The typical American household made less money last year than the typical household made a full decade ago.
To me, that’s the big news from the Census Bureau’s annual report on income, poverty and health insurance, which was released this morning. Median household fell to $50,303 last year, from $52,163 in 2007. In 1998, median income was $51,295. All these numbers are adjusted for inflation.
Progress!
The Gates kerfluffle is silly, but this is the takeaway: in today’s America, you can be arrested for sassing police officers. Correction: arrested and/or tasered.
The historical sweep of the last 20 years, with the Bush era as a particular catalyst, combined with the advent of technological marvels that can subdue people without leaving marks has us hurtling toward an authoritarian state faster than I thought it possible.
Shorter version: small men in power + culture of fear + tasers == police state.
Democrats Let Lieberman Keep Committee Chair
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) easily won a vote to remain chairman of a key committee today and will stay in the Democratic caucus despite his high-profile criticism of President-elect Barack Obama and his support of Sen. John McCain during the presidential campaign.
To recap: Lieberman actively campaigns against the Democratic president, up to and including implications that he may be a terrorist, undermines the last Democratic president at every turn, is defeated in the Democratic primary and runs on an “independent” ticket, and is the #1 supporter of Bush on the “Democratic” side. Lieberman is also the head of one of the most important Senate committees around (Homeland Security), where he has yet to conduct a single investigation or question the administration.
Democrats win both houses of Congress and the Presidency in a landslide and do not need Lieberman’s vote.
Do the Democrats kick him from the Committee chair? Do they refuse to let him caucus with them?
No.
Lieberman retains everything.
Jesus fuck, Dems, can you possibly be any more of a collection of wimps? He actively attempted to destroy your party.
Lesson to be learned: senators hate the Left and outsiders far more than they hate being stabbed in the back.
Oh, what I wouldn’t give for an actual party with some balls and the ability to enact progressive legislation.
Just fucking shameful.
A campaign worker who claimed she was the victim of a politically-motivated attack in which she was beaten, kicked and cut, now admits that she made the whole story up.
According to Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Diane Richard, Ashley Todd, 20, told investigators today that she “was not robbed and there was no 6′4″ black male attacker.”
Todd initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield Wednesday night and that the suspect began beating her after seeing a John McCain bumper sticker on her car.
Todd claimed that the mugger even cut a backwards letter “B” in her check.
But today investigators say Todd confessed that the attack never happened.
At a news conference this afternoon, officials said they believe that Todd’s injuries were self-inflicted.
What a dumbass. A dumbass with issues. Get some therapy before you waste the world’s time again.
Update: Dude. I was totally first.
Update 2: Peter Feldman is the new Al Sharpton.
John McCain’s Pennsylvania communications director told reporters in the state an incendiary version of the hoax story about the attack on a McCain volunteer well before the facts of the case were known or established — and even told reporters outright that the “B” carved into the victim’s cheek stood for “Barack,” according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.
I can’t believe the McCain campaign was pushing this turd of a story that didn’t pass the sniff test from the get go. Wait, what am I saying? Of course they pushed the story!
or he’s thinking with another brain
CLINT Eastwood made it clear who won last week’s vice-presidential debate in an interview he did Saturday as part of The New Yorker Festival with the magazine’s legendary Lillian Ross.
“One of the candidates the other night seemed more prone to telling the truth than the other,” Eastwood said. The cheese-and-Chardonnay crowd laughed, presumably because they thought he meant Joe Biden.
But the laughs among the 300 worshipful movie buffs at the Directors Guild theater dried up when Ross interjected, “I liked her, too!”
Eastwood went on to talk about how well “she” did, although he stopped short of a ringing endorsement.
Yes, I know he’s a Republican, but he’s generally been a straight shooter in the past. Palin is a pathological liar on a grander scale than BushMcCain and equal to Cheney. She’s an empty suit with no morals, ethics, integrity, or grasp of the english language. Maybe that’s it. Maybe she’s just so idiotic that she doesn’t realize lying does not make the words become true.
