And, why did Obama think that this fossilized reptile was a good choice for his cat food commission in the first place? Even by their own rules, the commission couldn’t even reach a consensus on their recommendations, so can we relegate their work to history’s ashcan and never have them darken our doors again?

So, the Republicans were successful into getting Obama to buy into their austerity view thereby hampering the economy and his chances for reelection?

Bipartisanship isn’t dead, it just smells like death.

Cat food: it’s what for dinner.

Well, hay, now there are more federal resource focused on this than on Roger Clemens perjury trial. If that isn’t progress, then my name isn’t Willard.

Was Milton Friedman right about anything?

Am I too late to the party?

Why do Democrats buy into the meme that tax cuts, even if they are for the middle class, are the answer to economic problems? That’s just trying to buy people’s votes with their own money.

A “close race” will be the meme for the rest of the season because:

1) the media likes the ‘storyline’ for ratings and ad revenues;
2) the R’s like it because it is easier to steal a close election, which is why they push so hard on various voter disenfranchisement schemes.

May the Flying Spaghetti Monster bless us all.

“A lot of people say we can’t increase the minimum wage during recessions because it’ll have this big negative effect,” said Allegretto, whose study was published in the journal Industrial Relations. “We didn’t find that — in general, or when there were recessions.”

http://snipurl.com/233w7mi
http://snipurl.com/233w78t

A minimum wage needs to be high enough so that an individual working full time can support themselves, otherwise safety net programs are a subsidy to the corporation and makes us taxpayers unwilling contributors to corporate welfare.

I always thought that if we could tie increases in the minimum wage to congressional pay raises, so that one couldn’t happen without the other, we’d have one or two good results.

Here, in Santa Fe, the minimum wage is $10.29/hr. Now, if we could get out of state corporations to pay the same income tax rate that local businesses pay, we’d have a level playing field encouraging fairer competition.

Like Bob Dole says, “The time to go has come.”

Will the NRA (with the help of ALEC) push for a “stand your ground” law allowing use of firearms if you feel ‘economically threatened’ by banksters and their ilk.

I didn’t think so.

The Blues may have started as not-for-profits but many are like our state’s which is a subsidiary of Health Care Service Corporation, a Mutual Legal Reserve Company, an Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. They make profit, but don’t have stockholders. Their CEO makes millions/year.

Such is the predicament of approaching universal coverage while enshrining profiting on human misery. The answer, single-payer, is staring at everyone, but they’re all diverting their gaze.

I heard Sean Hannity posit such several days ago on his radio show.

The most radical thing you can do is to have a memory.

What relationship, if any, do you see with the apocalyptic cults and end-timers and their hate and loathing?

We have a marvelously developed mass communications machine, which not only allows a finely honed message to be beamed out instantly and personally to millions of people, but allows people to confine themselves in a bubble in which they only hear the voices of people they agree with–or who pander to their deepest prejudices.

In other words, people believe what they want to believe and disregard the rest?

I suspect the right is fearful that the ‘others’ may be encroaching on their “God-given superiority” and having more fun in life, too.

The same cannot be said about our more recent wars.

Because they were based on lies?
And, therefore, can not be popularly supported, in the absence of propaganda.

With combat becoming increasingly invisible to the public, with the use of drones, JSOC & CIA actions and mercenaries, isn’t this frittering away our ‘exceptionalism’ capital?

In Charles Murray’s latest book, Coming Apart he describes how the divergence of the top and bottom of ‘white’ America increasingly live in different cultures, threatening the country’s success. Comment?

PS Thanks all for the previous correction.

Could the end of “American Exceptionalism” be when, as Kissinger observed,

“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests?”

If you can’t lead by example, then use force.