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Tax deal: we can all cry.

taxes

BREAKING: Federal judge in Virginia rules unconstitutional key provision of Obama health care reform bill…but refuses to freeze it or invalidate it. Go figure.

Ring, Christmas bells, merrily ring…tell all the world the tax deal is king…”

Oh, the weather outside is frightful but the tax talk is so delightful. But since we’ve no place to go, let the snow job go on in the Congress…” Or something like that.

It’s a good tax deal, says the White House and the Congressional Republicans and most Congressional Democrats – except, of course, those looking out for the working people of ‘Murka.

Take Sen. Bernie Sanders, for example. Bless his heart, he stood for 8.5 hours on the Senate floor Friday afternoon and into the evening filibustering the tax deal. It was a real filibuster, too, not those fake or threatened filibusters the Senate Republicans have used so effectively to frightening their Democratic colleagues.

Sanders actually took the floor of the Senate and kept talking for over eight hours, without stopping except to catch his breath, never relinquishing the floor.

But the tax deal will be adopted anyway.

President Clinton says the deal is as good as we’re gonna get in this era of Republican insistence on tax breaks for the millionaires and billionaires.

The New York Times this morning points out a “hefty chunk” of the deal, which will add nearly $900 billion to the deficit, is really good for the middle class – what’s left of it – and will benefit, too, the lower class – which is the rest of us outside the top 2 percent of the wealthiest.

The good ol’ New York Times, the Gray Lady; remember when it thought going to war in Iraq was such a great idea?

Anyway, the NYTimes piece points out the annual adjustment to the alternative minimum tax will increase in 2011 insulating couples making as much as $74,450, up from the current limit of $72,450. This will cost $137 billion.

Actual wage earners, if any remain, will also see a reduction in the Social Security tax. A one-year payroll tax cut for incomes up to $106,800 will go from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. Couples earning that much will see as much as $4,272 extra in 2011.  That tax break will cost $112 billion.

Extension of the jobless benefits will cost $57 billion.

The deal also includes a temporary repeal of the limit on itemized deductions and an absolute repeal of the scheduled phase out of personal exemptions: another $21 billion to the deficit.

Just makes me want to cry…like John Boehner.

We need reminders war is wrong?

BushGunAfghanistan

“And the peloton has entered Paris, riding along the Seine. They can see the Eiffel Tower now and what a glorious sight that is; Lance Armstrong in his 13th and final appearance on Le Champs Elysees; seven Tour victories, a feat that may never again be matched…

“Oh, wait…this just in…

“A crap-load of secret documents has just been released on the Internet which suggests war sucks generally and the war in Afghanistan sucks even more than we already know…

“…and Alberto Contador will take his third Le Tour de France victory in four years.”

Really? The war in Afghanistan is going badly? War is insane and a shame on humanity? No kidding?

The revelations released Sunday on Wikileaks and covered ad naseum by the New York Times, the Guardian of London & Der Spiegel tell us much we already knew: the Taliban is a strong force in Afghanistan; the Pakistani spy corps, the ISI, may actually be helping the Taliban; the U.S. is using more drone missiles that we let on…and…

…oh yea…who’s idea was it, anyway, to start a war in a country history shows has always repelled invaders?

Well, it was our idea – the American people’s idea. Oh sure, we were goaded into by a gung-ho president and congress – and, especially, the some of the world’s greatest news organizations.

You’ll recall a butch of thugs based in Afghanistan launched an amazing and horrible attack on the U.S. back in 2001 using hijack commercial airliners to crash into New York and Washington. It was hell, the worst attack ever on the United States.

Thugs pulled this off; a relatively small band of thugs. The U.S. had to respond in kind. Don’t stop to try to understand what led to this attack. Don’t try to figure out why the band of thugs hated us so much. No time for that. By golly, we’d been hit and we had to hit back.

You know, “whoever slaps you on the right check, turn around and slap the crap out of ‘em.”