7 years ago today, Bush was presented with the “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” Presidential Daily Briefing. To which Bush replied “Alright, you’ve covered your ass now.”
Heckuva job, Caligula.
Standing in front of the class gave a speech:
Madam President, there is an old line about those of us who ignored the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them. Afghanistan is the classic example of what could happen in Iraq. After years and years of incredible assistance to those who were seeking freedom from the then-Soviet Union occupation of Afghanistan, the Russians were driven out. Then, incredibly, the United States of America totally disengaged from Iraq. I recommend to my colleagues the reading of a book called “Ghost Wars” by Steven Cole, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Of course, came the Taliban. The Taliban then obviously was not only a terribly oppressive, brutal, cruel regime, but it also became a hotbed of training for terror today. A failed state in Iraq would pose a clear, present, and enduring danger to the security of our country.
Furthermore, Hitler, bananas, and a three-legged pony. … San Dimas High School Football Rules!
why Wesley Clark isn’t the already-named veep (or candidate for that matter).
Screw those professional concern trolls and hanky-waving media McSame enablers, Clark needs to be out there.
Side note: I can’t believe this passes for “confusing” to the media or what we consider “high level discourse” today. JFC, how is it not patently obvious that each person argues for the “best solution” relative to their position X, and when someone says I understand, but my concerns are Y (some superset of X) that they are acknowledging this? Let me rephrase to the msnbc host: if you don’t understand that executives need to make decisions while balancing competing interests, you need to be paid less until you do understand.
or that free speech isn’t an illusion?
Watch as a 61 year old librarian gets “escorted” off of public property and ticketed for carrying a sign that says “McCain = Bush.”
Anyone? … *crickets*
The Bush Admnistration was directly involved in the method, extent, and forms of torture used against captured persons of (possible) interest.
In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.
The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of “combined” interrogation techniques — using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time — on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.
Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.
The high-level discussions about these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.
The advisers were members of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.
At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The fact that these people are still (mostly) running our government instead of being behind bars is probably the most accurate snapshot, and indictment, of our country today. Ruled by a clutch of undemocratic totalitarians, the America I grew up with is gone and our moral authority with it.
I’m scarred for life. Ergo, I must share it with you so we can live our scarred codependent lives together properly.
As parody, it’s half-assed. As candidate promotion it is among the strongest reasons possible as to why you should not, under any circumstances, vote for McCain.
I don’t know who created this, but my money’s on Al Qaeda.
Retroactive fines 5 years later for nude buttocks.
The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a $1.4 million fine against 52 ABC Television Network stations over a 2003 broadcast of cop drama NYPD Blue.
The fine is for a scene where a boy surprises a woman as she prepares to take a shower. The scene depicted “multiple, close-up views” of the woman’s “nude buttocks” according to an agency order issued late Friday.
Oh, do fuck off censors, would you?
Jose Padilla sentenced to 17 years in prison
Jose Padilla, once accused of plotting with al Qaeda to blow up a radioactive “dirty bomb,” was sentenced Tuesday to 17 years and four months on terrorism conspiracy charges that don’t mention those initial allegations.
Padilla, an American citizen, was taken on U.S. soil (with Ashcroft holding a press conference to announce the grab of the dirty bomber), held without charges for 3.5 years,1 in solitary confinement, denied access to an attorney, and tortured.2 I’ve mentioned this before.
Without even going to the elements of what appears on the surface to be a Thought Crime more than an actual crime, there is no conceivable way by which this trial could be imagined to have been fair or Padilla’s civil rights upheld. Any one of the elements above would be sufficient in a system still beholden to the rule of law to create a mistrial; taken together the are a nightmare of coercion, duress, and authoritarianism.
