The arrogance of our rulers and masters; their cynical contempt is endless. They either think we are stupid or perhaps they know something. Yesterday, the Affirmed POTUS tweeted, but Obama could not comply with a symbol limit , no more than he can with debt limits or any other restraint involving truth, letters or numbers, but Obama is no ordinary mortal. He is a half-breed with the gods:
_________________
WASHINGTON — So much for 140 characters or less. A president, it seems, gets to respond to a tweet on his own terms.
President Barack Obama got an avalanche of questions on Wednesday at a town hall forum through Twitter, the popular social media service. Of the many thousands that streamed in, he answered 18 in a familiar, spoken explanatory style that well-exceeded the limited length of a tweet.
Obama's first answer, to a question on mistakes made in handling the recession, was relatively short by his standards. It still amounted to about 2,300 characters — 2,160 longer than a tweet can be.
"I know, Twitter, I'm supposed to be short," Obama conceded in the midst of another multilayered response about college costs.
The White House had warned this might happen.
"He's the leader of the free world," presidential spokesman Jay Carney said. "He decides how short his answers will be."
Where is a well-placed asteroid when we need one?
Read more if you must:
Tweeting is a private enterprise, is it not?
ReplyDeleteObviously who ever manages the tweeting of America decided not to censor the President's responses.
Or do we need to advocate for a Federal tweet police?
At least he acknowledged making a couple of mistakes, which was more than his predecessor was capable of doing.
San Francisco Chronicle -
ReplyDeleteThe embattled head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has told congressional investigators that some Mexican drug cartel figures targeted by his agency in a gun-trafficking investigation were paid informants for the FBI
It would not be foolish to think that the "big money" is not waiting for a "better" candidate from the GOP.
ReplyDeleteIndeed it may just be that the "big money" is betting that they should not waste it, in a lost cause.
That they'd be better off investing off shore.
Maybe they know John Galt?
The Republican presidential fundraising reports are still coming in, but a clear winner has already emerged: Barack Obama. Whoever claims the GOP nomination is going to find it close to impossible to keep pace with the president's fundraising ...
Odds are that the "big money" boys are not Tea Partiers.
ReplyDeleteThat they are not enthused with the current strategy of the GOP "Just Saying NO". That the "big money" are really beneficiaries of Federal Socialism.
Friends and business associates of Mr Mack and Lady Rothschild.
Borrowing and spending the GOP way
ReplyDeleteThe big deficit facing the U.S. is mostly Republican in origin, the Congressional Budget Office says. The Bush tax cuts alone have added $3 trillion in red ink, yet the party wants to double down on its failed policy.
The failure of our leaders to offer realistic budget proposals was a major reason I decided to retire after 28 years in Congress, most of them as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees. My party talks a good game, railing about the immorality of passing debt on to our children. But the same Congressional Budget Office that punctured Obama's budget also concluded that the major policies that swung the budget from a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion in 2001 to the present 10-year deficit of $6.2 trillion were Republican in origin.
Consider the two signature GOP policies of George W. Bush's presidency: the wars and the tax cuts. Including debt service costs, Bush's wars have cost about $1.7 trillion to date. Additionally, as part of being "a nation at war," the Pentagon has spent about $1 trillion more than was expected in the last decade on things other than direct war costs, which has been a bonanza for military contractors but a disaster for the federal budget. And finally, there has been another trillion dollars spent domestically in response to 9/11, including spending on such things as establishing the Homeland Security Department and increasing the budgets for the State Department and the Veterans Administration.
The Bush tax cuts have added another $3 trillion in red ink. While Republican leaders wail that Americans — particularly their rich contributors — are overtaxed, the facts say otherwise: U.S. taxpayers, particularly the wealthiest, pay far less in taxes than they would in most other developed countries. Today, the 400 wealthiest Americans have as much wealth as the bottom 125 million. The GOP insists that those wealthy people use their money to create jobs, and that taxing them more heavily would ultimately hurt the economy. But, if that's so, why was the rate of job creation in the decade after the Bush tax cuts the poorest in any decade since before World War II?
Excellent link, Rat. The guy makes a good argument.
ReplyDeleteWarren Buffet was on CNBC this morning, along with his minion, the CEO of Coca Cola. They say the "soft patch" is over.
ReplyDeleteEVERYONE says the "soft patch" is over.
Here comes the test of the Rufus "Accordion Theory." I say, gasoline prices are poised to start rising again, and by Sept we'll be back in the soup, and by Dec. the Double Dip will be obvious.
