Recessions, how long they lasted, and who was POTUS at the time.

June ’53 to June ’54 Eisenhower (Republican January ’53 to December ’60) July ’57 to March ’58 Eisenhower (Republican January ’53 to December ’60) March ’60 to January ’61 Eisenhower (Republican January ’53 to December ’60) December ’69 to January ’71 Nixon (Republican January ’69 to August ’74) November ’73 to January ’75 Nixon (Republican January ’69 to August ’74) / Ford (Republican August ’74 to December ’76) January ’80 to July ’80 Carter (Democratic January ’77 to December ’80) June ’81 to December ’82 Regan (Republican January ‘81 to December ’88) June ’90 to February ’91 Bush G.H. (Republican January ’89 to December ‘92) February ’01 to November ’01 Bush G.W. (Republican January ’2000 to Jan ‘09) August 2008, Bush G.W. presided over the most catastrophic financial collapse since The Great Depression. Yet all Republican pundits blame the Democratic presidents for causing them. Suggesting that the Republicans merely "Inherited" them from Democrats, even when that is a ludicrous misrepresentation of the facts. Yet when pointed out that Obama took the reigns DURING a recession, and when he suggests that he inherited the problems, the same Republican pundits cry foul! Another example of Republican double standard in full view!

Tea bagger "Truths"

Here are the top 10 "beliefs" of the teabaggers that are provably untue:


1. The birth-certificate conspiracy. Reality: Not even official birth certificates from Hawaii, newspaper clippings from 1961, and the testimony of state officials will convince the true-blue Tea Partiers. Which is why WorldNetDaily’s Joseph Farah lectured the National Tea Party Convention for an hour about the “truth” of the birth-certificate story.

2. Death panels. Reality: PolitiFact named Sarah Palin’s Facebook invention its “Lie of the Year,” and the belief was thoroughly exposed as a falsehood by every news network (even Fox). Yet Palin still insists that the panels exist somewhere in the health-care reform bill that was signed into law, its actual language notwithstanding.

3. Obama is a Muslim/Socialist/Fascist. Glenn Beck’s fantasy of the week - one week Obama was a Socialist, the next he was a Communist, then a Fascist. Then it was on to Marxism and Maoism-- was avidly adopted by sign-bearing fans at Tea Party gatherings, who sometimes shared Beck’s confusion by just calling Obama All of the Above. Reality: Give us a break. Obama’s self-evident cautious centrism, embodied by his health-care reform package stripped of a public option, as well as his more recent embrace of a limited offshore drilling program, has infuriated liberals in his party-- but it hasn’t stopped Tea Partiers from denouncing the president as a radical anyway.


4. Obama is going to take away our guns. Well, the NRA managed to scare a whole lot of people into buying up every gun and piece of ammunition in sight the first year or so after Obama’s election. And at least five police officers died because the suspects they were arresting feared Obama was going to take away their guns. But Obama not only has adhered to his promise not to address gun-control issues, there hasn’t been even a breath of it from his administration. Which, of course, just makes the paranoids that much more paranoid: It’s proof that he’s really up to something.

5. Obama is raising our taxes. Reality: Obama lowered taxes for 95 percent of working Americans in his first year in office. But, you know, he’s a liberal Democrat-- and for true-blue right-wing folks, that ALWAYS means a tax hike.

6. Fascism is a left-wing phenomenon. We can thank Jonah Goldberg-- with a big assist from Beck-- for the popularity of this one, even though Goldberg’s thesis has been demolished and angrily dismissed by academic historians. It’s especially come in handy for Tea Partiers with Obama-as-Hitler signs, who are not impressed by those pointy-headed professorial types anyway.

7. Global warming is a hoax. So Sean Hannity assures us, citing the Climategate brouhaha -- which was itself shown largely to be a hoax of its own. Meanwhile, the world’s ocean levels keep rising, and glaciers and the polar ice cap keep receding-- regardless of the endless words thrown up denying that they are.