This verdict is a black eye on the Department of Justice, the prosecuting attorneys who did not resign rather than try this case, the judge, the judicial system, the media, the Bush administration, and America.
Just fucking embarrassing.
I’m sure my shame and anger will comfort the now-physically and mentally broken Padilla while he’s in solitary confinement and on suicide watch for the next 17 years.
The Bush administration and the DoJ forwarded an argument in this case, and one that has apparently stood, that the President has the power to declare anyone – even a United States citizen – to be an enemy combatant and outside the jurisdiction of our system of laws. Again, I’ve talked about this before. Gentle reader, from the results of this case, you too could be deemed an enemy combatant. At any time. In any place.
I hope you like Uzbekistan. Or at least windowless rooms in hot climates. I also hope you aren’t too attached to your fingernails, skull, or skin.
Note: unlike John Cole, I don’t think this sentence is a rebuke to the Bush government. To reach that stage, you first have to accept the Bush-DoJ interpretation of enemy combatant and that this was a fair trial. A real rebuke would have dismissed the case. This is just mealy halfassed reasonableness by the judge.
2. The tapes of Padilla’s interrogations have, naturally, vanished and could not be produced at his trial. Convenient, no?
and the winner for the I really should have shut up instead of tried to pander award for today is… Mitt Romney
As he posed for a picture with a group of young people, the typically old-fashioned Romney was relaxed enough to quote from a popular hit single from a few years back.
“Who let the dogs out?” he called out, as he stood there beaming in his shirt and tie. “Who! Who!”
Hey, at least it wasn’t racist or appearing with a pro-apartheid Mason on MLK day like Saint John McCain (a holiday McCain voted against creating, by the way), right?
Dude. I don’t like you, but it’s embarrassing to see you do this. It’s not hard to correct: Take a deep breath. Think of the optics. Stop saying stupid shit.
I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10-15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.
(this is from the back end of the talk we discussed earlier)
Jesus fuck, who’s your advisor? Bob Shrum? The tone deafness is astounding. For such a “charismatic” guy who has been so successful politically, this is embarrassing. I don’t care if you don’t agree with those ideas, I don’t care if you disagree with those ideas, this is one of those sound bites you just can’t do.
You know who calls the GOP the “party of ideas”? The GOP.
Idiot.
And it’s not just the right you’re handing these openings to: Bill Clinton immediately got on Obama’s ass with a mischaracterization of what Obama said and Bulldog Edwards attacked him for it too. And these guys are pussycats compared to the GOP slime machine, and you know what the GOP guys are calling Obama right now? “Meat.”
How about these ideas: universal health insurance, protecting the environment, protecting civil liberties,1 fairness, respect, an end to oligopolies, freedom of speech, religion, and association,2, fair hours, fair wages, equality, respect, suffrage, education, and justice for all.
You know why the GOP had these “ideas”? Because they were radical abominations that had been rejected time and time again by good thinking people the world over for the last 70 years? They weren’t ideas so much as totalitarian fantasies that Newtie thought up when he was between fart bubbles playing with his GI Joes in the bathtub (and whatever the prehistoric version of the same would be. Neanderthals lived the Contract on America. Look where it got them!).
The wingnut welfare machine was specifically designed to incubate “thinkers” in “think tanks” who would “think” out “ideas.” Crappy, unoriginal ideas, but that’s what they called them. Then they would sell these “ideas” to via more wingnut welfare through their well-lubed connections to the corporate media. The media would then report these “ideas” as something “new.”
Sigh. Gimme Edwards. Please. At least he stays on message (actually, he’s almost inhuman in that ability. Unsinkable Johnnie Ed!)
Be sure to point out that they are bad ideas the next time you do something this stupid, OK? kthx.
2. eternal vigilance = new ideas required to counter the forces trying to eliminate classic liberal ideas. They pull a knife, you pull a gun. They put one of our ideas in the hospital, we put one of theirs in the morgue. That’s the Aggressive Progressive way.