Wholesale Unleaded Futures are at $3.07 this morning. That is consistent with approx. $3.75 gasoline. A little more Demand, and we're pushing on $4.00 again.
I say $4.00 gallon puts us right back in the crapper. Every living "Salesman" on TV says differently. We'll see.
He does repeat the question I asked doug, which has never been answered, to my knowledge.
ReplyDelete... why was the rate of job creation in the decade after the Bush tax cuts the poorest in any decade since before World War II?
Federal revenue has not been lower, as a percentage of GDP, in the past 51 years.
Wealth has not been more concentrated, nor middle class incomes more stagnate, either.
While Federal expenditures, at 24% of GDP is to high, revenues at 14.9% of GDP is to low.
Spending cuts are required, no doubt. So are revenues.
Medicare Part D and foreign adventures are ripe for the plucking.
The elephant, though, is in the balance of payments deficits.
Tax rates do not address that.
Closing tax code loopholes may.
But probably will not.
The tax code loopholes that will be closed will not address the root causes of the trade deficits.
From Rat's comment/link:
ReplyDeleteToday, the 400 wealthiest Americans have as much wealth as the bottom 125 million.
That's "Mexico" numbers.
You can't run a Democracy like that.
U.S. and Mexican officials signed an agreement Wednesday allowing each country's trucks to traverse the other's highways, implementing a key provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement after nearly two decades of bickering.
ReplyDeleteTransportation secretaries Ray LaHood and Dionisio Perez-Jacome signed the three-year memorandum, which is based on an agreement announced in March by Presidents Obama and Felipe Calderon.
NAFTA, signed in 1994, had called for Mexican trucks to have unrestricted access to highways in border states by 1995 and full access to all U.S. highways by January 2000. Canadian trucks have no limits on where they can go.
But until now, Mexican trucks have seldom been allowed farther than a buffer zone on the U.S. side of the border. In retaliation, Mexico had imposed higher tariffs on dozens of U.S. products.
The Mexican government has now agreed to suspend those tariffs as long as the agreement is in place.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/06/MN4E1K79NH.DTL#ixzz1RQqDLyxZ
There are 57 States, in the Economic Union of America, now.
ReplyDeleteMr Obama was more right than wrong, about that.
This poor guy will defend the rich later.
ReplyDeleteMeet the new week, same as the old week.
ReplyDeleteOver the last 4 weeks, Gasoline Demand was down 0.6% Year on Year, and Diesel was down 5.4% YOY.
Posted JUNE 08, 2011 @ 10:00 AM
ReplyDeleteWENDY MURPHY: Why Casey Anthony will be acquitted
Looks like they should have charged Casey, Casy's Mom, and whoever else was involved in the coverup.
That might have resulted in additional admissions.
Posted JUNE 08, 2011
ReplyDeleteThat is.
It is not the rich that need defending, doug.
ReplyDeleteThey've bought their special secret sauce, already.
http://www.patriotledger.com/archive/x898079778/WENDY-J-MURPHY-Casey-Anthony-trial-an-exercise-in-absurdity
ReplyDeleteCasey Anthony trial - Child Abuse Case?
Jun 27, 2011
Recently dubbed the “Trial of the Century”, the prosecution of Florida mom Casey Anthony for the murder of her toddler daughter, Caylee, could more aptly be called the Trial of the Absurd. The prosecution seems desperate to prove Anthony’s innocence while the defense can’t manage a single reference to the evidence that actually proves Casey did not kill her child.
4. Why is the docket sheet in the case under seal? It would show what motions were filed to “seal” certain evidence. It would also show that the case has been designated a sex crime prosecution – which is important given that a sex crimes detective was involved in the early stages of the investigation. Why?
5. Casey searched the internet to learn how to make chloroform; a substance commonly used to sedate children in the making of child porn. The public thinks Casey used chloroform to kill her child, but the drug is popular among parents who pimp their kids because it’s cheap and it causes amnesia so that victims can’t remember being abused.
Pimping kids is dangerous business and Casey apparently made someone very angry. Maybe she cut out an earlier “business” partner or ripped someone off. A “Zenaida Gonzales” reported her laptop stolen in early June.
The distortion of truth in this strange case will lead to Casey’s acquittal, which begs the real question: will the prosecution then have the guts, and the political will, to file new charges against Casey for what she REALLY did to that poor little girl.
Okay, Gasoline, and Diesel demand is Down.
ReplyDeleteOn top of that the IEA, and the U.S. Government is Releasing 60 Million barrels from our Strategic Reserves.
