How 31,385 people fund national elections
THE FIX By Chris Cillizza, Published: June 28, 2013 at 3:10 pm
Everyone knows that a relatively small number of wealthy people donate the lion’s share of money to political campaigns. But, you probably never suspected just how small that group actually is.
Thanks to the amazing Sunlight Foundation, we now know that just 31,385 people — one tenth of one percent of the overall U.S. population — are responsible for nearly 30 percent of the $6 billion (yes, billion with a “b”) contributed to federal campaigns and committees in the 2012 election.
While the numbers are mind-boggling, one of the charts that Sunlight built to visualize them is even more telling.
It shows that the 31,385 people who qualify as the one percent of the one percent of political donors wouldn’t even come close to filling a football stadium. And, their seats would cost a minimum of $12,950, the smallest contribution amount of any of the one-tenth-of-one-percenters.
Those numbers are even more remarkable when you consider that while they do include donations to super PACs, they do not include donations to non-profit groups like Americans for Prosperity or Crossroads GPS that are heavily involved in campaigns.
Who are these one percent of the one percenters? Writes Sunlight’s Lee Drutman:
“The nation’s biggest campaign donors have little in common with average Americans. They hail predominantly from big cities, such as New York and Washington. They work for blue-chip corporations, such as Goldman Sachs and Microsoft. One in five works in the finance, insurance and real estate sector. One in 10 works in law or lobbying. The median contribution from this group of elite donors? $26,584. That’s a little more than half the median family income in the United States.”
The full Sunlight report is fascinating and chock full of great charts that illustrate the one percent of the one percent. Check it out.
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ReplyDeleteFrom Eloi to antagonista in three weeks. For all the sheeple, Brazil shows how it is done.
Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff's support plummets in wake of protests
Approval rating drops from 57% to 30% in first opinion poll since a million Brazilians took to streets to air litany of grievances...
Dilma Rousseff's approval rating sank by 27 percentage points in the last three weeks, the strongest evidence yet that the recent wave of street protests sweeping Brazil poses a serious threat to the president's likely re-election bid next year...
The 99% are starting to get pissed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/29/brazilian-dilma-rousseff-support-protests
.
We are number one!
ReplyDeleteOOrah!
Let’s get Iran. Show them how it’s done. Do our magic like we did in: Iraq
ReplyDeleteBombs and a shooting targeted a marketplace and off-duty policemen in Iraq on Saturday, killing at last eleven people in the latest attacks by militants seeking to destabilize the country.
Iraq has been experiencing one of its deadliest waves of violence, raising fears that the country is heading toward a new round of sectarian conflict like that which pushed it to the brink of civil war in 2006 and 2007.
Police officials said the first bombing took place near an outdoor market in the morning in the capital's western suburb of Abu Ghraib, killing four people and wounding 12 others.
Also, police said attackers using guns fitted with silencers killed three off-duty policemen in a drive-by shooting near Fallujah, 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of Baghdad.
At night, a bomb went off at a cafe in the Fadhil area of downtown Baghdad as soccer fans were watching a match, killing four people and wounding 17 others, Baghdad police said.
Afghanistan
Local officials said four Taliban militants were killed on Saturday in the eastern province of Paktia, situated more than 100 kilometers south of capital Kabul, when foreign forces carried out an airborne assault.
On Friday, four other Taliban members were killed in the Panjwai district of the southern Kandahar province.
Afghan authorities said the militants were targeted as they were preparing to ambush a convoy of Afghan forces.
The Taliban have not yet confirmed any casualties, and made no comments on the airstrikes.
On June 22, at least 30 people were killed after US-led forces launched an airstrike in Afghanistan’s southeastern province of Paktika.
The incident took place at a border checkpoint in the province as Taliban militants were attacking the checkpoint.
A Taliban spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the deaths of four militants in the air raid.
On June 8, an Afghan civilian was shot and killed by US forces in Afghanistan’s northern province of Balkh. Several people were also injured in the incident.
On May 4, US-led forces fatally shot an Afghan teenage girl in the western province of Herat.
Pakistan
ReplyDeleteOn May 29th of this year the deputy head of the Pakistani Taliban, Waliur Rehman, was killed in a CIA drone strike in the tribal regions. His successor vowed vengeance for his death and was not long in carrying it out. On June 23rd a party of climbers from China, Lithuania, Nepal, Slovakia, the Ukraine, and America, and their trusted Pakistani guide were brutally killed and robbed in Gilgit by a Taliban unit that had infiltrated the north from the Pashtun tribal lands to the south. It was a savage act of butchery against unarmed tourists who had traveled across the world to partake of the beauty of Pakistan and her people.
Libya
ReplyDeleteThrough bold, yet measured analysis of naked truths and obvious facts, one could characterize the bloody incidents that transpired in Benghazi on Saturday June 8 — collectively known as the “Black Saturday” incidents — as forming a pivotal turning point in the course of the murderous conflict.
This conflict began in Libya after sundown on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011, and ended with the death of former President Moammar Gadhafi on the morning of Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011. Following the latter incident, a new track was drawn in the struggle for power between various factions that stand diametrically opposed in their respective existential battles against one another.
They stand together, however, knowingly or through ignorance, to serve the plans and agendas of foreign factions jostling for control over Libya. This plan is not to share its riches, but to completely appropriate them at the expense of others, thus intensifying the conflict and making its resolution slip further away.
We keep fucking with these people and our people keep getting poorer.
ReplyDeleteThe usual suspects insist that we need more American weapons in Syria and of course the Big Chapatti, Iran, is always on the menu.
By the time we are done we will have an economy on a par with our new allies again, the Mujahideen.
Our same Sage Rufus has told us that on many issues, like Benghazi for instance, 'the American People don't give a shit, bobass'.
ReplyDeleteThis may be true.
What a lot of horse shit (non sense) some of these 'ideas' have been here lately.
If you don't like the Process, go out and change it.
In a vast country like ours with two or three parties contending there will be a lot of money at the higher Federal levels.
Go out and run for the city council. The last time around here there was around 5 thousand bucks spent totally.
The "GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DO SOMETHING INDEX" is sinking here at the Libertarian.
Where we want:
A) A Draft to teach people to not be wards of the state
B) Total wealth confiscation at death for family values
C) Cocaine and Heroin sold at the pharmacy
D) Abortion on Demand, and
E) Criticizing Israel for allowing a 'woman the right to choose'.
What a hog slop it has become.
What do you want to be, hand feed?
Rufus is leaving Mississippi. Let him go to Mexico or even better Venezuela then.
Meanwhile my niece is working on your sight and vision problems in your old age, or earlier, in Germany.
bobpieceofshit
Your 'charts' are non sense.
DeleteYour have lost your way, chartless.
There are about something like maybe five million Jews in Israel, many/most survivors and descendants of the European Holocaust.
The aid most or all has been paid back.
Earlier you were claiming the US of A had caused the homelessness of millions of Iraqi children.
These wars were of course caused somehow by the Jews, wanting Saddam to invade Kuwait or to bring down the World Trade Centers, somehow to their ultimate benefit.
The Iraqi guy in charge of kids affairs there that I posted said the number was something like ten times less that yours, and he has an incentive to inflate for your bucks.
If I may say it politely you are not making much sense, except on trade with that part of the 'American Empire' known to you as S America.
bobpieceofshit
The aid most or all has been paid back.
DeleteEarlier you were claiming the US of A had caused the homelessness of millions of Iraqi children.
These wars were of course caused somehow by the Jews, wanting Saddam to invade Kuwait or to bring down the World Trade Centers, somehow to their ultimate benefit.
Let me ask a simple question:
If Israel was located in Nova Scotia, do you think the US would have invaded Iraq, Libya, now Syria and next Iran?
Israel is a European colonial experiment at a time where colonialism has been turned back and discredited everywhere. It is in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is a coastal mansion, built on sand dunes in a hurricane zone.