Rather than pursuing a smart police action, rounding up the criminals in Afghanistan, we decided to launch a full scale war. Then we decided that wasn’t enough. We had to launch another full scale war on another country that didn’t have anything at all to do with the attacks in 2001.

Makes perfect sense.

We did such a good job in Vietnam we just had to try it again. The Soviet Union had such great success in Afghanistan in the 1980s, we just had to do ‘em one better and show ‘em how you really crush an enemy.

The Wikileaks, NY Times. Guardian & Der Spiegel examination of the secret documents on Afghanistan tell us the war is really bad. Thanks for letting us know.

Violence begets violence. Maybe that’s where we really excel!

Memo to God of Abraham:

CC: Buddha

Maybe you outa give up on trying to make us learn the ways of peace. We ain’t listenin’.

Junk shots all over the place!

BP backed off its first junk shot and after a rest and, maybe, some protein will try another junk shot.

It’s a hard business.

BP or “Beyond Petroleum-and-into-destroying-one-of-the-world’s-great-oceans” will get a visit today from President Obama. He will, no doubt, kick their corporate ass before donning his Aquaman suit, swimming down 5,000 feet and plugging the volcano himself with one of the whale carcasses he may find.

Probably gonna be a lot of junk shots today.

After all, the President took full responsibility yesterday, explaining the federal government’s been in charge of this fiasco from day one. That was, of course, before he realized BP decided on its own to pull out of the initial junk shot leaving us all disappointed and unfulfilled.

“I take responsibility,” said the President during an afternoon presser. “It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen right away or the way I’d like it to happen. That doesn’t mean we aren’t going to make mistakes.”

Then he told us even his 11-year-old daughter, Malia, is concerned.

“You know, when I woke up this morning and I’m shaving, and Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says, ‘did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?’”

No, sweetie, Daddy didn’t plug the hole, yet.

But, hey, the good news is officials of Beyond Petroleum-and-into-destroying-one-of-the-world’s-great-oceans described this disaster of Biblical proportions as – not making this up – an “environmental catastrophe.”

Thanks Tony Hayward, head of BP in ‘Murka, for upgrading your assessment from “a modest spill.”

Lots of junk shots today.

Fearful of losing headline attention, Sarah Palin is tweeting (again, can’t make this up): “I never say drill,baby,drill. Ahh, that’s much of the problem, Mr.President, Drill ANWR & unlock land for safe onshore devlpmnt/energy security.”

Seriously? Hey Sarah, let’s go to the video tape.

Speaking of mouthing off, where’s Dick Cheney been? He’s always good for a quote about the Obama Administration. No? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Oh yea, that’s right…his, um, cozy and helpful relationship with the oil industry just might share a teeny-tiny bit of the blame for all this. Maybe, once the Gulf of Mexico is dead, we can rename the aquatic wasteland, the Gulf of Dick.

But the good people of Morgan City, Louisiana are going right ahead with their 75th Annual Shrimp & Petroleum Festival.

“All systems are go,” said Lee Delaune, the festival’s director to the New York Times. “We will honor the two industries as we always do. More so probably in grand style, because it’s our diamond jubilee.”

More so probably because as an added treat, the good people of Morgan City, Louisiana can pick up shrimp coated in oil right off the boats! Good for deep fryin’.

Mad as hell!!

Headline: Size of Oil Spill Underestimated, Scientists Say.

Headline: U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits.

Headline: Gulf Coast Battles Oil Spill with Big Bags of Hair.

Headline: Pogo Points and Says, “Told You So.”

Seriously, it’s time – yet again – for quite a bit of righteous indignation bordering on anger.

It’s going to be a long, slow summer for the Gulf of Mexico and its inhabitants. The Gulf oil spill has been called a slow motion disaster but a disaster nonetheless.

And it didn’t have to happen. We all bear some responsibility. I loved my little 40th Anniversary Edition Mustang GT Turbo convertible with huge woofers in the trunk. But it was amazingly selfish.

We’ve all done it: thought first of our own pleasure and convenience.

Now, we’re collecting hair to sop up oil from the beaches of the Gulf Coast.  We’re donating hair as a penance for our sins.