8. Some 16,000 new IRS agents will enforce the new health care reform act by throwing you in jail. Reality: The IRS is actually only increasing its spending in the coming budget year as it normally would-- but some Republican operatives decided to figure out how many positions its increased budget would buy, and came up with 16,000, a figure that then became gospel on Newt Gingrich’s lips. According to the same mythmakers, this nonexistent new army of health care police was going to start throwing people in jail if they failed to buy health insurance-- though in fact, the only penalties contemplated for such failures are fines and taxes.

9. Two million people were at the 9/12 March on Washington. At the culmination of a month long promotion (highlighted by a national Tea Party Express bus tour) by Beck and Fox News, about 70,000 people gathered on the National Mall on September 12 to protest. Beck cited an erroneous early report that over a million had shown up. Later that grew to be two million, the figure now commonly cited by Tea Party leaders as evidence of their tremendous numerical force.

10. The Tea Parties are a non-partisan, broad grassroots movement. Sure, if by non-partisan you mean rabidly paleo-conservative, to the point of even dismissing Republicans, and by grassroots you mean fake populism organized and whipped up by the most popular cable-news network on television, with a heaping helping of corporate financing.

Tea Party folks and their defenders also want to believe that they’re just ordinary Americans who want to be serious about helping their country. But it’s pretty hard to fit that description when you embrace plain old nuttiness.

Conservatives suck:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is seeking to assist defendants in the Righthaven copyright troll lawsuits. Righthaven, founded in March of 2010, files hundreds of copyright infringement lawsuits on behalf of newspaper publishers against bloggers who make use of news content without permission.

To that end, Righthaven searches the internet for stories and parts of stories from the newspapers that they represent. Once they find content that has been re-published, Righthaven purchases the copyright to the article and sues the owner of the blog.

Just like the US Copyright Group shakedowns, and the RIAA shakedowns of the recent past, Righthaven relies on the threat of enormous statutory damages associated with the Copyright Act to scare defendants, often individual bloggers operating non-commercial websites, into a quick settlement, reportedly ranging from two to five thousand dollars.

The Righthaven lawsuits are of particular concern because they sometimes target the operators of political websites who re-publish newspaper stories, chilling political speech. Righthaven has also targeted the newspaper's source for the very articles allegedly infringed.

If you are the target for a Righthaven lawsuit in need of representation, please contact Eva Galperin at eva@eff.org. Please understand that we have a relatively small number of very hard-working attorneys, so we do not have the resources to defend everyone who asks, no matter how deserving. However, if we cannot represent you directly, we will make every effort to put you in touch with attorneys who can.

A conversation:

 

A fellow activist told me today:

"Angle (and Palin, O'Donnell, Ayn-Rand Paul, Beck, Limbaugh, etc) prove one thing. Americans crave leadership, and in the absence of true leadership gullible Americans will follow any snake oil salesman/woman who steps up in front of the camera and makes the most noise. Hear that Mr. President? Here that Dems in Congress? Step up..."

 

My reply:

It's not leadership, but confirmation bias.

Do you really need to be told what and how to think by someone? Is that your definition of leadership?

Since Obama won the primary, there has been an unending stream of vitriolic nonsense coming from the right in order to discredit his presidency. Not to mention the stated goals of the GOP leadership, whish is to cause the Obama administration to be seen as a failure.

There has been 24/7 derision, blame and falsehoods heaped on this administration, ignoring for the most part the how and why America came to be in this financial crisis in the first place!

The majority of folks in the Tea Party only became incensed when America elected the black man.
Deficits only became an issue when Democrats gained control, Repubs ran up $5 trillion dollars on the National debt in 8 years, I notice FOX never mentions THAT fact at all.

Angle, Palin, O'Donnell, Ayn-Rand Paul, Beck, Limbaugh, etc do in fact prove one thing, that some Americans need and want to be told what to think, who to hate and where they should point their impotent rage.

Income and why you should not vote R.

Since 1970, the average economic family model has shifted from 1 earner to 2 earners per household. You are expected to have 104 checks to be considered middle-class as opposed to 52 30-40 years previous.

In this time we have been forced to put another worker into the economy and charged 25% more in taxes for the opportunity with absolutely no growth in median household income, not even the "added worker effect" which you had in 1970 should you have done so or needed to for personal reasons.