Apartheid is as apartheid does. A history of land grabs, forced relocation and the normal animosity caused by an occupying superior invader from Europe, the most notorious colonial practitioner on the planet, has caused enormous political and social damage to the region. Throw in a vicious occupying police power and a practice of civil repression with no equal in all of Europe and you have a guaranteed map for disaster.
Israel and its mystical absurd claim of somehow having an ancient right of return, supported by bible thumpers in the US and UK, is as preposterous as the Teutonic fervor of previous Europeans claiming rights to ancient German homelands. That singular arrogance is an ongoing source of instability. Add to that triumphalism and racial superiority, examples openly posted here by the Aipac man and anyone without blinders can see the expected results.
The killing and destruction, the interference and bullying by various US administrations in the ME will be repaid in spades, time and time again. 911 being the most obvious but 60,000 US dead and wounded, perhaps 200,000 with traumatic emotional injuries, hundreds of thousands of people in the middle east killed and wounded at the hands of US forces, millions dislocated and financially ruined and the millions of children’s lives destroyed by the loss of their parents through violent death at the hands of US forces will all be repaid in time.
The destruction of domestic US constitutional rights and liberties by an over-reacting US government has its very roots in this awful experiment of the wrong idea at the wrong time.
The relocation of Eastern Europeans and Americans to a newly formed foreign religious colony of seven million amongst hundreds of millions is going to end and will ultimately end badly. Had the experiment been done in either Canada, the US or much of the Americas, none of this would have happened. Israel cannot be saved by technology. It cannot remain a democracy and a religious state. It could only succeed by doing that which was practiced in the US with a constitutional evolution of universal rights and assimilation and Israel has sworn that will not happen
Ultimately, the US itself had a civil war and federal repression to force a union and cohesion of the various tribes and states. The US had no viable external threat on her borders. Israel neither has applicable assets other than US support and the temporary technological advantage of a fort and a free fire zone.
To date, the US government has done $4-5 trillion in damage to the American middle class to pay for this nightmare. They are getting poorer and subsidizing European and American settlers getting subsidized housing in Palestine.
It was not the Arabs that were killing Jews by the millions, it was Christian Europeans, The Christians and Catholic killers were only too happy to see the Jews take a hike and get lost in the Middle East. NIMBY ruled the day.
It hasn’t worked for anyone and it never will. The US had nothing to do with the holocaust and neither did 99% of all those alive today.
It was wrong then and the solution is wrong today.
Good luck with all of that.
No one is to blame other than our politicians who are bought and paid for by the 1/2% of the 1%.
ReplyDeleteThoughtlessness.
Deletebpos
I got to get some sleep.
These time zones are depriving me of sleep and I got to deal with Germany.
DougSun Jun 30, 12:54:00 AM EDT
ReplyDelete(wrt wealth inequality)
...to the degree that it's true, look what liberalism has done to "education" or the Welfare Programs have done to black families, and now, increasingly others.
wrt to corruption and crony capitalism:
Look at the size of the Federal Employee Workforce in DC and across the land.
Microsoft wasted no effort (or money) on politics for many years.
Then Clinton "Justice" sued their ass, and now MS is lawyered and lobbied up like the rest.
Bush left Clinton's crooks in place, and now Obama is finishing the place off.
Everyone here but you recognize the GE's, Solyndra's, and Ethanol lobbies, but you selectively see evil only elsewhere.
DougSun Jun 30, 01:00:00 AM EDT
Look what liberalism and unions have done to Detroit and other liberal bastions.
If some of those other countries had open borders for uneducated, untrained illegals, they would rapidly come to resemble the once-great USA.
Black businesses in South Central LA were decimated by illegals, the EPA, and other political meddling.
DougSun Jun 30, 01:03:00 AM EDT
...and let us not forget LBJ and his Great Society
Rufus IISun Jun 30, 01:23:00 AM EDT
I'm more interested in what those 26 countries that waxed our ass have in common - and, the way they differ from us.
Rufus IISun Jun 30, 01:29:00 AM EDT
And, in a nutshell, they just tend to be a hell of a lot more "socialist."
DougSun Jun 30, 01:50:00 AM EDT
"I'm more interested in what those 26 countries that waxed our ass have in common - and, the way they differ from us."
I just told you, dumbass.
I list what socialist institutions and programs have done to dumb down and screw up those that don't thrive, and you assert that our problems stem from not being socialist enough.
Brilliant.
And now we have the Feds paying unions, teachers, and "health care assisters" to vote democrat and partake of their Socialist Heroin.
ReplyDeleteYup, more big government will cure our ills and eliminate corruption.
I wonder how many articles Chrissy Ciliza has written about the Billions given to Democrat Slush Funds since Obama's been elected?
ReplyDeleteIRS and FBI targeting of Conservatives had no effect whatsoever on Fundraising or Voter turnout in the last election.
ReplyDeleteThis corrupt, America Hating Socialist is just the tonic that this country needs.
Paying off Banks and Stock Marketeers in Japan has brought two decades without growth to the Japanese Economy.
ReplyDeleteIt's had the same effect here for the last four years, yet Rufie claims it's the only thing that's saved our Bacon.
The massive ongoing transfer of wealth from Mainstreet to Wallsteet under Obama certainly hasn't reduced Wealth Inequality.
ReplyDeleteLikewise the 7 million fewer people employed since he took office.
"Socialist Heroin" was good.
ReplyDeletebpos
Actually it was great. Never heard that before.
DeleteAny numbers on the growth of employment or not in government, federal, state, local, Doug?
bpos
Can we get some Socialist Heroin at the pharmacy now, drive through window, as Dr. Rufus suggested we do?
DeletePaid for by ObamaCare I suppose.
bpos
Forget how many new IRS agents they're hiring to enforce the all-loving, all voting, all contributing, all Heroin using, Obamacare, is it 16,000?
DeleteCA Dems voted themselves a tax increase so they can pay teachers more!
Liberals and Socialist Commies like Rufie are Geniuses.
No doubt about that.
This is weird:
ReplyDeleteI'm listening to an old Adam Carolla radio podcast from back in 2006 and he's talking about lefties complaining about the NSA spying on their cellphones!
Anybody remember that?
That was back when Rufie was a conservative, Bush supporting, Republican, complaining about RINOS.
Well, now we've seen how quickly a snake in the Swamp can shed it's skin, haven't we?
Antioch man shot Friday, then killed Saturday
ReplyDelete(06-29) 16:47 PDT Antioch -- A man was shot and killed at his Antioch apartment on Saturday, a day after he survived being shot in a similar attack, police said.
The victim, a 42-year-old man whose name wasn't immediately released, was shot in the head shortly after 9:30 a.m. Saturday while he was on the front porch of his apartment on the 2100 block of Spanos Street, said Antioch police Lt. Diane Aguinaga.
The man died at a local hospital.
About 11 a.m. Friday, the same man was at home when he was shot, Aguinaga said. He received a grazing wound to his back and a gunshot wound to his leg but was "uncooperative with officers at that time and gave no information as to who had shot him," Aguinaga said.
Both shootings remain under investigation, police said.
---
(...the victim awoke Saturday, and said to himself: Man, self, that sucked.
I think I'll sit out on the front porch and think about it.)
Well, duh.
Carolla's retort is that he'd rather have them spy on his cellphone than take 600,000 in taxes from him every year.
ReplyDelete...and the same applies to the rest of us Shmucks paying 40 percent or more in liberal/socialist wonderlands like Rufie's CA dreamland or New York.
We all know the 'Rats reasons for planning on becoming an ex-pat, Deuce, what was/is yours?
ReplyDeleteI'm staying and fighting. I can go anywhere at anytime.
DeleteBut not with your money if the Libertarians Rufus and Rat have their way. And at your death the other Libertarians get all you've got.
Delete:):):):)
ReplyDeleteWe are all aspiring ex-pat jihadis now, or something. Rufus, and the American People, voted and have spoken.