So, what's the upshot? Oil, and Gasoline Prices are RISING like Crazy.
Up 10% in the last 3 weeks.
Let that settle in.
OK, Mr Energy Guy:
ReplyDeleteWhy did diesel become more expensive than gas a decade or so ago?
...after being cheaper for a century.
Thanks,
A Curious Child-Porn Investigator
Tell us, doug, why does Mr Mack need Federal tax subsidies, both personal and professional?
ReplyDeleteWhich thread has Rat's description of me kicking sand in his, and his family's faces?
ReplyDeleteCause Manufacturing is crucial, and Mack trucks are manufactured in the good old USA?
ReplyDeleteWhy should he not pay FICA on the entire $40 million dollar bonus he received, in 2007?
ReplyDeleteWhy should the majority of his income been sheltered from that tax?
"Oil and Gas Subsidies"
ReplyDeleteThe SAME tax writeoffs for depreciation given to other businesses.
But Demagoged By Obama and his acolytes here as:
"Oil and Gas Subsidies"
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHe is the Chairman of Morgan Stanley, doug.
ReplyDeleteHe paid himself a $40 million bonus, in 2007.
Right before the US government bailed out his bank.
The Defense Rests
ReplyDelete(It's 5:30 AM in Paradise)
None that I know of, dougo.
ReplyDeleteThe Defense never sleeps, doug.
ReplyDeleteA couple of reasons, Doug. The main one being you get about 22 gallons of gasoline from a barrel of crude, but only about 12 barrels of diesel.
ReplyDeleteAdd in European drivers moving to diesel-powered cars, and world-wide industrial growth, along with more fuel efficient gasoline cars. Also, farm equipment moved from gasoline to diesel.
No, Doug; it's not that simple. I'm not saying all of the tax accounting benefits enjoyed by small drillers should be done away with, but they can have some unintended consequences. It really gets too complex for a short discussion at the Elephant Bar (or, virtually, Any blog, for that matter.)
ReplyDeleteIn addition, don't forget that, all but the very largest companies, still have the Oil Depletion Allowance. No other business in America has anything like that.
Of course, The Huge Tax Break that the Biggest Companies get is allowing them to pass of "royalties" paid to foreign governments as "Income Tax." That loophole is Monstrous. No Other Industry gets anything like that.
Then, there is that $13 Billion we gave them to drill in the Gulf.
Don't worry about the oil companies, Doug. They are Really, Really Good at taking care of themselves.
That should have been: 12 "gallons" of diesel from a barrel of oil.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as you move from the lighter, sweeter grades of crude to the heavier, more sulfur-ridden grades you get less diesel.
And, don't forget, Doug, that one of the things holding the price of gasoline Down is the, almost, 2 Million barrels/day, globally, of Ethanol on the market.
ReplyDeleteDiesel doesn't have a substitute such as that.
The Deal is Done. Ethanol Tax Credit, and Import Tariff is history as of July 31.
ReplyDeleteThe source, who is an aide to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said the agreement was reached today between Feinstein and Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and John Thune, R-S.D., to repeal the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit, also known as the blender's credit, at the current level of 45 cents per gallon and a 54-cents-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol.
Compromise Reached
It will go in the Debt limit bill.
ReplyDeleteThey kept the "cellulosic" production credit. That's very, very, very small, but incredibly important.
ReplyDeleteI can see no reason to put a cap on social security taxes from income of all sources, but the surplus should go into non-governmental equities.
ReplyDeleteThe Supreme Court found, in 1960, made it clear that FICA is just an income tax, plain and simple.
ReplyDeleteThat both political parties lie about the ruling in Fleming v Nestor, well, what else would one expect.
THE PROGRAM IS FINANCED THROUGH A PAYROLL TAX LEVIED ON EMPLOYEES IN COVERED EMPLOYMENT, AND ON THEIR EMPLOYERS. THE TAX RATE, WHICH IS A FIXED PERCENTAGE OF THE FIRST $4,800 OF EMPLOYEE ANNUAL INCOME, IS SET AT A SCALE WHICH WILL INCREASE FROM YEAR TO YEAR, PRESUMABLY TO KEEP PACE WITH RISING BENEFIT COSTS. I.R.C. OF 1954, SECS. 3101, 3111, 3121(A).