We have been leveraged up to 90% higher on inflexible major fiscal expenditures. Your flexible fiscal budget has been cut by up to 40%. We are now responsible for expandability that did not exist under the previous model. We now save 30% less on average. We likely do not have health insurance provided by an employer, if we do, we now pay anywhere from 40-90% more for it and get less for your money. Same for education.

We are now, and have been made exponentially, a ridiculous prospect to consider for a loan. Something which is not lost on speculators or bankers in the slightest. We will likely never own a small business. Any innovation we might come up with will be bought out and co-opted by existing business models. It will not spur new business, particularly small business, based on the model of creative destruction.

The next 30-50 years should be a hoot.

Long term systemic institutional failure. Get used to the term. Buckle up, secure your helmets

reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A
http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/CurrentInflation.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_George_W._Bush_administration (Economic indicators)

Some of you might ask, "Gid, why did you include the inflation tables?"

Well. If you look at profits versus inflation and correlate that with the data i just presented to you it's obvious a pretty small minority of currency holders are sitting on top of what amounts to a literal mountain range of capital and continues to do so, stagnating the economy. Regardless of interest rate fluctuations and the changes in the market, that mountain range is still quite obviously there to those who seek it. The question is 'why?'

I postulate the erosion of nationalist altruism based business models that used to be the cornerstone of the American economy, point of national and local pride, and got us out of the depression with WWII. But that's just me. Maybe labor's just not cheap enough for corporate America regardless of cost of living and that's just too bad.

You might be a Tea bagger if:

You were not outraged when:

* SCOTUS stopped a legal recount and appointed a President
* Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy
* A covert CIA operative got outed
* The Patriot Act got passed
* We illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us
* We spent over 1 trillion(and counting) on on illegal war
* 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.
* You saw the Abu Grahib photos.
* You found out we were torturing people.
* The national debt doubled under the previous President from $5.674 Trillion to $10.024 Trillion.
* You saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
* We let a major US city drown!
* The deficit hit the Trillion dollar mark.
*When you found out the $485 billion deficit the White House reported did not take in the war funding, or off book war funding

But you did lose your mind when:

* The government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick
* The government tried to create jobs
* The government tried to save the economy
* The government tried to protect the consumer from banks and CC companies
* The government tried to give basic equality of pay regardless of gender
* The government tried to function for the people and not just for rich white guys
* The black guy got elected

Conservatism

Conservatism's goal is to "conserve" the monarchy and the serfs, to bankrupt the republic so big money can buy it, and the keep the serfs fearful, ignorant and poor.

Conservatism believes the people are too emotional and naive to vote or in any way, run the government, that only the rich, educated old money monarchs have the temperament and skills to rule.

The Monarchs hold you serfs in total contempt, unworthy of any truth, or intelligent conversation, worthy only of manipulation, propagandizing, and demagogy.

The Monarchs know you won't do your own research about their lies.

The Monarchs know that they can charm you with fake love, piety and smiles.

Every election cycle the big money conservatives trot out the same lies, and some 50% of Americans vote against their own interests, to become serfs.

Income disparity From Salon

Here we look at the first trend—or at least the first one economists took note of. This trend divides the population into five groups ("quintiles") according to household income data. The top line charts income share for the bottom 20 percent (i.e., the poorest fifth) relative to the top 20 percent (the richest fifth). In 1979 the top quintile's income share was eight times that of the bottom quintile. By 2007 the top quintile's income share was 14 times that of the bottom quintile. The bottom line shows that the top 20 percent's share also increased relative to the middle 20 percent, rising from three times that of the middle quintile in 1979 to four times that of the middle quintile in 2007. These trends reflect in large part a growing "college premium." Since 1979 the income gap between people with college or graduate degrees and people without them has grown. The moderately skilled middle class is hollowing out. http://www.slate.com/id/2266025/entry/2266026/

Recessions by date, and POTUS

Recessions, how long they lasted, and who was POTUS at the time.

