1/ Matt Taibbi talks about something we need to look out for in whatever deal the President and the Republican leadership agree on - if the deal includes a tax holiday for corporations to bring home the trillions they have stashed abroad at a nominal tax rate [he cites 5%] you will have it proved to you, yet again, this is truly a country owned and operated by the oligarchs.
Have been meaning to write about this, but I’m increasingly amazed at the overall lack of an uproar about the possibility of the government approving another corporate tax repatriation holiday.
I’ve been in and out of DC a few times in recent weeks and one thing I keep hearing is that there is a growing, and real, possibility that a second “one-time tax holiday” will be approved for corporations as part of whatever sordid deal emerges from the debt-ceiling negotiations.
I passed it off as a bad joke when I first saw news of this a few weeks ago, when it was reported that Wall Street whipping boy Chuck Schumer was seriously considering the idea. Then I read later on that other Senators were jumping on the bandwagon, including North Carolina’s Kay Hagan.
This is what Hagan’s spokesperson said:
Senator Hagan is looking closely at any creative, short-term measures that can get bipartisan support and put people back to work. One such potential initiative is a well-crafted and temporary change to the tax code that encourages American companies to bring money home and put it towards capital, investment, and–most importantly–American jobs.
For those who don’t know about it, tax repatriation is one of the all-time long cons and also one of the most supremely evil achievements of the Washington lobbying community, which has perhaps told more shameless lies about this one topic than about any other in modern history – which is saying a lot, considering the many absurd things that are said and done by lobbyists in our nation’s capital.
Here’s how it works: the tax laws say that companies can avoid paying taxes as long as they keep their profits overseas. Whenever that money comes back to the U.S., the companies have to pay taxes on it.
2/ And Tom Tomorrow nails the debt crisis negotiations....wonderful....c
3/ Politics
The excellent Rachael Maddow with an analysis of the debt ceiling crisis.......she can't believe what is happening in Washington with the Republicans determined to crash the economy.......
The first 9 or so minutes is her commentary [5 stars *****], the next 8 minutes she interviews Barney Frank [4 stars ****].....
You wonder how long the "boys" at MSNBC will allow her show to tell the truth like this......see story #
4/ More politics
Michael Tomasky argues the Republicans cannot and will not vote for a deal that in any way looks like a win for Obama, at the risk of screwing every citizen in the country......
I certainly hope there is some sanity remaining on the right......
Out of Their Right Minds
Most observers assume reason will eventually prevail in the debt debate. But Michael Tomasky asks if GOP rhetoric has made compromise unthinkable for the right.
Jul 21, 2011 7:38 PM EDTEvents now move at a fast and furious pace. At exactly 12:38 on Thursday afternoon, The New York Times posted a breaking news banner saying thatPresident Obama and John Boehner were close to a major deal. Within minutes, both parties tweeted no, not true. But whether there is or isn’t a deal announced today or tomorrow, and whatever its details, the thing to keep in mind is this. The “push” of the details of any deal (and the threat of economic meltdown) will eventually come head to head with the “shove” of the hard emotional truth that the vast majority of Washington Republicans and conservatives will not do anything, participate in any act, that can be construed as a win for Barack Obama.
That, in the end, is what the debt-ceiling endgame is going to be about: Can enough Republicans break out of this mindset? Most insiders seem to assume yes. But I say emotion is stronger than reason, and everything about the way the right has behaved in the Obama era suggests to me that it (not just the right-wing politicians, but its media outlets and entire ideological infrastructure) has been girding itself for precisely this fight. This in turn means that the votes needed to avert disaster might very well not be there.
5/ Hair-raising motocross crash, where the driver gets back on his bike and keeps racing.....amazing.....1 minute....
6/ I have to say one of the topics Jon Stewart does best is piling on Fox News, and here he evicerates their coverage of the Murdoch phone hacking scandal......7 very good minutes.....
coverage of the Rupert Murdoch scandal Tuesday night, running over 'The News Of The World''s myriad offenses but focusing specifically on how Murdoch's other media properties are handling the story.
As he does best, Stewart produced a slew of clips to show Fox News' dismissal of the Murdoch scandal. Like Colbert, the soundbite that stuck out the most came from Bob Dilenschneider who suggested that the media stop 'piling on' the story. Another anchor made an awkward comparison, saying it was the biggest 'pile on' he'd seen since at a Rugby match.
