Bill USA
Bill USA's JournalRepublicans like to talk about Tax Reform - as a counter to
taking top tax rates back to Clinton era levels
.... Of course, we all know what the crafty GOPers mean when they say Tax "reform". This is their old shell game where they use the word 'reform' which to them means lowering the rates even more for the top income brackets and shoving even more of the tax burden onto the middle income people.
I hope the president reminds the GOP that inequitable distribution of wealth is the most deleterious factor affecting job creation and economic growth. And that a tax code that shifts too much of the tax burden onto the middle income people consigns us to continued Republican style poor job creation and poor economic growth (Bush on Jobs: Worst Track Record on record - WSJ). (Private Jobs Increase more with Democrats in White House - Bloomberg)
The President should hold firm to the position that any sort of tax Reform MUST recognize the importance of economic growth and that a tax code which shifts too much of the tax burden onto the middle income people will sacrifice growth for hedge fund managers and Wall Street Speculators (aka: Wall Street Banksters) enjoying even more bountiful cascades of wealth. The shocking wealth inequality presently seen in the U.S. (U.S. wealth inequity worst since the Great Depression, U.S. wealth inequity fourth worst in the OECD ) is a serious threat to economic growth and to our economic /strategic strength in the future.
We do need Tax reform but not the kind the GOP holds so dear to their dark hearts. We need to correct the dangerous wealth distribution disparity if we are to have a stable future, in terms of our society and our strategic strength. If the GOP are willing to jeopardize either of these, President Obama should let them know they are on the wrong side of history.
We can only hope President Obama is 'up to' the task.
CBO report returning those with incomes > $250 K to Clinton tax rates will cost .1% off GDP
Economic Effects of Policies Contributing to Fiscal Tightening in 2013GOP agrees 332 electoral college votes is a landslide... definitely a Good Read......
... good reason for quoting some GOP surrogates!!!!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=78182
PBS Judy Woodruff creating her own disinformation for the GOP.
on Thursday night's PBS NewsHour Judy Woodruff went the extra mile for the GOP spreading disinformation even the GOP doesn't use.
Ms. Woodruff in a piece about the looming Fiscal Cliff said regarding how to address the deficit reduction problem referring to Democrats and Republicans as 'each side':
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, each side, Mr. Bertolini, is arguing that they have got public opinion on their side.
actually, the GOP has never claimed, that I am aware of, that the public was on there side. They just say in their typical obdurate manner, that dealing with the deficit is paramount but not so paramount that they would agree to ANY revenue increases. I have never heard them claim the public agreed with them.
But Obama has frequently said the public does favor a 'balanced approach' to dealing with the deficit meaning not just cuts to Government programs but also revenue increases - especially involving increased taxes on the wealthy.
Polls back this claim up: A Washington Post/ABC news poll showed that 72% of those polled thought that increased taxes on those with incomes above $250,000 should be part of any deficit reduction plan:
http://www.pollwatchdaily.com/2011/07/20/after-long-standoff-on-debt-ceiling-more-voters-inclined-to-look-around-in-next-years-house-elections/
Really, Ms. Woodruff, you really are shilling hard for the GOP these days. It's getting downright embarrassing.
Note to Skinner: did you know you can improve Alexa ranking by adding "Visitors" parameter to
your site?
I was looking at Alexa to see how DU ranks with other political sites. http://www.democraticunderground.com/101647349
Then I noticed Alexa doesn't even categorize DU under: Society, Politics, chat and forums...???? That's kinda strange.
also, it says on Alexa's analysis of DU http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/democraticunderground.com
that you can:
Don't mean to get in your business but might this (adding "Visitors"
not lead to higher ad rates for DU?? (Just a thought)
Top ranked sites on internet for Political content.. (DU is ranked by Alexa at no. 12)
DU is no. 12 among political content sites.
http://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/Society/Politics
(edited to put DailyKOS in there which I missed (!?). this changes DU to no. 12. very sorry for error.)....
(note I think these rankings are updated continuously and can change at any time)
site[font color="white"]..................................[/font] rank (U.S.)
NewsMax[font color="white"]................................[/font]244
Slate[font color="white"]......................................[/font]259
Salon.com[font color="white"]...............................[/font]407
Weekly Standard[font color="white"]......................[/font]299
WorldNetDaily[font color="white"]..........................[/font]374
DailyKOS[font color="white"].................................[/font]381
TownHall[font color="white"].................................[/font]454
InfoWars[font color="white"].................................[/font]460
Gallup[font color="white"].....................................[/font]482
NationalReview online[font color="white"]...............[/font]576
Free Republic[font color="white"]...........................[/font]853
Democratic Underground[font color="white"]....[/font]1,020
as you can see Conservative/Paranoia sites are well represented in the list above. But maybe as more people gravitate tothe web we'll see sites frequented by rational people gain in ranking (we can only hope).
Internet Gains Most as Campaign News Source but Cable TV Still Leads
http://www.journalism.org/commentary_backgrounder/social_media_doubles_remains_limitedThe internet in closing in on cable sources and has passed Corporate tv broadcast news.
... of course, conservative wacko sites grab much of the traffice on the internet but at least there are sites that provide people with legitimate information as an alternative to the GOP Propaganda provided by Corporate broadcast media.
Suggest people, when commenting on Corporate media sites, also inform people of good, informative sites on internet as an alternative to the GOP Toadies prattling away with GOP propaganda on M$M.