May well be The End Of The Story, ladies and gentlemen.
bpos
In recent years several large studies have found that vertical inter-generational mobility is lower in the United States than in most developed countries.[11] A 1996 paper by Daniel P. McMurrer, Isabel V. Sawhill found "mobility rates seem to be quite similar across countries."[12] However a more recent paper (2007) found a person's parents is a great deal more predictive of their own income in the United States than other countries.[5] The United States had about 1/3 the ratio of mobility of Denmark and less than half that of Canada, Finland and Norway.[1] France, Germany, Sweden, also had higher mobility, with only the United Kingdom being less mobile.[1]
ReplyDeleteEconomic mobility in developing nations (such as those in Africa) is thought to be limited by both historical and global economic factors.[13] Economic mobility is everywere correlated with income and wealth inequality.[14
Economic Mobility
Another Chart
DeleteWe Suck, We Suck, We Suck!!
vertical inter-generational mobility
Deleteheh heh heh
But this isn't bad -
However a more recent paper (2007) found a person's parents is a great deal more predictive of their own income in the United States than other countries
which means work your ass off and give it to the kids......
and they might have some kind of work ethic too....
while some 'libertarians' support confiscating all wealth at death.....
Rufus, dear son, you are not making sense.
bpos
Opinions and talking points are opinions and talking points. But, the fact is, The United States ranks 27th in the World in Median Wealth.
ReplyDeleteBehind Italy, and Spain, for crissakes.
Opinions and talking points are opinions and talking points.
Deletehmmm.....well, yes, I suppose.....
and
bullshit is bullshit too
bpos
The guy (or, gal) in Australia that is right in the middle of the pack, the Median, is worth $193,000.00.
ReplyDeleteHis (or, her) American counterpart is worth $38,000.00.
That ain't bullshit.
That's the Facts.
5 X the wealth is a Fact.
Canada at over 2 X is a Fact.
Opinion as to "why" might be bullshit, and it might be the truth;
But the Number is a Fact.
Some on this blog like to knock Japan. The Median Japanese is Over 3 1/2 Times Wealthier than the Median American.
ReplyDeleteWe're Number 27, We're Number 27, We're Number 27, We're Assholes
I'm quite sure that 25 of the 26 Nations that are ahead of us have Govt. Sponsored, Universal Healthcare (the exception being, I think, Singapore.)
DeleteSoon you will telling me that my niece is wealthier than I.
DeleteThe Equality Gap is nearly nothing in India cause nobody has a pot to piss in.
That is why she came here. She likes plumbing. Got her Master's. Moved on to Germany taking up with Max Planck.
bpos
.
DeleteMore nonsense.
In the last 20 years, income inequality in India has doubled. The top 10% make 12 times what the bottom 10% make, up from 6 times 20 years ago. Don't even ask about the top 1%.
.
ReplyDeleteThe facts are in dispute.
Australia is not North America.
Spain and Italy for instance have been basket cases all my life, whatever government.
What does 193 K actually buy you in Australia?
Some kangaroos?
An average condo in Vegas is more than that. Maybe 1000 sq ft. 200 K
While in Australia it may get you 10 thousand acres in the outback, not toilet, water included. A little peace I would hope.
But where's the McDonald's?
Rufus, go to bed now.
bpos
In Tokyo a million US would buy you a 250 sq ft condo with a pot to piss in and radioactive air conditioning.
ReplyDeleteRufus, GO TO BED.
bpos
What would $38,000.00 buy in New York City?
DeleteYou go to bed, moron; I've had a good 7 1/2 hrs of sleep.
Subsidized apartments and access to Central Park.
DeleteWho in their right mind would ever want to live there in the first place?
bpos
ReplyDeleteBERLIN (AP) -- German federal prosecutors say they are looking into whether reported U.S. electronic surveillance programs broke German laws.
The Federal Prosecutors' Office said in a statement Sunday that it was probing the claims so as to "achieve a reliable factual basis" before considering whether a formal investigation was warranted.
It also said private citizens were likely to file criminal complaints on the matter.
Germany news weekly Der Spiegel reports that at least one such complaint was lodged with prosecutors in the state of Hesse last week.
The magazine reported Sunday that apart from its PRISM program used to eavesdrop on Internet traffic, the U.S. National Security Agency also spied on European Union offices on both sides of the Atlantic.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
A top German official accused the United States on Sunday of using "Cold War" methods against its allies, after a German magazine cited secret intelligence documents to claim that U.S. spies bugged European Union offices.
Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger was responding to a report by German news weekly Der Spiegel, which claimed that the U.S. National Security Agency eavesdropped on EU offices in Washington, New York and Brussels. The magazine cited classified U.S. documents taken by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that it said it had partly seen.
Great minds flock together. :)
DeleteThe Germans is PISSED!
* Classes its biggest European ally as target like China -Spiegel
* Has bugged EU offices, computer networks too -German magazine
BERLIN, June 30 (Reuters) - The United States taps half a billion phone calls, emails and text messages in Germany in a typical month and has classed its biggest European ally as a target similar to China, according to secret U.S. documents quoted by a German newsmagazine.
The revelations of alleged U.S. surveillance programmes based on documents taken by fugitive former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden have raised a political furore in the United States and abroad over the balance between privacy rights and national security.
Exposing the latest details in a string of reputed spying programmes, Der Spiegel quoted from an internal NSA document which it said its reporters had seen.
The document Spiegel cited showed that the United States categorised Germany as a "third-class" partner and that surveillance there was stronger than in any other EU country, similar in extent to China, Iraq or Saudi-Arabia.
"We can attack the signals of most foreign third-class partners, and we do it too," Der Spiegel quoted a passage in the NSA document as saying.
It said the document showed that the NSA monitored phone calls, text messages, emails and internet chat contributions and has saved the metadata - that is, the connections, not the content - at its headquarters.
On an average day, the NSA monitored about 20 million German phone connections and 10 million internet data sets, rising to 60 million phone connections on busy days, the report said.
While it had been known from disclosures by . . . . . .
Really, Really Pissed
Sure, the US is not breaking any US laws when it taps the communications of foreigners.
DeleteIt is totally legal.
The NSA was authorized to do so.
Yes, in 2006 the US portion of the NSA surveillance programs were well known, as doug said up thread.
Nothing new, move along, nothing to be seen here.
And yes, as median incomes in the US have been declining for over a decade, so to has wealth.
Why would anyone be surprised?
The rich are getting richer, to rest of the US, not so much.
A man like Mr Romney pays the same rate as the FICA tax of the normal wage earner, who then pays an income tax on top of the FICA.
Mr Romney and his cohort do not even pay FICA, they don't have real jobs.
They pay self employment taxes, income tax, capital gains taxes and I don't what else.
DeleteYour statements are false.
It would be too much to hope for but this would be a great time to have Nato join the fate of polyester leisure suits.
DeleteThe prospects for a new trade pact between the US and the European Union worth hundreds of billions have suffered a severe setback following allegations that Washington bugged key EU offices and intercepted phone calls and emails from top officials.
The latest reports of NSA snooping on Europe – and on Germany in particular – went well beyond previous revelations of electronic spying said to be focused on identifying suspected terrorists, extremists and organised criminals.
The German publication Der Spiegel reported that it had seen documents and slides from the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden indicating that US agencies bugged the offices of the EU in Washington and at the United Nations in New York. They are also accused of directing an operation from Nato headquarters in Brussels to infiltrate the telephone and email networks at the EU's Justus Lipsius building in the Belgian capital, the venue for EU summits and home of the European council.
Without citing sources, the magazine reported that more than five years ago security officers at the EU had noticed several missed calls apparently targeting the remote maintenance system in the building that were traced to NSA offices within the Nato compound in Brussels.
No, that is not correct, anoni.
DeleteSelf-employment tax is the FICA and if Mr Romney paid it, his tax bill for 2011 would have been greater than 14%.
The self-employment tax ...
The self-employment tax rate for self-employment income earned in calendar year 2011 is 13.3% (10.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare).
http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Self-Employment-Tax-%28Social-Security-and-Medicare-Taxes%29
If Mr Romney paid the self-employment tax, it was the only tax he paid.