7/ This video by Cenk Urgur goes a long way to explain why MSNBC is much tamer than the equivalent on the right, Fox News. Listen to his story of why he was dropped from the 6pm hour - 11 minutes....
Think our corporate media isn't muzzled? MSNBC, owned by NBC which is owned by Comcast - which will do anything it's told to hang on to the right to have a monopoly on cable service.....
8/ OK OK maybe it's me - I like it when comedians rip into Fox News....it's Stephen Colbert's turn......4 minutes.....
Stephen Colbert dug into the mess that is Rupert Murdoch's "News Of The World" hacking scandalMonday night, making sure to mention how Fox News covered -- or didn't cover -- the story.
In a segment called "Blood In The Water," Colbert detailed the scandal's many facets including illegal phone hacking and the resignation of the head ofScotland Yard among other fallout, although that last part didn't really impress Colbert:
"Why is Scotland Yard policing England anyway? Call me when the head of England yard resigns,that's news."
But it was Fox News, specifically "Fox & Friends" pundit Steve Doocy, who bore the brunt of Colbert's wit after he "blew the lid back onto the story" during a segment with "Some PR guy who may or may not be employed by Rupert Murdoch."
9/ If you saw some of the more serious coverage of Murdoch testifying before a British Parliamentary committee, you may have noted how the questions were more real than anything you have seen from either the US Senate or the House. That's because they weren't grandstanding or spewing out sound bites.....they wanted answers......
At Murdoch Hearing, British MPs Put U.S. Lawmakers to Shame
JUL 20 2011, 8:12 AM ET16American members of Congress grandstand and score political points. On Tuesday, their UK counterparts were reserved and purposeful
Brooks, unrattled and straightforward, answered, "I've never paid a police officer myself. I've never sanctioned paying a police officer," later telling Mensch that she's not able to comment much on other newspapers, but would do her best to disclose all she could, legal bindings permitting, about how things went horribly awry at Rupert Murdoch's former property.
This was the kind of transactional, businesslike interaction we saw at Tuesday's hearing of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, where Rupert Murdoch, his son James, and Brooks all testified, despite a brief interruption involving "shave cream." It was noticeably not how things work when members of the U.S. Congress are involved.
Brooks, unrattled and straightforward, answered, "I've never paid a police officer myself. I've never sanctioned paying a police officer," later telling Mensch that she's not able to comment much on other newspapers, but would do her best to disclose all she could, legal bindings permitting, about how things went horribly awry at Rupert Murdoch's former property.
This was the kind of transactional, businesslike interaction we saw at Tuesday's hearing of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, where Rupert Murdoch, his son James, and Brooks all testified, despite a brief interruption involving "shave cream." It was noticeably not how things work when members of the U.S. Congress are involved.
10/ Your mandatory weekly Lady Gaga video, but this one is different. She appears on the Howard Stern show, giving a live performance [with herself playing the piano] singing her latest hit "Edge of Glory".......
Very impressive indeed.....she's got some substance.....5 minutes.....
11/ Another gutless decision by Obama - his abandonment of Elizabeth Warren was predictable but still disappointing. Won't he take a stand on anything?
Not where the big banks are concerned.....they own him just like they own the rest of Washington.....
So much for the meritocracy. Despite an elite education, effusive charm and brilliant wit, Barack Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, has ended up betraying his humble origins by abjectly serving the most rapacious variant of Wall Street greed. They both talk a good progressive game, but when push comes to shove—meaning when the banking lobby weighs in—big money talks and the best and the brightest fold.
The defining moment of Clinton’s capitulation was his destruction of Brooksley Born, the one member of his administration with the courage and prescience to warn him about the unregulated derivatives trading that ultimately led to the housing collapse. For Obama, it is his decision not to nominate Elizabeth Warren to run the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which she fought so hard to create.
Obama’s refusal to take the fight to Senate Republicans by nominating Warren should be taken as the vital measure of the man. This gutless decision comes after the president populated his administration with the very people who created the financial meltdown.
12/ This is a video of what appears to be a printer that replicates objects, which is so "out there" I Snoped it, but Snopes says the process is real.....
So get ready to be amazed.......
Snopes....
13/ Floriduh
It sometimes seems we are living in a state governed by certified morons - how can they possibly turn down this funding? When you read the article you notice noone is stepping forward to say it was them who turned down the federal money - even our Idiot-in-chief the Rickster is denying it was him.
