The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Richard Day's picture

    YOU CAN TAKE THE REPUB OUT OF THE BANK BUT YOU CANNOT TAKE THE BANK OUT OF THE REPUB

     

    You can take the repub out of the bank but you cannot take the bank out of the repub.

    Lawrence O'Donnell talked about a subject that has been bugging me for years.

    Figures don't lie but liars............

    Brad Delong, today.

     

     

    Those of us who know the numbers, or who simply live in America and look around, know that the 47 percent who aren’t paying federal income taxes this year are by and large not “moochers.” About a fifth are elderly retired. About two-thirds are in households with incomes of less than $20,000 a year—definitely not living high. And nearly one-third owe no income taxes because of the earned-income and child tax credits, which both became law with bipartisan support.

    Now it just takes a puff of smoke

    Herod 

    Today has been one of those perfect winter days, cold, brilliant and utterly still, when the bark of a shepherd’s dog carries for miles, and the great wild mountains come up close to the city walls…

    Barges are unloading soil fertilizer at the river wharves. Soft drinks and sandwiches may be had in the inns at reasonable prices. Allotment gardening has become popular.

    Richard Day's picture

    EDUCATION AS A PANACEA CHAPTER ONE!

     

    We have seen recent attacks upon the 1965 Voting Rights Act!

    Richard Day's picture

    MY RAGE KNOWS NO BOUNDS; MITT ROMNEY IS A NAZI!

     

    How have we ended up where we have ended up?

    JESSE HELMS

    jollyroger's picture

    yet none may call it genocide...

    From the Annals of Inhumanity:

    Place: Lebanon, the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla.

    Time: 1982.

    Dramatis Personae: A gunman from the Israeli ally militia, a just-orphaned 10 year old boy, a cameraman.

    MrSmith1's picture

    There is no budget crisis ... (?!)

     

    Alan Grayson says there is no fiscal crisis, and that we've all just given in to the GOP crises mindset, and that Social Security has $2 trillion dollars in the bank ...  D'OH!



    http://current.com/shows/viewpoint/videos/rep-alan-grayson-there-is-no-fiscal-crisis-and-republicans-are-crisis-junkies/

     

     

     

    jollyroger's picture

    The patriarchy strikes back; it is bestial, it is brutal. It is Moloch, and it is consuming its daughters.

    From the PBS Newshour, a story so frightful that it will shake your humanity to the core, in horror that your species includes amongst it the sort who would perpetrate the foul crime described.

    Briefly, in a spasm of rage mimicked (it is estimated) 5000 times each year, a family of rich Pakistanis stalked and murdered its daughter and grandchildren.  Her crime--she married a poor man.

    It's time for a little more Krugman

    Brad Delong carried a piece today worthy of Paul Krugman ( I can think of no higher praise) .By Paul Krugman.

    Here’s a taste

                                       

    The original argument against expansionary fiscal policy in the current conjuncture was that it was not worth undertaking because of crowding-out. Fiscal expansion would push up long-term real interest rates and that would diminish private investment. The net effect on demand, employment, and spending would be zero--or even less than zero: the "expansionary austerity" meme.

     

    Obama Loses Game of Chicken with GOP

    In 2011, Obama played the fight the deficit game with the GOP, by signing the 'Budget Control Act of 2011". It mandated across the board spending reductions of 5% or so for non-entitlement spending of the government, not evaluating or specifying where or how the cuts were to be made. Just an ax to every discretionary program.

    Nothing like this had ever been done before. Obama gambled it wouldn't happen. Doing so may have helped him win the election. Or maybe not.

    Obama now calls the sequester "Just Dumb". Maybe his making this deal with the GOP in 2011 was dumb, and thinking they would back out of it now was also dumb. The GOP is the Party of dumb. Obama should know that by now.

    jollyroger's picture

    Chicago message to NRA: Take your high capacity magazines and your sexy semi automatic rifles, shove them up your ass and proceed directly to Hell. Thank you for your attention.

    I have studiously avoided as much as possible viewing the pictures of the slaughtered children from Sandy Hook.

     

    It makes my heart explode, and I really am not right for hours thereafter.

     

    Sometimes I get caught unawares, like I just did by Chris Hayes sitting in for Lawrence O'Donnell, in the prelude to discussing yesterday's  primary in Chicago.

     

    The Decider's picture

    48 Hours & Counting for Obama Cave

    You just KNOW it's going to happen!

    By the way, sorry I have been gone so long from blogging. I was hoping that whole painting thing would blow over.

    --W

    Orion's picture

    Woe, The Children

    What does our culture really think of children? I mean really think of them.