Obama Beats Back the Right-Wing Tide - David Corn ...Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/obama-wins-2012President Barack Obama made history again, with a victory that defied a decades-long trend: Incumbents don't triumph when the economy remains in the doldrums and the public sentiment is one of unease. In an archly ideological race that pitted a progressive case for government against a conservative assault on government, the president, burdened by a slow recovery but bolstered by a brilliant ground game based on hard-and-fast demographic realities, beat back Mitt Romney, who embraced the tea-partyization of the Republican Party and campaigned (often in an ugly fashion) for the chance to be CEO of the United States.
The election, a close call for Obama, signaled that division is still rampant within the political culture. Yet in his victory speech before thousands in a Chicago convention hall, Obama spoke of the "difficult compromises needed to move this country forward." He insisted, "We are an American family, and we rise and fall together." Moments later, he strode across a confetti-drenched stage, as the PA played Bruce Springsteen's "The Rising." He had mounted something of a political resurrection.
This election was always going to be arduous for the president. Not since FDR had an incumbent commander in chief won reelection with unemployment so high. But after Obama's party took a drubbing in the 2010 congressional elections, the president concocted a strategy for retaining the White House. In the weeks after that election, he told his aides and advisers that they needed to turn the 2012 contest into a battle of values and visions—no matter whom the Republicans would nominate. The reelection fight, he and his aides believed, had to be transformed from a conventional referendum on the guy in office and his handling of the economy to a stark choice between Obama's aims and those of the GOP standard bearer.
So as the president racked up legislative victories (a tax cut compromise, ending the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, ratifying the New START arms control treaty) and then jousted with tea-party-driven congressional Republicans over the budget, the deficit, and the debt ceiling, Obama—displaying strategic patience—constantly endeavored to tether the tussle of the moment to a values-based message that emphasized the fundamental difference between him and the Rs: He wanted to preserve and use government as a communal force to fund investments in infrastructure, innovation, and education that would bolster the nation's economic prospects, raise taxes on the well-to-do to underwrite such efforts and ease the task of deficit reduction, and protect (if modify) the social safety; the other side believed in affording more power to the the markets, downsizing government, and handing greater tax breaks to the wealthy to juice up the economy.
(more)
'YES WE CAN' victorious over nihilism and Billionaire Bucks' attempted subversion of Democracy
This was an historic win. In the face of four years of relentless disinformation, cheerfully and uncritically echoed faithfully by every GOP Toady in the Corporate media; four years of unrestrained, repugnant demogoguery and outrageous calumny and personal attacks upon a decent man trying to do his best for his country, four years of an admitted, cynical, machiavellian campaign of obstruction coupled with claims that the President's "policies didn't work" which masqueraded as legitimate policy disputes but was actually a plan to make Pres. Obama a 'one term president', the people in the end, weren't fooled. Decency won out over abject political nihilism. Honesty and integrity won out over an avalanche of psycho-billionaires' money, suborning deceitful opposition to and fraudulent attacks upon the President by every politician and priest of propaganda who relished the base bounty.
The high priced (political) 'Hit' was out on the President, but the people weren't buying it.
Yes, Obama Won a Mandate:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/109818/obama-wins-four-more-years-mandate-agenda-validation-obamacare
(emphases my own)
Four more years. Four more years. Four more years … of what?
That’s pretty much the way the political conversation went Tuesday night, at least based on what I saw on television. Just minutes after the networks declared President Obama the winner, and while Karl Rove was still ranting to Fox colleagues about Mitt Romney's Ohio numbers, pundits were already starting a debate over whether the election gave Obama a mandate—and, if so, what that mandate entailed.
It’s a reasonable and important question. But before we get to it, let’s not forget that the significance of this election is as much about the past as the future. And that shouldn't diminish it.
Romney and the Republicans had turned the election into a referendum on liberalism—not just the liberalism of Obama, but also the liberalism of Johnson and Kennedy, of Truman and Roosevelt. They proposed massive, fundamental changes to the welfare state and wholesale rollbacks of women’s rights, and challenged the philosophy behind such policies—the whole idea that governments should act to protect vulnerable groups and to guarantee economic security.
It was a huge gambit. And it failed. But conservatives aren’t going to drop their agenda. Come January, Paul Ryan will be back in the House of Representatives, running the budget committee, and he’ll find plenty of allies on and off Capitol Hill. But proposals to make Medicare a voucher program, to decimate Medicaid and food stamps, to reduce federal spending by unprecedented increments—those proposals have almost no chance of becoming law, at least in the forseeable future.
(more)
Outside groups spent $145 million for Rmoney in last three weeks of campaign con
It ain't cheap to buy an election!http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/outside-groups-spent-155-million-for-romney-in
Outside groups spent $190 million on the presidential election during the last three weeks of the campaign, with $155 million of the total going to support Republican Mitt Romney. From the Center for Public Integrity:
The total is more than 40 percent of spending by super PACs, nonprofits and other organizations in the presidential contest since the general election began and is more than any other three-week period in the race.
Since Oct. 29 alone, GOP-aligned outside spending groups outspent their Democratic counterparts in the presidential race $84 million to $20 million, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission records collected by the Sunlight Foundation.
Leading the way over the final weeks were the Republican super PACs Restore Our Future, which spent more than $45 million since Oct. 17, and American Crossroads, which has spent $35 million. The pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action spent $21 million.
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