If you have no job, only income from investments there is no self-employment tax, dimwit.
DeleteMr Romney exemplifies the problem with the tax code and how it is manipulated to favor the cronies, at the expense of the majority.
That the anoni is to stupid to know it is being played for a sucker, hilarious.
Add to the mix the FACT that the FICA taxes are nothing but income taxes, quite regressive ones at that, and the picture of systematic corruption becomes even more clear.
DeleteSince 1960 and the SCOTUS decision in Flemming vs. Nestor, that salient fact has been a reality.
CAIRO—Anti-government protesters packed Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Sunday, as a rival camp near Egypt’s presidential palace chanted and cheered in favor of President Mohamed Morsi, in a tense stand-off between supporters and opponents of the Islamist leader that both sides fear will culminate in widespread violence.
ReplyDeleteBy mid-afternoon, Egyptian flags, tents and banners filled the capital’s iconic square, where Egyptian protesters launched the revolt that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak nearly two-and-a-half years ago, and where many now hope they will launch the revolt that topples Morsi.
Muslim and Christian religious leaders in Egypt have called on protesters from both camps to remain peaceful in the wake of clashes near Muslim Brotherhood offices in the Nile Delta last week.
But tension cut through the streets of Cairo on Sunday, as protesters flooded into rival demonstrations well ahead of the planned evening marches.
The police, once a symbol of Mubarak’s repressive tactics—and some of whom have publicly refused to protect Morsi and his backers in the Muslim Brotherhood—remained conspicuously absent from the streets around the presidential palace Sunday, even as anti-government activists planned to convene mass demonstrations around its walls by the evening, the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported.
These times they are achanging…
ReplyDeleteIn the pages of The Nation, the oldest continuously published weekly in the country and the self-described “flagship of the left,” a former member of the House of Representatives has called for the impeachment of the president over revelations of massive government surveillance of ordinary citizens.
Democrat Elizabeth Holtzman of New York, who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate era, powerfully yet dispassionately lays out the case for the immediate impeachment of the president.
“Nothing less is necessary to protect our constitutional system and preserve our democracy,” she declares.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/28/dc-world-exclusive-venerable-leftist-weekly-demands-presidents-impeachment-over-mass-surveillance/#ixzz2XiCGz69D
The world has turned upside down. During the entire cold war, the US never jammed Radio Moscow. Radio Free Europe was established to that those in the communist controlled countries could hear the other side of the story. Today our masters and rulers fear that the US people will be diverted from the party line by engaging in the dangerous practice of hearing what the other side has to say instead of what our minders in the pathetic and toady US media have to say.
ReplyDeleteOn June 19, Intelsat told Iran’s national broadcasting corporation, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), that it will no longer provide services to Iranian channels, including Press TV, as of July 1 because of the US sanctions.
-----------------
It was previously noted by Quirk that:
The Guardian's recent stories about NSA surveillance have been blocked across the entire US Army , the Monterey Herald reported on Thursday night.
The paper has made huge waves, of course, with its series of explosive stories about the NSA's highly classified surveillance programs. Though it has always maintained an American presence, its visibility has skyrocketed in the wake of the scoops.
The Herald talked to an Army spokesman, who confirmed that the Guardian's website had been blocked since the stories first emerged.
Americans have no clue as to how much bullying is done around the planet by functionaries of the US government. The fact is the US government does the same thing to our own citizens and in many ways it is worse. The US media covers for them and in a rare instance as the Snowden affair, we can only get the attention of the US clueless by what comes from a British paper like The Guardian or a news agency by Russia Today.
ReplyDeleteWe have been treated by the pretend journalist David Gregory exposed in his attempt to blame a real journalist for reporting on what the US government is doing to its own people.
It would be great to see a European country have the guts to tell the US government to mind its own business and give Snowden protective custody so that he could be tried in absentia without the intimidation and torture of solitary confinement in a US supermax.
Make Washington put on its case against Snowden for the whole world to see and let the chips fall where they may.
Treason my ass.
ReplyDeleteThe president of the European parliament has called for full clarification from the US over claims it bugged EU offices in America and accessed computer networks.
ReplyDeleteMartin Schulz said there would be a severe impact on relations between the European trade bloc and the US if revelations by German magazine Der Spiegel proved to be true.
Der Spiegel reported that the US had bugged offices and gained access to EU internal computer networks, according to secret documents, the latest in a series of exposures of alleged US spying.
The magazine quoted from a "top secret" US National Security Agency (NSA) document from September 2010 that it said former NSA contractor Edward Snowden had taken with him, and which its journalists had seen in part.
Der Spiegel said the document outlines how the NSA bugged offices and spied on EU internal computer networks in Washington and at the UN, listening to conversations and phone calls and gaining access to documents and emails. It said the document explicitly called the EU a target.
A spokesman for the office of the US director of National Intelligence did not comment on the Der Spiegel article.
Schulz said: "I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations of US authorities spying on EU offices. If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations.
"On behalf of the European parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations."
Now we are beginning to understand why Washington wants Snowden back so badly. It has more to do with image than substance
ReplyDeleteThe Washington Post has released four previously unpublished slides from the NSA's PowerPoint presentation on Prism, the top-secret programme that collects data on foreign surveillance targets from the systems of nine participating internet companies.
The newly published top-secret documents, which the newspaper has released with some redactions, give further details of how Prism interfaces with the nine companies, which include such giants as Google, Microsoft and Apple. According to annotations to the slides by the Washington Post, the new material shows how the FBI "deploys government equipment on private company property to retrieve matching information from a participating company, such as Microsoft or Yahoo and pass it without further review to the NSA".
The new slides underline the scale of the Prism operation, recording that on 5 April there were 117,675 active surveillance targets in the programme's database. They also explain Prism's ability to gather real-time information on live voice, text, email or internet chat services, as well as to analyse stored data.
The 41-slide PowerPoint was leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to the Guardian and Washington Post, with both news organizations publishing a selection of the slides on 6 June. The revelation of a top-secret programme to data-mine digital information obtained with the co-operation of the nine companies added to a storm of controversy surrounding the NSA's surveillance operations.
Several of the participating companies listed on the third new slide released by the Washington Post – Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL and Apple – denied at the time of the initial publication that they had agreed to giving the NSA direct access to their systems. Google told the Guardian that it did not "have a back door for the government to access private user data".
The new slides show how Prism interfaces with the internet companies as government agents track a new surveillance target. The process begins, one annotated slide suggests, when an NSA supervisor signs off on search terms – called "selectors" – used for each target. Analysts are tasked with ensuring that the target is by "reasonable belief" of at least 51% confidence likely to be a foreign national who is not within the US at the time of data collection. The internal NSA supervision is the only check of the analysts' determination; a further layer of supervision is added with stored communications, where the FBI checks against its own database to filter out known Americans.
There is also broad authorization by federal judges in the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which the new slides refer to as "Special FISA Oversight and Processing". But this is of a generic nature and not made on an individual warrant basis.
The data is intercepted by the FBI's "Data Intercept Technology Unit", the new slides suggest. From there it can be analysed by the FBI itself, or can be passed to the CIA "upon request".
.
DeleteThis was known back in 2005 (or there abouts) to anyone paying attention when a whistleblower blew the whistle on that secret room in the AT&T offices.
.
Exactly, Q.
DeleteAll this has been in the public domain for almost a decade, eight years, anyway.
Since 2006, when USA Today did a spread on the programs, they have only expanded in scope and scale.
We gotta be kept safe, you know.
The civilian director of the NSA is a Brigadier General in the Air Force Reserve. His status as a civilian, well, it is complicated, that's what he told the committee.
32 years in uniform, a Brigadier General, carried on the NSA payroll as a "Civilian", don't you know.
Trust, but verify ...
There is lots more to come.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that most libertarians here are so closely and intensely concerned with other people's money?
ReplyDeleteHi. I'm a Libertarian and am from the Government. Give me all your money and by the way your kids are in the Army for two years.