    It seems pretty schizophrenic, to be frank. When I traveled to Guam, I was struck by very different attitudes towards the youngest of young people. Children were to be protected and many natives said that flat out - that children were the center of the culture.

    A Glimmer of Hope?

    At first I was not going to open the e-mail I got from my brand new Congressman this morning because I expected it to be the same-old-same-old that I have received in the past from my Congress critters telling me what they think about the latest issues.  What a pleasant surprise it was instead to be asked what I think for a change -- and the choices were not phrased all that leading.  Here they are:

     

    jollyroger's picture

    Don't like living in a country with a gerrymandered House? Well, then, move!

    A modest proposal.

     

    Some among you of an esoteric (and perhaps senescent) character may remember the story of that jewel of kundalini yoga, Bhagwan Rajneesh.

    (My friend "Nada", one of the many girls who revolutionized the sex industry upon the dissolution of Rajneeshpuram, used to say in her exotic South African accent, "Bhagwan was like heroin"-and she should know...but I digress.)

    China has had more school massacres by 'rampage killers' than the U.S.?

    That's what this Wikipedia chart says:

    List of rampage killers: School massacres

    It's interactive, you can have the chart sort by any of the headings. If you click on "Country," it will sort alphabetically by country.

    I count

    21 incidents in China from  occurring 1995 through 2012

    and

    17 incidents in the U.S. occurring from 1927 (yes, that's 1927 ) through 2012.

    Richard Day's picture

    SOUTHERN MAN IS STILL WITH US; BUT NOT FOR LONG!

     

    southern man

    http://www.salon.com/2013/02/19/southern_poverty_pimps/?source=newsletter

    I wish you all to read the contents of this link.

    It is a good rant, it is a fair rant, it is a just rant.

    Orion's picture

    Simple Wisdom From A Southern Black Man

    About two months back, I posted here about an encounter I had with a neighbor in my housing tenement.

    This neighbor is a black man from the deep south. Country boy. 60 years old. Southern upbringing is all over him in his manner of dress, blunt expression, every bit of it. He gave some pretty good insight on Obama's re-election and people at this website seemed to like it.

    jollyroger's picture

    Stanford prof solicited for Warren pushback on feckless bank regulators. oops...

    This is a Fox Business Channel segment of surpassing entertainment value--watch it soon, cause it's bound to be taken down shortly.

     

    Under the rubric "Is government being too hard on the banks?", "correspondent" Melissa Francis mounted a push-back against Elizabeth Warren's widely praised roasting of a panel of do-nothing regulators for their abysmal failure to punish even the most egregious bank criminality.

     

    Finally, some good news

    Rumor has it that the Pope faces arrest.

    Reuters:

    Pope will have security, immunity by remaining in the Vatican

    http://itccs.org/ has several blurbs; apparently, an arrest warrant was issued on Feb. 4; six days later Ratzinger resigned; and then the PR spin began: pity the poor old man who is physically degenerating; he can hardly stand up!

    jollyroger's picture

    Afghanistan vaults past US on civil liberties and human rights! It comes to this!

    It was bad enough a month or so ago when a conflict roiled Afghan-US relations over the release by our clients of thousands of detainees who had been cleared of any wrongdoing by the local judiciary.

    Ann Coulter continues to be horrible

    It's old; and hardly news...and I don't think I've seen it here, so in case it's interesting:

    http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2013-01-16.html

    GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, THE MENTALLY ILL DO

     

    I really don't like that whole "play the nazi/fascist card" thing. But sometimes, statements like this specific one by Coulter seem to exhibit  a willingnes of the speaker to walk right up to the boundary between "other stuff" and outright fascist-like eugenics.

    acanuck's picture

    The sky is falling!

    The cosmos put on quite a show yesterday, sending two massive asteroids (one a total surprise) Earth's way within hours of each other.

    A good thing, all in all. Nobody died, but the astronomic coincidence -- and especially the stunning dash-cam images out of Chelyabinsk -- focused a lot of minds on a real threat our civilization faces.

    coatesd's picture

    Cataloging Weaknesses in the State of the Union Address

    So, the State of the Union is strong, is it? Well, maybe it is for the people the President chose to speak about last night. But what about the ones he only mentioned in passing, or the ones that he omitted to mention at all?  What about the state of the union for those Americans in, or on the edge of, poverty? What about the state of the union for those in the process, or on the edge, of losing their homes; or for those young working families trying to combine low-paid work, full-time child-care and inadequate child support? Is the state of the union fine for them? No, it is not.

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