But nobody is trying to change the decision either.....
Florida spurns $50 million for child-abuse prevention
A pot of $50 million for child-abuse prevention — tied to the national healthcare reform act — has been rejected by Florida.
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
CMARBIN@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Florida lawmakers have rejected more than $50 million in federal child-abuse prevention money. The grants were tied to the Obama administration’s healthcare reform package, which many lawmakers oppose on philosophical grounds.
The money, offered through the federal Affordable Health Care Act passed last year, would have paid, among other things, for a visiting nurse program run by Healthy Families Florida, one of the most successful child-abuse prevention efforts in the nation. Healthy Families’ budget was cut in last year’s spending plan by close to $10 million.
And because the federal Race to the Top educational-reform effort is tied to the child-abuse prevention program that Healthy Families administers, the state may also lose a four-year block grant worth an additional $100 million in federal dollars, records show.
“This is just crazy,” said Gwen Wurm, assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of Miami, and a board member of the Our Kids foster care agency. “This is the model for what you want in a prevention program. They have proven results.”
14/ This weekend's big movie opening is "Captain America", and it seems to be an above average superhero saga, not overdone and more human than most of these.....good, clean fun. Great cast too......
But in the meantime this origin story, directed byJoe Johnston and starring Chris Evans as the square-jawed, shield-throwing, red-white-and-blue Captain, is pretty good fun. The succinct judgment of my 15-year-old screening buddy was “Better than ‘Thor’ or ‘Green Lantern,’ ” and while that isn’t saying a lot, it may be saying enough. “Captain America,” based on a character that first appeared in Timely Comics, a precursor to Marvel, in the early 1940s — the era of Batman, Superman and other old-growth, popular-front superheroes — has a winningly pulpy, jaunty, earnest spirit.
With a dusty color scheme that evokes newsprint and cheap ink, and a production design that captures the Deco-inflected futurism of an earlier time, the movie is nostalgic without making a big fuss about it. And though there are plenty of the usual digital enhancements and overscaled effects, the pseudo-operatic grandiosity that has become a staple of the genre is mostly missing. Instead “Captain America,” like its unapologetically corny hero, is propelled by unpretentious and plucky ingenuity.
The trailer looks very interesting....it's a WW2 epic.....
Todays video - Racism on a Plane from the Chappelle Show......
Todays blonde jokes.....
Did you hear about the blonde who studied for her blood test and still failed it?
And did you hear about the blonde who tripped over her cordless phone?
Why aren't blondes hired for elevator jobs?
Because they can't remember the route.
Did you hear about the blonde who almost killed her toy poodle?
She tried to insert batteries.
A senior in college took his blonde girlfriend to a football game. As the game started, he said, "Watch the guy wearing number 15. I expect him to be our best man next year."
"Oh, Honey," she said. "That's such a cleaver way to propose. I accept!"
Did you hear about the blonde who locked herself in the car?
This blonde went to the pizza place and ordered a pizza. The pizza guy asked her if she wanted it cut into six pieces or twelve.
“Oh, six,” she said. “I could never eat twelve pieces.”
During her company's periodic password audit, a blond employee was found to be using this password:
GoofyHueyLouieDeweyDaisyDonald
When she was asked why she had such a long password, she said, "The boss said that my password had to be at least eight characters long and have at least one capital."
Did you hear about the blonde who plugged her power strip back into itself to save electricity?
Why did the blonde put lipstick on her forehead?
Because she was trying to make up her mind.
Because she was trying to make up her mind.
When a blonde working at the local Taco Bell was asked to put minimal lettuce on an order she replied, "I'm sorry, we only have iceberg."
A blonde was asked what the capital of California was. “That’s easy,” she said. “It’s C.”
What do you get when you put seven blondes in a freezer?
Frosted Flakes
Frosted Flakes
A blonde was driving down the highway when she read a sign saying, "Clean Restrooms Next 10 Miles." She was really late for her appointment since there were 26 restrooms to clean.
While waiting at a cross walk for the light to change, a blonde asked why the signal was buzzing. When she was told that it was to let blind people know when the light was red, she replied, "What in the world are blind people doing driving?"
Did you hear about the blonde who called the county to have the Deer Crossing sign removed from her road? It seems that too many deer were being hit by cars.
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