June ’53 to June ’54 Eisenhower (Republican January ’53 to December ’60)
July ’57 to March ’58 Eisenhower (Republican January ’53 to December ’60)
March ’60 to January ’61 Eisenhower (Republican January ’53 to December ’60)
December ’69 to January ’71 Nixon (Republican January ’69 to August ’74)
November ’73 to January ’75 Nixon (Republican January ’69 to August ’74) / Ford (Republican August ’74 to December ’76)
January ’80 to July ’80 Carter (Democratic January ’77 to December ’80)
June ’81 to December ’82 Regan (Republican January ‘81 to December ’88)
June ’90 to February ’91 Bush G.H. (Republican January ’89 to December ‘92)
February ’01 to November ’01 Bush G.W. (Republican January ’2000 to Jan ‘09)
August 2008, Bush G.W. presided over the most catastrophic financial collapse since The Great Depression.

Yet all Republican pundits blame the Democratic presidents for causing them. Suggesting that the Republicans merely "Inherited" them from Democrats, even when that is a ludicrous misrepresentation of the facts.

Yet when pointed out that Obama took the reins DURING a recession, and when he suggests that he inherited the problems, the same Republican pundits cry foul!

Another example of Republican double standard in full view!

#39th!!!

You all knew it....Now there is scientific proof!!

The Siena Research institute, polled a group of historians and scholars and came up with the results:

Bush # 39 out of 44! Still better than his great grand dad Franklin Pearce though... But like all things in Dubya's life, the bar is set pretty low...

http://www.siena.edu/uploadedfiles/home/parents_and_community/community_page/sri/independent_research/Presidents%20Release_2010_final.pdf

What Progressives have brought to America

It isn't as though conservatives, by nature the defenders of the status quo and of the wealthy and powerful, don't have adequate representation; it's called the Republican Party! Too soon after the demise of Abraham Lincoln it sold its progressive soul to the industrialist robber barons and southern racists and transformed itself into a bulwark against any type of change.


Among the changes conservatives have opposed-- usually hysterically, voiciferously, and with great hyperbole, warning about the end of civilization, society, the family and religion, were:


• The American Revolution
• The Bill of Rights and the forging of a democracy
• Universal white male suffrage
• Public education
• The emancipation of the slaves
• The national park system
• Food safety
• The breakup of monopolies
• The Homestead Act
• Land grant universities
• Rural electrification
• Women’s suffrage
• The abolition of child labor
• The eight hour workday
• The minimum wage
• Social Security
• Civil rights for minorities and women
• Voting rights for minorities and the poor
• Cleaning up our air, our water, and toxic dump sites
• Consumer product safety
• Medicare and Medicaid


Every single one of those policy changes, which are literally the reforms that made this country what it is today, was accomplished by the progressive movement standing up to the fierce opposition of conservative reactionaries who were working only to preserve their own power. And for the most part have spent decades slowly trying to undo or circumvent every one of them!


Conservative warriors on the corporate payroll like Jim DeMint, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Virginia Foxx, Richard Burr, Mike Pence, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Evan Bayh, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, etc and their media echo chamber (Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck,Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, etc)-- will stoop as low as they need to, regardless how much they damage the country or the fabric of society, in order to regain or retain political power!


They always have.


Remember, it was conservatives who predicted the end of the world if Jefferson was allowed to publish the Declaration of Independence, if the slaves were freed, if consumers were protected from businessmen selling poisonous meat, if the minimum wage were enacted, if labor unions were allowed to exist, if women were given the right to vote, if child labor were abolished, if Social Security were passed, etc. It never ends!


Only now, as the internet has opened multiple info sources to millions, the standard lies and fear mongering are no longer as effective, and it is making vocal Conservatives sound stupid, or insane!

Liberalism began during the Age of Enlightenment and rejects many assumptions that dominated earlier types of government, such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary status, and established religion.
The US for example was effectively the first modern liberal state, founded without a monarch or a hereditary aristocracy.
Writing the Bill of Rights guaranteeing rights of the People was a VERY Liberal minded thing to do!
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of individual freedom, it drives me insane to hear right wingers talk about Liberals as the enemy of America, when the country was started by them in the first place!