Janitors Fire Back at Newt

 

Some Reads to Start The Week Off

• Boehner is still a douche Boehner Says House G.O.P. Opposes Deal on Payroll Tax

• As is Rush – Hungry Children are ‘Wanton Little Waifs and Serfs Dependent on the State’

• A look at the failure of austerity policies at Daily Kos

This speaks to the very core of conservative distrust of science. A fundamental of science is that once something has been conclusively disproved, you ought to stop believing in it, and certainly ought to think twice about using it as the foundation for building your own supposedly “scientific” notions. You can believe that if you feed a horse a penny, it will poop out a dime, but once the experiment has been tried and has failed you probably should cancel your plans for a horse-based retirement fund.

• Don’t Tax the Rich. Tax Inequality Itself.

What we call the Brandeis Ratio — the ratio of the average income of the nation’s richest 1 percent to the median household income — has skyrocketed since Ronald Reagan took office. In 1980 the average 1-percenter made 12.5 times the median income, but in 2006 (the latest year for which data is available) the average income of our richest 1 percent was a whopping 36 times greater than that of the median household.

Brandeis understood that at some point the concentration of economic power could undermine the democratic requisite of dispersed political power. This concern looms large in today’s America, where billionaires are allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on their own campaigns or expressly advocating the election of others.

We believe that we have reached the Brandeis tipping point. It would be bad for our democracy if 1-percenters started making 40 or 50 times as much as the median American.

• Barney Frank v. George Will on Marijuana.  The “gateway drug” thing kills me … alcohol, hello!

Vodpod videos no longer available.

 

Donald, You Are SUCH a Whackjob

So, I am sitting on my couch eating a little dinner, surfing the tube a bit and I decide to check out Hannity.  I stop by to see what looney-toon bent he is on time to time.  Tonight I was graced with the lunacy of the Donald.  How does this man get air time?!? I tuned in as he was going on his rant about TAKING Iraq’s oil.  “to the victors go the spoils” as he has been saying.  Um … Donald, didn’t we go in (according to the original justifications) in part as a war of liberation?  Jesus, no wonder much of the world thinks we are assholes.  He then goes on to say how we should use some of this to compensate wounded and families of dead soldiers.  Hannity nods along in agreement, expressing his support for the soldiers.  This always kills me.  The nuevo-cons(*)  bleed on about their support for the troops, yet at every turn they try to screw them over, trying to cut the VA, charging them for flights to go on leave, all the way to some suggesting we should have soldiers engage in a Ryan-style voucher plan for their health care.  Now I totally disagree with the war, yadda, yadda … but the soldiers returning from war zones should be given all the support, mental and medical care the need on our dime, period.

Sorry, I ramble.  It just simply floors me that people like Donald are remotely taken seriously.  From his birtherism to he newly found love of eliminating child labor laws, what more does he have to say to be labeled a whackjob by his tribe?

(*) not to be confused with neo-cons. nuevo-cons are the newer faction where all policy decisions of any type are driven solely by the question “how can someone get really rich?”

 

Sunday Randomness

Spending a lovely wintery afternoon here in Albuquerque, drinking a lovely Red, making a humongous pot o minestrone, and perusing the news and the web with The Girl.  Here are few that caught my interest.

• Newt is still an asshole, Gingrich expands on his support for child labor  And gets support from nitwits like Pullman Three cheers for child labor.
  

• People are still looking for D.B. Cooper  Shows knowledge abhors a vacuum.

• Posted from over at the DailyKos, a good article, nominally beating on Rick Santorum that get’s to the heart of the conservative anti-science mentality.

• How the Food Industry Eats Your Kid’s Lunch Surprise, privatizing school lunch programs is not healthy for children or the taxpayer’s wallet.

• In general I am in a bit of a quandary where I fall with respect to the USPS and articles like this don’t help The Junking of the Postal Service

 

Black Friday Notes

• Why We Spend, Why They Save.  A good look at the difference between our spending habits and the Europeans

Over the past three decades, Germany, France, Austria and Belgium have maintained household saving rates between 10 and 13 percent, and rates in Sweden recently soared to 13 percent. By contrast, saving rates in the United States dropped to nearly zero by 2005; they rose above 5 percent after the 2008 crisis but have recently fallen below 4 percent.

….

Home equity loans are rare in Germany, and Belgians, Italians and Germans are rarely offered an American-style credit card that allows the user to carry an unpaid balance.

This is why this recession is going to be long and painful.  Most of growth and wealth we have accumulated has been done so on the back of a massive credit bubble … that bubble is gone, and it is gone if not for good, it is gone for a loooooong time.

As of 2010 the total amount of consumer debt in the United States stands at nearly $2.4 trillion.  Based on the 2010 Census statistics, that works out to be nearly $7,800 in debt for every man, woman and child that lives here in the U.S.

• Cassidy: Black Friday is a reminder that the consumer as economic engine is sputtering

This is the day we bust the big-box door and break the bank and show a side of ourselves as Americans that frankly is not our best. Black Friday.

I hate Black Friday.

AMEN!

• Black Friday Violence … sorry, but a lot of people are just fucking morons

• Oh Christ! Just saw an add on Fox for a business show with the tag, “Could changing child labor laws help our economy?”  Uggggg

• Nothing to do with Black Friday, this is just funny – Fox Cites Non-Existent Part Of The Constitution To Hype Argument For Kagan Recusal

 

And Our Dick of the Week Is ….

Belatedly, Newt Gingrich

Actually, he’s always a dick, but he’s got some beauts this past week …

• Laws preventing child labor are ‘truly stupid’

“I tried for years to have a very simple model. These schools should get rid of unionized janitors, have one master janitor, pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work; they’d have cash; they’d have pride in the schools. They’d begin the process of rising.”

So you get rid of unionized janitors – kick them out of a job – so you can pay some kids shit money to do the same job.  I see, and applying this at a non-public level and you have a lovely justification for union busting and lowering salaries.  It’s a generational outsourcing if you like.  Of course it is all for the good of the kids

• Newt Gingrich On Occupy Wall Street: Protesters Should ‘Get A Job’ And ‘Take A Bath’

• Newt Gingrich was a lobbyist, plain and simple

No matter how he tries to spin this he is a hypocrite.  He/His company took $2 million from Freddie and Fannie … to be a “historian” ???  Now we see that he got money from Big Pharma,

So we know he was paid consultant for drug makers. That’s the first criterion for being a drug lobbyist.

Here’s the second criterion: While some consultants simply provide strategy or advice, Gingrich directly contacted lawmakers in an effort to win their votes.

I think those are three fine criteria for Dick of the Week