DeleteBecause the "other people" are not paying their fair share to protect and defend the system that is making them rich.
DeleteThe "other people" are using their wealth to steal more from the government, often it is theft by omission. Along with theft by commission.
The tax code is being used to propagate the suppression of the majority, for the benefit of a really small minority.
The evidence is overwhelming that the United States is being harmed by crony capitalism and a government that has become corrupt beyond measure.
The symptoms are easily seen.
The remedy, not so much.
Maybe boobie was correct?
ReplyDeleteCan the whole of the US now be characterized as a Gulag?
I used to get a chuckle at the "Prison Planet" moniker that Alex Jones used as a platform. Always thought he was out on the fringe. Now, he is often seen on various programs distributed by DirecTV.
Gaining mainstream viewers of what a decade ago was seen as outlandish conspiracy theories.
Notice that boobie no long tells us that Mr Obama was born in Kenya, his birth records falsified, once it became obvious that only the CIA could have engineered such a scenario.
Perhaps the CIA did, perhaps not.
Only Zbigniew Brzezinski knows, for sure, and he's not speaking to that subject, publicly.
All in all, just another brick in the wall
Trust Government? The better question is 'how can any Americans not distrust most of what government does?'.
ReplyDeleteIs secrecy new?
The Media portray the Cuban Missile Crisis - diffused because Kennedy agreed to pull the nukes out of Turkey . . . not because he stood up to the commies.
The Johnson-McNamara-Westmoreland lies about success in Viet Nam lengthening the war and killing thousands for nothing.
The Nixon Administration (need I say more?) - bombing Cambodia illegally and secretly.
The Iran-Contra lies.
The Clinton/Clinton Administration. . .
The Bush administration - too many deceptive moves to list.
And Obama - the biggest lie in Amercian history.
Who in their right mind would trust Government? But somehow people are shocked that this administration is full of a-holes who don’t give a rat's-ass about liberty.
( No disrespect intended to the previous commenter.)
Takes more than that GregMax ....
DeleteHow's GM, as a moniker, if you're going to stay around?
Thanks for the welcome from a long time lurker.
DeleteNot a word on NY Times website.
ReplyDeleteNothing on MSNBC.
ReplyDeleteMaybe boobie was correct?
ReplyDeleteboobie is always correct
boobie
I don't know where Barky was born.
My whole point all along was the legal definition of Natural Born Citizen. I do not believe he is that because he has not two citizen parents.
You keep bringing up the same non sense.
Barky, in the past, and Deuce too, have said they think Barky was born in Kenya.
I am not part of that discussion.
I don't care where he was born. In my view Winston Churchill couldn't have been President of the United States.
Though he would have made a great one.
bpos
Obama has no visceral respect for the constitutional system. He is all about power and ego. He is as fraudulent to the left as Rubio was to the Republican right. I am convinced that he was not born in the US. At this stage it makes no difference. The magnetic poles have changed and are in realignment. The natural born corporate and statist elites in the media and the cultural aristocracy are just as dangerous. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Robert McNamara and John McCain were natural born Americans and have done us no favors.
DeleteBarky by the authorized statements by his publisher on his early written works.
Deletebpos
Two top senators called Sunday for the U.S. to get tough with countries positioned to help NSA leaker Edward Snowden, with Sen. Chuck Schumer saying the U.S. should cut off business visas to Ecuador if that country offers him asylum.
DeleteSens. Schumer, D-N.Y., and John McCain, R-Ariz., had tough words for both Russia and Ecuador. The latter is considering Snowden's bid for asylum, though may not issue a decision for weeks. Russia, meanwhile, has declined to intervene despite Snowden spending the past week in a Moscow airport.
I don't think there was any early 'conspiracy'. I do not know. I think mother had him registered in Hawaii but that is just a hunch, to give him the advantages of US of A.
DeleteNone of that means a thing to me, and the courts have declined to rule except by exclusion on what the meaning of Natural Born Citizen actually is though it was accepted in the past that it meant two citizen parents.
The whole thing is a farce just like the Zimmerman trial and a firm indicator of what this country is actually becoming.
bpos
boobie, how did Ms Obama get the false data into the Hawaiian system?
DeleteThat is the key to your supposed plot.
You say you're correct, always...
Beyond that, do you now claim that the whole of the US is a Gulag?
The fact that the document released by the Obama campaign that was portrayed as his birth certificate may have been Photoshopped has nothing to do with the data in the Hawaiian records.
DeleteThe officials from the state of Hawaii have testified that the DATA on the certificate is accurate.
How did Ms Obama corrupt the Hawaiian birth records data base?
Not that she needed to, but if that is what happened, who and how was it done, by a woman with no visible connections to the Hawaiian government?
Who corrupted the data base?
Honest to God I just said where he was born is not the point, it is the Natural Born Citizen issue that is the point.
Deletebpos
It is not what you just said, boobie, it is what you have been saying since 2007.
DeleteThe links you provide and support at the American Stinker, etc.
You're mind may be slipping, if all you can reference is today.
Banner on RT.com
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteTEL AVIV — U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry ended three days of intensive shuttle diplomacy Sunday without achieving Israeli and Palestinian agreement to restart long-dormant peace talks, but said that differences between the two sides had narrowed significantly.
“I am pleased to tell you that we have made real progress on the trip and I believe that with a little more work, the start of final status negotiations could be within reach,” Kerry said at a brief news conference at Ben Gurion Airport here.
------------
“I am absolutely confident that. . .all of the parties are on the right path in order to get to a very good place,” he said...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/kerry-real-progress-but-no-israel-palestine-agreement/2013/06/30/627f61a2-e172-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html
:)
Well, at least it keeps Kerry busy so that he isn't creating more trouble elsewhere.
.
Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On said the Americans cannot force Netanyahu to do what is in Israel's best interests.
Delete"Netanyahu did not handle the situation smartly," she said. "He insists on holding a ticking time bomb in his hands instead of dismantling it. The fact that people like [Deputy Defense Minister Danny] Danon are rejoicing should worry every sane Israeli who is concerned about the country's future."
Labor faction chairman Isaac Herzog said Netanyahu must come to the Knesset to explain why Kerry left without a breakthrough. He said the prime minister needed to tell the public what concrete steps he is willing to make to bridge the gaps and start direct talks with the Palestinians.
"The prime minister cannot give up," Herzog said. "If another effort is need, he should do it. It is tough but it is doable."
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Left-blames-Netanyahu-for-stalemate-on-peace-talks-318249
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ReplyDeleteFor what can war but endless war still breed?
Till truth and right from violence be freed,
And public faith clear'd from the shameful brand
Of public fraud. In vain doth valour bleed
While avarice and rapine share the land.
John Milton
.
The Israeli shakedown begins as Netanyahu begins the Bibi hustle:
ReplyDeleteA top American adviser has been working to establish new ways for the United States to guarantee Israel’s security in the event it no longer occupies the West Bank — part of the effort by Secretary of State John F. Kerry to restart peace talks, according to officials familiar with the strategy.
Retired Marine Gen. John R. Allen, who is serving as a special adviser to both Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, has been seeking to identify Israel’s potential security gaps and remedy what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had complained were outdated or incomplete assurances of cooperation and equipment from the United States, the officials said.
The goal is to remove potential deal-breakers at the outset of the push for new talks before they can spoil what Kerry calls a last chance for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
There was no explanation why the total was so much higher than in a typical year.
Senators urge more transparency on phone record surveillance
Allen, the former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has visited Israel twice for discussions about ways that the United States could update agreements reached with Israel during the last major push for a peace deal, in 2007 and 2008. He also held meetings with Israeli security officials this month in Stuttgart, Germany, where some of the U.S. military staff assigned to Allen is headquartered.
Allen and his Israeli counterparts are seeking “effective, innovative and feasible options that could be proposed to political leaders,” said a senior Obama administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide the first detailed account of Allen’s mandate and progress.
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DeletePure bullshit.
Another 'excuse' for aid to Israel.