It’s come to that. Its 2010, the 21st Century. We have unbelievable technology at our fingertips and we using bags of hair to soak up a disaster of Biblical proportions.

Doods, this is nuckin’ futs!

You’ll remember initial estimates of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill suggested it was gushing 1,000 barrels of oil each day.

Nope, came the revised estimates. It’s more like 5,000 barrels a day. That’s 210,000 gallons, each day.

Now, according to the New York Times, it the spill could actually be gushing 20,000 to 25,000 barrels of oil each day into the Gulf of Mexico. Do the math: over 1 million gallons each day.

And no one knows how to stop it.

Oh, but not to worry. We’re gonna put a cork in it or, maybe, dress it up with a top hat. Maybe we should ask one of the sperm whales living nearby to simply stick its tail up the pipe. You know, take one for the mammal team.

Or, maybe, plug up the leaking pipe with Hummers smashed up into balls.

And while BP, Transocean and – yes – Halliburton fight to limit their responsibility for this disaster, we learn the permits for the Deepwater Horizon well were given by the U.S. Minerals & Mining Service without obtaining the necessary permits from agencies charged with protecting the surrounding environment and wildlife.

The MMS was too busy getting good drugs and good sex from the oil industry to bother with procedures and permits.

Where is Howard Beale when we really need him?

\”Mad as hell and not gonna taken it anymore!\”

And, while you’re at it, remember this one, too…and this was 1976!!

\”There is no democracy…\”

You can be angry…or…you can dance!!

“Come on, shake your body baby,
do the conga
I know you can’t control yourself any longer
Feel the rhythm of the music getting stronger
Don’t you fight it till you’ve tried it
Do the conga beat
…”

So, while the teabaggers were snortin’ and complain’, yesterday; cashing their Social Security checks to travel to Washington and complain about socialism, the President of the United States was seeing beyond the stars and shakin’ his booty with the cool kids in Miami at Gloria and Emilio’s place.

The juxtaposition pretty much says it all.

“I’ve been a little amused over the last couple of days where people have been having these rallies about taxes,” the president said, noting the numerous tax cuts pushed by his administration. “You would think they’d be saying thank you.”

Yea, well…don’t look for it to happen ‘cause gratitude is not a big effen deal among the bagger crowd.

In fact, anger is the predominate emotion among teabaggers according to a poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS. (Yep, those socialist-communist-Kenyanian-Rastafarian-Zorastrian-Baptist news organizations.)

So, while the President was expressing his vision for future space exploration while at the same time signing a long-overdue executive order granting gay couples family rights in hospitals, the teabaggers were just angry.

According the Times/CBS poll, 18 percent of Americans identify with the anger of the baggers, even if only 4 percent have ever actually attended a rally or given money to the bagger anger exposition.

Most of them are old, white, married; richer and better educated than the general public and really, REALLY hate “big government” but love their Social Security and Medicare. (That “educated” part kinda gets lost in the tautology of anger.)

Most said the taxes they paid this year are fair. Most sent their kids to public schools and most say they don’t think Sarah Palin is qualified to be president. (Okay, so education helps a little.)

Most of ‘em still love George Bush and don’t see any connection at all between his administration and the economic downfall. Most of ‘em just don’t like Obama. Hmmm…wonder why?

“I just feel he’s getting away from what America is,” said a retired medical transcriber to the New York Times. “He’s a socialist. And to tell you the truth, I think he’s a Muslim and trying to head us in that direction, I don’t care what he says. He’s been in office over a year and can’t find a church to go to. That doesn’t say much for him.”

To quote the immortal philosopher Steven Wright, “Going to church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car.”

Come on, shake your body, baby…do the conga.

GOP hand slapped, caught in Census cookie jar!

Here they go again: the U.S. House of Representatives never lets anyone have any fun!

Curmudgeons, that’s what they are. Here, the Republican National Committee was just trying a little political merriment – a little word play – and make some money on the side.