THE TAX PROCEEDS ARE PAID INTO THE TREASURY "AS INTERNAL REVENUE COLLECTIONS," I.R.C., SEC. 3501,
AND EACH YEAR AN AMOUNT EQUAL
TO THE PROCEEDS IS APPROPRIATED TO A TRUST FUND, FROM WHICH BENEFITS
AND THE EXPENSES OF THE PROGRAM ARE PAID.
There are no "ACCRUED PROPERTY RIGHTS" to Social Security.
The FICA taxes are just an income tax. There is no "surplus", as long as the Federals run any deficit, at all.
TO ENGRAFT UPON THE SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM A CONCEPT OF "ACCRUED PROPERTY RIGHTS" WOULD DEPRIVE IT OF THE FLEXIBILITY AND BOLDNESS IN ADJUSTMENT TO EVER-CHANGING CONDITIONS WHICH IT DEMANDS AND WHICH CONGRESS PROBABLY HAD IN MIND WHEN IT EXPRESSLY
ReplyDeleteRESERVED THE RIGHT TO ALTER, AMEND OR REPEAL ANY PROVISION OF THE ACT.
:)
ReplyDeleteWas it Will Rogers, or Samuel Clemons that wrote, "No man's property, or Liberty, is safe as long as Congress is in session?"
The FICA taxes are an income tax and the benefits are Federal welfare.It is not an insurance program.
ReplyDeletePlain and simple.
Anyone, politico or recipient, that says otherwise is either ignorant of the law, or a liar.
If the astroid landed on Obama's head, then we would have Biden to contend with.....just sayin'
ReplyDeleteWell, Rat, it was sold to me, and 300 Million other Americans as an "Old Age Pension" with a "Trust Fund," and everything.
ReplyDeleteDid they lie to us? I guess. Should we have known better? I guess.
Should we have all been "Rocket Scientists?' I guess.
Remind me not to rape and murder a teenager the next time I go to Central America. Obama is worried about it. He never stops caring does he?
ReplyDeleteHUNTSVILLE (AP) — The planned execution Thursday of a Mexican national has prompted a flurry of appeals on his behalf, including a rare plea from the White House, because of what it could mean for other foreigners arrested in the U.S. and for Americans detained in other countries.
Humberto Leal, 38, is awaiting a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on whether to block his lethal injection in Huntsville. He was sentenced to die for the 1994 rape and murder of 16-year-old Adria Sauceda of San Antonio.
Biden could then select Mr Andrew Mark Cuomo to be VP.
ReplyDeleteThen they'd really be rollin'
The litmus test for Mr Perry, Deuce.
ReplyDeleteAll the politicos all knew better, rufus, or they were willfully ignorant.
ReplyDeleteAfter 1960, it was a done deal, beyond legal question.
The wording of the decision, Flemming v Nestor, is clear as crystal.
I was thinking of a slightly larger asteroid, perhaps something in the 50 meter range would be celestially appropriate, an asteroid called 2011 GP59 would create one hell of a nice lake or estuary.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Obama should worry about16-year-old Adria Sauceda
ReplyDeleteThis is merely a riff between Perry and Obama that will only grow as next November approaches.
ReplyDeleteThe jab before this one was the denial of Federal aid to Texas during the recent forest fires, when other states received it.
So it continues.
Will Perry throw the switch anyway? I am sure he is weighing his options....
ReplyDeleteBurn the Mutterbumser.
ReplyDeleteAs the Texas comedian, Ron White, says, "here in Texas, if you kill someone, we will kill you back!"
ReplyDeleteThis guy Might not be the unluckiest man alive, but he's right there in the top 1/10th of 1 percentile.
ReplyDeleteArrested for cashing Chase check at Chase bank
All I can figure out is "felonious cashing of legit check while black."
This is why only a moron would ever "trade" oil futures.
ReplyDeleteSPR Release "leaked." Oil dropped $9.00 the day we told the Saudis
On my Census form there is a question “Do you
ReplyDeletehave any dependants?” Apparently putting “Hundreds of fucking
Africans, Pakis, Somalians, single mums, Romanians, loafers, smack
heads and non English speaking people” isn’t the right answer. They’ve
sent my form back!
:)
ReplyDeleteAh, hell, I've gotta take a nap on that one.
ReplyDeleteSupreme Court denies stay of execution for Mexican national in Texas
Going to be an interesting "market," tomorrow. The "Jobs" number will, almost surely, be pretty weak (how weak, only the Good Lord, himself, knows.)
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in how that will affect the rest of the market, especially energy.
Right now, I can't figure out if the talking heads actually believe the nonsense they spouting, or are just "talking their book."
We'll know in a couple of hours. G'nite.