There is absolutely zero chance of an agreement on a two-state solution. Zip, nada, zero, ziltch, nil. Everyoen knows it. Yet, these dolts offer plans to give Israel aid on the assumption that Israel will someday it when they give up the West Bank.
And the public either doesn't here or they ignore.
The bullshit and lies never end.
.
.
DeleteIn my evident passion, or perhaps the creeping march of time, I made some omissions and typos in the previous comment but I am too tired to correct them.
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Delete>>>>For what can war but endless war still breed?
Till truth and right from violence be freed,<<<<<
Come on Quirk, this is beautiful and all that but you go talk to them and tell them to give up endless jihad until the world is all Islamic. That's the problem.
bpos
.
DeleteBob, some of the comments you have offered here over the past couple of days have been utterly foolish. You don't think, you emote. You are a romantic who seems to be unable to shake the black/white thought process you adopted when you were young.
Your inability to rationally process the comments offered here as well as you ludicrous, one-sided, all or nothing arguments, makes one wonder if you actually mean some of the things you say.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child : but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
THIMK!
.
boobie, where are the Islamic Armies?
DeleteThere are none in Europe, none in North America.
None in South America.
There are Judea-Christian Armies occupying swaths of the Islamic Arc.
The Judea-Christians are meddling, with weapons and economic sanctions in the internal affairs of most Islamic countries.
Your statement falls down in the face of reality.
There are no Islamic Armies outside of the Islamic countries.
The Islamoids are not the aggressors, in the "Clash of Civilizations".
The Judea-Christians are.
Shall we have an office pool to see who gets the closest to The Great Pasha Bibi’s number?
ReplyDeleteI’ll Start: $1.8 billion and future considerations of unnamed amounts.
Bibi drinks nothing but top shelf in Uncle’s Bar & Grill.
.
DeletePBS calls the 1978 Camp David negotiations Carter's greatest triumph. In 1993, we had the Oslo Accords. What did they amount to? Zip. Meaningless words and gestures.
What has the U.S. actually accomplished on this front in the last thirty odd years? We have kept Egypt and Israel from each others throats by bribing both sides with $ billions.
.
The US has a security partner in Egypt ...
ReplyDeleteWHAT ABOUT THE ARMY?
The army chief, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, called on Morsi and the opposition a week ago to reach an understanding and warned that the military would intervene if the country plunges into civil strife. The remarks were the strongest from the military on the nation's political turmoil since Morsi appointed el-Sissi last August. Since those comments, the army has dispatched reinforcements to bases outside cities across the nation and deployed troops backed by armoured vehicles outside vital facilities.
A secretive institution by nature, the army has not tipped its hand on Egypt's current political standoff. It is considered unlikely that the military will stage a coup to depose Morsi. One possible scenario, however, could see troops coming to the defence of opposition protesters if violence breaks out. Such a move would provide a boost to the anti-Morsi camp and likely embolden many more Egyptians to take to the streets confident they would be protected by the military.
On the other hand, the military may see the wave of mass protests as a golden opportunity to get rid of Morsi and the Brotherhood. El-Sissi has not publicly clashed with Morsi, although there have been signs of tension between the two powerful institutions they represent. Some observers say the army has never been comfortable with the president's close ties with Hamas, the Brotherhood's Palestinian chapter that the military has long seen as a threat to stability in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula that borders Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Intervening would likely leave the military effectively in charge of the country again, much as it was after the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. The military has been sharply criticised for its record running the country over that nearly 17-month period. Critics have blamed it for mismanaging the transition, and accuse it of committing large scale human rights violations, including torturing detainees and conducting virginity tests on women protesters.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10893973
DeleteAshley has applied for the job of being a virginity tester.
DeleteVery magnamimous of the gentleman.
This is shameless SOP with Israel. Read on
ReplyDelete…On January 21, six days into the US air war against Iraq, Israeli Finance Minister Yitzhak Modai took advantage of Washington’s praise for Israel’s “restraint” in the face of 11 Scud missile attacks to drop a bombshell of his own. Before the assembled Jerusalem press corps, he advised visiting Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger that Israel would require an additional $13 billion dollars from the US at the conclusion of the war, $3 billion as “compensation” for the bombing and $10 billion in loan guarantees for the anticipated immigration of Soviet Jews.
If one is searching for an event to mark the birth of the present conflict between the Bush administration and the state of Israel, that would appear to be it. Pro-Israel lobbyists and Israel’s friends in Congress, whose funding agreements are usually made far from the public spotlight, acknowledged the bad timing of Modai’s request. Jewish organizations and Israeli consulates around the country were flooded with phone calls complaining about the potential damage of the Modai maneuver. Coming at a moment when US soldiers were perceived to be risking their lives in the Gulf while Israelis were sitting it out on the sidelines, one Jewish political activist commented that “it makes us Jews look like chazzers (pigs) with our hands out.” [1]
Modai’s demands, though, were taken seriously by both the pro-Israel lobby and Congress. Within days a nationwide campaign, unprecedented in scope, was underway to get Israel the money. The first contest would be for the war “compensation.” Israel reduced its demand to $1 billion, and asked its friends in Congress to add the figure to President Bush’s $15 billion Emergency Gulf War appropriation.
The president balked. Congress had already awarded Israel a $700 million weapons bonus in October. Douglas Bloomfield, a former pro-Israel lobbyist and now a columnist for the Washington Jewish Week, wrote on February 28 that pro-Israel senators reported “stiff opposition and even the threat of a presidential veto.” [2]
Bush, apparently fearing that his veto might be overridden, had Secretary of State James Baker offer Israeli Ambassador Zalman Shoval $500 million in cash and another $400 million worth of Patriot missile batteries and other military equipment. The ambassador balked. Israel needed the money more than the missiles, and there was the $700 million drawdown in US Army stocks still to be claimed.
A compromise arranged by AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, set the stage for September’s confrontation: Israel would receive $650 million in cash immediately and AIPAC promised that neither it nor the Israeli government would come to Congress for more money, specifically the $10 billion in loan guarantees, until after Labor Day.
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DeleteOnce again, I emphasize AIPAC should register as an agent of Israel under FARA.
.
Once again you are full of shit
DeleteRepeat
ReplyDelete… A compromise arranged by AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, set the stage for September’s confrontation: Israel would receive $650 million in cash immediately and AIPAC promised that neither it nor the Israeli government would come to Congress for more money, specifically the $10 billion in loan guarantees, until after Labor Day.
Very patriotic of Aipac to give us some slack till Labor Day.
ReplyDeleteThe US Conga line will be pleased.
ReplyDelete"Mr Romney exemplifies the problem with the tax code and how it is manipulated to favor the cronies, at the expense of the majority."
ReplyDelete---
Mr John Kerry Heinz has many times the money of Mr Romney.
Ms Pelosi has many times the money of Mr Romney.
The Kennedys have hundreds the times the money of Mr Romney.
Mr Reid may acquire as much money as Mr. Romney, but the Vast Majority of his wealth stems from pure corruption, whereas Romney earned his in profitable capitalist pursuits, creating more jobs and more wealth.
But the Democrats and the MSM want Mr Romney
to be the designated fall guy so he is.
Even in Libertarian Heaven.
(Where folks lobby for more Socialism and are not laughed out.)
Yes, doug, there are many people with more money than Mr Romney.
DeleteTheir tax returns are not public knowledge, as Mr Romney's are.
The problems with the tax code are not exclusive to Mr Romney, but he does exemplify the problems with it.
Just as the tax haven in Ireland is not used exclusively by Apple Computers, but Apple does well exemplify US corporations taking their corporate profits off shore to avoid US taxes.
I have noticed that Apple has changed its marketing to promote the idea that they are a California company.
Did Mr. Heinz Kerry not have to divulge his tax returns when he ran for President.
DeleteDid the Kennedys?
I think Clinton did, since we know he claimed his used underwear as charitable giving deductions when he bequeathed them to the Salvation Army.