Sure, the RNC letter to thousands said, “Congressional District Census,” and, “Do Not Destroy, Official Document,” and was a push-poll combined with a plea for money but, come on…really…it was just a harmless little stunt; a prank just to count gullible Americans!

The real and official U.S. Census forms are about to hit the mail, you see, and the Republican National Committee and the campaign arm of the Republicans in the House, the National Republican Campaign Committee, thought it’d be a hoot to send out a fund-raiser and pointed questionnaire and call it, “census” and “official document” and…ha-ha-ha…that’s really funny.

Buffoons all across this great land of ours would think it’s the real census, answer the questions about household demographics and economics and send back money…because, of course, the real Census always asks us for money!

But, okay, in a vote of 416-0 (all House Republicans voting in favor), the House of Representatives decided such pranks are not cool and banned this harmless little fun of the RNC.

“The NRCC remains opposed to misleading mailings,” said an RNCC spokesman, after the vote. “Unless, of course, we can get away with it.”

No, just making up that last part.

Pity the poor GOP. All this comes on the heels of the leaked memo in which the RNC finance committee suggested using fear and ego-massaging as a way to raise money from its wealthiest patrons.

A suggestion for the GOP: find some issues and campaign on those. We all remember Nancy Reagan’s famous, “Just Say No,” anti-drug campaign. But just saying no will only get you so far. Just a thought.

Meanwhile, our socialist president has lived up to his promise and redistributed the wealth from his Nobel Prize, giving all $1.4 to charities.

According to the New York Times, President Obama gave $250,000 to Fisher House, an organization providing housing for families of veterans being treated at government medical centers. He also gave $200,000 to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund and plenty of money to organizations like the United Negro College Fund, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation, the American Indian College Fund, Africare and the Central Asia Institute, which promotes the education of young women in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Watch for the Right Wing Nut Jobs to rail against the groups as scurrilous. Kinda wish Obama had sent a few bucks the way of ACORN, just for giggles.

Yea, and…HEY! Glenn Beck!…this is called social justice and, yea, real people of faith are called to it.

Winter brings rise in moronic levels across USA!

Writing in what was once the U.S. News & World Report, yet another RW puppet proclaims Congressional Republicans are refusing to be “led around by the nose” by President Obama.

Ha-ha…this is very funny because:

A.)   They are led around simply by the “no(s)”; or

B.)   They are too far up the butt of Douche Limpbranch and Gin BecksBeer to find their probosci; or

C.)  They would refuse to smell the need for reform if it came up and smacked them on the south end of a north-bound elephant.

The piece goes on to say Republicans are right to demand scrapping all health care reform before agreeing to a televised summit with the president on said…alleged…health care reform. Yes, this is the kind of cooperative approach to government for which we are all asking.

The good news is the Eastern Seaboard is so covered with snow people can’t get to the doctor just now to find out their treatment has been denied by health insurance companies.

And speaking of what Easterners are calling the, “snowpocalypse” (harsh winter weather won’t stop hyperbole), the snow gives morons all across ‘Murka the opportunity to say, “Hey, look, it’s snowing! There’s no global warming after all! Back to the Hummer!…and I don’t mean the truck.”

Seriously, you dorks think because it snows in winter this proves all the climate change science is a hoax? You really believe that? You’re not really that stupid, are you?

Well, apparently some folks really are that stupid. Take Douche Limpranch, for an example:

“Amid record-setting cold weather…the hoax that…global warming is.”

Right-wing Senator Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, said in The Hill newspaper the snow proves there is no need for legislation requiring reduced emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

“Record snowfall has buried Washington — and along with it, buried the chances of passing global warming legislation this year,” wrote The Hill. “Cars are stranded in banks of snow along the streets of the federal capital, and in the corridors of Congress, climate legislation also has been put on ice.”

The New York Post jumped right on that one.

“If, like everyone else from New England to Virginia, you spent the last 24 hours watching the global warming fall from the sky, you may agree that Sen. Jim DeMint could be on to something,” wrote the Post. “The South Carolina Republican took to the Twitter-sphere to declare that the region’s second major blizzard in less than a week must be a sign from God.”

