're doin a heck of a job. And whatever else Cheney told him to say. He has the judgment of a trailer park crack whore with 8 children.

Anne Coulter uses her vote for voter fraud.- If she goes to jail does she go to the mens or womens prison?

Checked out Mike Malloy yet? He's sounding great!

Globalization

Larry linked to this story in linkinator. It is by Larry Summers who is former chief economist for the world bank and treasury secretary for the last year and a half of the Clinton administration. He is a free trade and globalization supporter. His current take on globalization,

John Kenneth Galbraith was right when he observed: "All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership." Meeting the needs of the anxious global middle is the economic challenge of our time.
In the US, the political pendulum is swinging left. The best parts of the progressive tradition do not oppose the market system; they improve on the outcomes it naturally produces. That is what we need today.
There are no easy answers. The economic logic of free, globalized, technologically sophisticated capitalism may well be to shift more wealth to the very richest and some of the very poorest in the world, while squeezing people in the middle.

I have a lot of problems with globalization myself. I realize that it is a global situation today. Trade is a necessary part of it. It certainly can make the whole world better off. One of my greatest fears of a more globalized situation is the fact that our country is becoming more and more dependent on other countries. We need industrial capacity. We need people skilled in industry. We need people skilled in the universe of skills. That is the secret of what made America great. We were truly the people who could do it all. It is a big part of what the melting pot was all about. We must maintain the ability to take care of ourselves, and beyond that innovate above others.
With companies becoming more global in their structure who is to say they are American companies or global entities. We need to pull ourselves back a little and put America back in its borders. I want to see some stuff made in America when I go in a store. We don't even make our own socks anymore. That is disturbing to me from a purely structural and economically defensive position. I'm not quite sure what the answer is but I think the direction is wrong today. There has to be incentives to do it in America. Certainly profitability is going to be the number one consideration in a company. But is there anything more than that? Could they remain profitable and make decisions based on the interests of their country? Could our so called leaders make decisions that would encourage maintaining our robustness and nimbleness or do we become a country with less diversity and fewer options? Do we have to give companies every tax break and incentive possible to make it happen? We need some serious patriots. People that will find a way to do things that are best for the whole of America. In my opinion it is the people in the middle that have the incentive to strive to do better. Lets put some pride back into American made, American worker and American innovation.

Halloween Editon Of The Coffee Table

What's dead, what's alive.

Mike Malloy

Don't forget Mike Malloy starts his new gig tonight Here. Check him out when you get a chance.

I was reading this post on Digby about Peggy Noonan and her sudden desire to be a "real conservative" and how George Bush had let them down. Here ...The best part of the whole thing was this in the comments:


"You can see his heart"? What the hell does that mean? That strange woman cannot write to save herself.Pechorin 10.29.06 - 1:03 pm #

She's assuming her audience gets how Republican Jesus, his favorite philosopher, changed his heart.Greg T. 10.29.06 - 1:06 pm #

Funny! Republican Jesus.....There it is. I instantly knew what he ment when he said that. That is sad. A perfect example of why there shouldn't be too close of a mix of politics and religion. When your religion is no better than your politics what does that necessarily say about your religion? Religion should be something you use as personal standards. Politics insists on the art of compromise in the larger picture. Voting for what one finds moral makes perfect sense. The question is who is the arbiter of what is moral? Is a simple majority of the voters going to suppress the moral convictions of the minority? Or are the rights of the minority maintained? Doing this requires the art of compromise. That should be what politics is about. I think most people could agree that we want a government that uses its resources to move the country forward . I don't want the government to skimp but I want them to do it in a manner that will be fiscally prudent. I also want to see work rewarded ahead of wealth. I think you call that incentive. Knowing how morality plays in a general way and expecting your specific morality to be adhered in detail is the line religion and politics should not cross. Republican Jesus has gone way over the line. Far more to the detriment of Republicans than to Jesus.