...but of course Bill and Hill had yet to become mult-millionaires.
As Brad Plumer, who culled together tax returns to make his chart, explains, "John Kerry’s overall rate is so low — lower than Romney’s, in fact — because his return is getting lumped together with that of his (wealthy) wife, Teresa Heinz, who had a lot of investment income." (On his own, Kerry's tax rate is 22.9 percent.)
Deletehttp://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/01/john-kerry-actually-had-lower-tax-rate-romney/47802/
Proves the point of the basic unfairness towards labor that is built into the tax code.
It is not a partisan issue.
The cronies are cashing in, while middle incomes are in a constant decline and the rich skate away, paying less than my FICA contribution, on a percentage of income basis.
Romney, Kerry, Geithner, even McCain.
McCain does not file jointly with his wife. If he did, the bottom would fall out of his tax rate, too.
McCain took in $420,000 in income last year, and $320,000 in 2006 -- far less than the earnings posted by his Democratic rivals,
Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, in those years. The comparison is not a direct one, though, as McCain and his wife, Cindy, file separate returns. The campaign opted to release only the senator's returns, which show his income from his Senate salary, his various book deals, his military pension and Social Security.
"Since the beginning of their marriage, Senator McCain and Mrs. McCain have always maintained separate finances," the campaign said in a statement accompanying copies of the returns. "As required by federal law and Senate rules, Mrs. McCain has released significant and extensive financial information through Senate and Presidential disclosure forms. In the interest of protecting the privacy of her children, Mrs. McCain will not be releasing her personal tax returns."
...but Mr. Romney is constantly used as an example, Democrats, never, except in right wing publications.
DeleteMr Romney is used, because he exemplifies the problem.
DeleteI could tell the tale of Cindy McCain and the connections to organized crime, through Kemper Marley, but that is not the point of the tax discussion.
That either Romney's or Kerry's family pays less than 14% in taxes is egregious.
It is really a bigger scandal than the IRS looking in vain for the social welfare work of the Tea Parties requesting tax exempt status for their political action committees.
But the tax code is a scandal no one on either side or in the media wants to discuss.
Let’s them not have to think about it until after their summer break and it’s always best not to disturb the voters during summer. Without looking, i am sure this a winning, time tested formula.
ReplyDeleteI thot you reside in Costa Rica.
DeleteAm I mistaken?
It is rainy season in Costa Rica so I thought that I would do a little summer travel in Montenegro and Slovenia. For the next few days I am in Lucca. It is a beautiful evening here and raining in Slovenia, so I chose well.
DeletePlease pick up a used Yugo for me while you're there.
DeleteI'll wire you the money.
The list of Dems with more money than Mr Romney is of course much longer, but those willing to get the point will.
ReplyDeleteOthers won't, they will continue with their pointlessness.
It is not, dougo, the partisanship of the wealthy, but the failure of the tax code in assessing them their "Fair Share" of the tax burden.
DeleteI often chided Mr Geithner and his failure to stay current on his tax bill.
January 19, 2009
At a time when the nation needs a reliable, respected voice on financial issues at the Treasury Department, is an admitted tax cheat the best we can do [front page, Jan. 14]?
Over several years, Treasury secretary nominee Timothy F. Geithner failed to pay Social Security taxes, even though he was advised by his employer to do so, signed an agreement indicating that he understood that such payments were his responsibility and received extra pay from his employer specifically for that purpose.
Mr. Geithner "came clean" only when he was caught, first by an IRS audit that found he owed Social Security taxes for 2003 and 2004 and then when additional tax liabilities for 2001 and 2002 were discovered after his nomination. He has been praised for repaying these additional taxes for the earlier years, which apparently may not have been required under a statute of limitations, but this raises another question: Why didn't he voluntarily correct his 2001 and 2002 taxes once he found out that he had made the same error in 2003 and 2004?
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-01-19/opinions/36820326_1_tax-specialist-commercial-tax-tax-season
As I said up stream, it is not that Mr Romney is especially egregious, but his records are public due to his high profile in 2012. The point is that a family with income in the top 1% pays less than the most of the "Middle".
The entire system has been corrupted, by both sides of the partisan party.
.
ReplyDeleteAnd some will continue to give it all a political twist as if it matters who we elect. Offering that this party is better than that party, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of us will be taking it in the ass regardless of which of the two major parties is in charge.
We have forty years of experiance showing the trends and the results yet many still view the scene through partisan glasses. And others complain about 'the charts' because those don't agree with perceptions these mensa candidates received when they were still young and stupid.
Luckily, IMO, some here seem to be moving towards the conclusion that the pols and the pricks, the bankers and the bums, the wall street fat cats and their minions in the MSM are all part of the same cabal, that, in fact, they are all dicks.
Among the others, few will have the timerity to offer up any particular pol as the epitome of virtue and reason but they still offer up the nonsense argument that their dick is, at least, better than the other dick.
As the world turns. As the sheeple baaa.
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>>>>Luckily, IMO, some here seem to be moving towards the conclusion that the pols and the pricks, the bankers and the bums, the wall street fat cats and their minions in the MSM are all part of the same cabal, that, in fact, they are all dicks.<<<<<
Deletepols
pricks
bankers
bums
fat cats
minions
cabal
dicks
Not bad for one sentence Quirk!
bpos
a pol with his prick in a bankers bum.....
DeleteYou are invited to finish.
:)
bpos
Trillion dollar deficits no different than billions.
DeleteKeeping conservative groups from fundraising, no big deal.
Paying teachers to spout the liberal line and teaching students to vote Democrat, groovey.
Holder Pardoning Black Panther club wielding thugs "gaurding" polling places SOP for AJ's.
etc
pols
pricks
bankers
bums
fat cats
minions
cabal
dicks
All the same.
Dicks
What does Quirk have against pee pees?
DeletePootie Poot no different than Thatcher.
DeleteHitler no different than GWB.
...at least Thatcher had no Dick.
Ripping off GM Bondholders to pay off Unions, more SOP.
DeleteOne more Dick.
Seen one, seen them all.
(maybe Quirk is haunted by dreams filled with thousands of Dicks???)
.
DeleteI would respond to your posts Doug but it would take too long to lay out the sins of the GOP and the conservatives. But surely you must recall. I railed against Bush for the better parts of both terms while the GOP was in power.
You (and others) never tired of calling me commie, socialist, pinko, pacifist, terrorist apologist and other less flattering things. Now, I get charges from Ruf and Ash when I challenge Obama policies because he is the one in power. Luckily, more people seem to becoming aware that, in fact, the 1% and their minions in the government and MSM, are in fact actually dicks.
Luckily, for them that is. As for me, as you probably know, I relish the attacks. It allows me to use words like
pols
pricks
bankers
bums
fat cats
minions
cabal
dicks
All the same.
in context.
:)
.
Obama no more of a threat to our remaining freedoms and savings than any other Dick.
DeleteI get to call you a fool.
Your certitude and condecension, dead give aways.
Delete.
DeleteObama, just one more dick continuing the process.
You lack the ability to track the trends we've seen over the last forty years.
Could be those free GOP colored glasses you got when you purchased your last package of Kool-aid.
THIMK!
.
"You lack the ability to track the trends we've seen over the last forty years."
DeleteI have the ability to see that the trend has accelerated wildly under Obama.
And the ability to reason that a slower march toward socialism is different and more in my interest than a rapid one.
I have the ability to see that Obama hates this country as it is and is doing everything he can to diminish it here and internationally.
.
DeleteNo one on this blog criticizes Obama and his administration more than I do. You don't even come close now that you are a part timer.
However, I see him for what he is, one dick in a long line of dicks, as rat likes to say, one more brick in the wall, the new boss same as the old boss. When you are the terminal point of a series of positively sloped trend lines obviously you are the 'worst' (or best)simply because of the fact that you are building from a framework already established by those before you. If the trends aren't reversed the next president will be the 'worst'.
You talk of socialism, and yes Obama gave us Obamacare but then Bush increased the size of govenment by 50% and gave us an unfunded Medicare drug program. The trends continue.