“It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries ‘uncle’,” is actually what the learned senator said on the Twitter.

Okay, Dilberts, here’s the deal: weather does not climate make? Got that? There is a difference between weather and climate. Sure, it snow in winter. It’s WINTER!!

Was the first decade of the 21st Century the warmest on record? Yes, it was. Did it snow in the North American winter of that decade? Yes…yes, it did.

You might want to take a moment and read something scientific, even though it will tax your brain. (Whoops…I said “tax” and “brain.” Look for new right-wing talking point.)

Oh yea, and it’s really, really hot in Rio where it’s summer. And in Vancouver, where the Winter Olympics are about to open, it’s waaaayyyy too warm.

Meanwhile, and from yet another branch of the poorly-informed “Real ‘Murka,” poorly-informed Sarah Palindrome ain’t havin’ such a good week. (Ever notice how when you play a recording of Sarah Palin speaking it says the same thing forward and backward?)

Polling by ABC & The Washington Post suggest only 37 percent of those polled view Palindrome “favorably,” while a whopping 52 percent of Republicans don’t even think she’s qualified to be president…also…too.

Snow and hand puppets and Republican VD…day cards

It’s snowin’ the bejeepers outa the Northeast US of A, which means nobody can get to work, which means everyone has to sit at home and make Sarah Palin hand puppets while callin’ each other retards for thinking the snow completely disproves global warming.

It’s just that kind of messed up day. The New York Times can’t even report on the winter storm, apparently, because none of its reporters can get out of the building. The Old Grey Lady sent out a tweet earlier today – desperately seeking  help to report the story..

“Send us your stories,” read the tweet. “We’re trapped and we’re cannibalizing the once proud craft of journalism!”

(Okay…made up that last part…kinda.)

Don’t know why everybody wants to make fun of Sarah Palin’s hand job for the teabaggers last weekend. She was just trying to give them want they want.

Even the comic genius that is White House press spokesman Robert Gibbs stroked the meme by revealing to the White House press corps a short grocery list written on his palm. Ha-ha-ha…yea, that was a good one. Maybe when he’s done at the White House his brothers, Barry and Robin, will take him back and they can go on the road again…”stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…”

Elsewhere in the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama was rolling out her campaign to end the epidemic of childhood obesity in a generation.

And when we say, “rolling out”… we don’t mean the kids who are…wait for it…so fat…wait for it…that when they sit around the house, the really sit around the house!

Okay, okay…sorry. This really is a serious problem for the US of A…mostly in the A and mid-section of kids who, studies suggest, consume an average – AVERAGE – of 145 pounds of high fructose corn syrup each year, mostly from soft drinks, fruity drinks, so-called sports drinks and processed foods.

The First Lady’s, “Let’s Move,” campaign is not a signal to Republicans the Obamas are ready for a new address come 2012 but rather a call to put down the Twinkies, get off the freakin’ couch and play some hoops…for heaven’s sake!

And speaking of Republicans, that fun-loving and clever bunch over at the Republican National Committee is doing its part to spread the VD love by offering Valentine’s Day e-cards for your friends or sex partners, even same-sex partners or all three!

You can send cards bearing the likeness of Rahm Emmanuel saying, “Happy [expletive] Valentine’s Day.” Or an ACORN spokesman saying, “We’d like to help you set up a tax free romance business.”

Oh, those witty RNC staffers…a barrel of monkeys are those guys! They missed a real opportunity, though, to send out Valentine’s Day cards from the likes of Gov. Mark Sanford, Sen. David Vitter, Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Mark Foley…or, even, Newt Gingrich or Justice Clarence Thomas.

Finally, our dreams have been answered! Google has given us YET ANOTHER social network through which we can totally waste what little time we have left from wasting our time on all the other social networks!

Google Buzz will offer diversions straight from your Gmail and keep you updated on what your friends are doing and posting on all their social networking sites. Great! SQUIRREL!!