Your other talk about socialism is blather. You talk of some things you dislike but ignore the other side. You talk of some issues and ignore others. You like Bob are stuck in a time warp. Time to evolve.
Other trends such as legalizing gay marriage wouldn't have been possible, in fact wouldn't have even been tried, if the public at large wasn't changing and becoming more receptive of the idea. So you can also blame a lot of this shit, these changes, on the public.
As for diminishing us here and internationally, it didn't start with Obama. In the early 90's, we were THE hyperpower in the world. We certainly weren't that when Obama took over. Obama also wasn't the first to take the U.S. into a war of choice. The trends merely continue. Also, most of the surveillance programs the Obama administration is being criticized for today were put in place years before he took office. The trend continues. Obama and his minions, lie, manipulate, abuses their oaths to defend the Constitution. The trend continues.
.
"Other trends such as legalizing gay marriage wouldn't have been possible, in fact wouldn't have even been tried, if the public at large wasn't changing and becoming more receptive of the idea. So you can also blame a lot of this shit, these changes, on the public.?"
DeleteI blame the ill-educated, moral-free public on years of liberal policies and indoctrination in "education" the MSM, Hollywood, etc.
"However, I see him for what he is, one dick in a long line of dicks, as rat likes to say, one more brick in the wall,"
DeleteWhy not just go ahead and drill a hole through that brick wall, and Coronate it every 4 to 8 years with a celabratory poke when the New Big Dick in DC is elected?
Bricks, Dicks, flying Brickbats.
Maybe we can both agree to disagree with Rufie when he proclaims that more socialism is the answer?
Delete"sellalaboratory"
DeleteHow many died when Ms Thatcher would not give up the English colony in the South Atlantic, la Guerra de las Malvinas?
DeleteAlmost a thousand individuals were killed, needlessly, due to her colonial ambitions off the Argentine coast.
Costa Rica is part of the American Empire, Southern Division, Western Hemisphere, Doug, and has been given to developers from Philly, who use it as a place to relax in January.
ReplyDelete:)
bpos
I'm almost tempted to ask how much money Deuce has parked down there but it's not any of my business.
Deletebpos
He still resides in Philly and vacations there?
DeleteI think he is in Philly somewhere but really have no idea.
DeleteHe did have or was part of a development in Costa Rica selling condos I believe and my wife and I actually thought of buying one but decided we didn't want to become part of the American Empire. We'll just stay, tough out the winters. You lucky dog, there are no winters where you are.
:)
bpos
I'd move to Boise if I could live out my days there with my wife.
DeleteIt is pretty nice. I would suggest Twin Falls. Boise has spread.
Delete.......
I was just talking with my OGF in Vegas. She was telling me about the early days described in a museum there -- one bathtub, hardly an outhouse, everybody stunk to high heaven. How could anyone stand the stink, she asked?
ahhhh....
"If everybody stinks nobody notices."
Sayings of bob
bpos
"How could anyone stand the stink, she asked?"
Delete...she should vacation in the Middle East.
"OGF" ?
Old Girl Friend?
Yes.
DeleteFour husbands!
The last is a nice guy.
Used to work at the Desert Inn. Her only daughter has an adopted child. Now we blah blah. Vegas is hot now, reaching records.
Life is a strange experience.
Her husband, a former Marine, was in the building supply business. The Meltdown of housing prices really hurt.
bpos
I've heard they're climbing back up now with the new bubble.
Delete...but then Las Vegas has the biggest shitload of unsold housing inventory in the country to unload first, I guess.
Haven't there been several notorius murders or other well publicized crimes recently in Boise?
ReplyDeleteI actually haven't heard that. But then I don't read the papers anymore, am mostly watching Fox News. So oddly I know what is going on in Beirut more than Boise. This is ass backwards and I am putting a pasty note on my forehead to knock it off.
Deletebpos
Add another one spelled D I C K
DeleteThe mood among Japan's large manufacturers improved sharply in the three months to June, the Bank of Japan's tankan survey showed Monday, as it hit its highest level in more than two years after a radical shift in central bank policy raised hopes for better economic times ahead.
ReplyDeleteThe closely watched quarterly survey was the first compiled since the BOJ adopted monetary easing on an unprecedented scale in early April, one of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's three main policies, collectively known as "Abenomics."
NASA Administrator, Charles Bolden is on C-Span, right now. Interesting conversation.
ReplyDeleteQuirk,
ReplyDeleteIt is easy to criticize, to howl THEY ARE ALL DICKS!!! The hard part is to actually advocate for something, to propose a course of action.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DeleteYes.
Then actually try to make it work someway.
Ash I am beginning to like you.......well.....
bpos
maybe
Deletebpos
.
DeleteAnd the sheeple bleat. Ash, you sit around, see the shit that is visited upon us (not you, of course, but us) and you bleat "Shit happens. It's the way of the world. Nothing we can do about it. Think I'll go wax the boat." You remain comfortable and contented and garner applause from your mensa partner in Idaho.
You come here once every few days and comment on things you know zip about. The rat and I had the discussion within the last few days and I pointed out things an individual could do as well as what is currently being attempted at the national level. He seemed to agree somewhat (my take) although he pointed out he thought it was useless.
But you can either buck the current or go with the flow. It's obvious you are the kind who likes riding that innertube down the river.
Go back to sleep.
Come back in a few days and interrupt again. Always great seeing you.
.
ReplyDeleteLewis, maybe he can do something
Quotes from 'Deliverance'
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068473/quotes
Anybody know anything about the law?
I been on a jury once.
..................
It is so much easier to piss and moan than actually get something good done.
My niece, from north of Mumbai, is at least trying.
bpos
'Deliverance' was a great book, James Dickey was a metaphysical idiot.
DeleteBut the story line was wonderful, the language perfect, the symbols great, the meaning totally lacking from a higher point of view.....but.....do something.....
'Deliverance' was a great movie, the one great movie in smokey bandit's entire career.
bpos
In our 'Search for Meaning' here we see that 'the best one' didn't actually make it...the circumstances of time, place, accident, the river...and yet....maybe Dickey wasn't a metaphysical idiot after all....movie goers, maybe he didn't just talk about that.....only the cliff...and the climb....
Deletebpos
He was pretty good in Boogie Nights.
DeleteRufus (and anybody else),
ReplyDeleteJust talked to my brother. Brother-in-law of my uncle's (non-blood) died a few months back from some weird disease akin to cancer but not cancer. Basically slowly eats away at your organs. They have a term for it but not sure what it is. My brother is going to the wake this Saturday.
I asked my brother how he got the disease and my brother said the doctor's best guess is from agent orange from when he was in Vietnam.
Anybody heard of such a disease? Just curious.
DeleteNecrotizing fasciitis
?
.....
Never even heard of Boogie Nights.
Age Inattention Syndrome
bpos
ReplyDeleteA performer from the famed troupe Cirque du Soleil died in a weekend accident during a show at a Las Vegas casino, authorities said Sunday.
The performer, 31-year-old Sarah Guyard, was pronounced dead shortly before midnight Saturday, the Clark County, Nevada, medical examiner's office told CNN. The cause of death had not been determined Sunday afternoon, the office said.
Agent Orange (2-4D) is a powerful defoliant, and is considered to be a carcinogen. What you're describing, though, I'm not familiar with.
ReplyDeleteMost Reputable Countries:
ReplyDeleteNordic countries rated in the top ten.
Australia - No. 4
Canada - No. 1
The good ol' United States of America?
DeleteWe're number 22, We're number 22, We're number 22!
Fuck Yeah!!
Delete>>>>Most Reputable Countries:
DeleteNordic countries rated in the top ten.<<<<
But of course.
Most disreputable states:
Mississippi
:)
......
We used 2 4 D all the time. I doubt it would cause those syndromes unless you took a bath in it for weeks.
bpos
Australia, No. 1 in Median Wealth, and No. 4 in Reputation. Not bad. :)
Delete