This week, Christine O'Donnell appeared on a national news show to announce that she wouldn't be appearing on any more national news shows. Sarah Palin surprised no one by telling Fox News she would run for president in 2012 "if nobody else wanted to step up." (Her problem is that even her base doesn't see her as Oval Office material: she came in fifth in the Values Voter Summit straw poll.) Also not surprising anyone: Senate Democrats, who, fearing GOP attack ads, decided to put off a vote on extending tax cuts until after the midterms. In better economic news, Larry Summers announced he'll be stepping down as director of the White House National Economic Council. I've always felt Summers was the wrong man for these troubled times -- a brilliant mind with toxic ideas.
Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
That was their goal, wasn't it?
REPUBLICANS = CLOSE SECOND!
GEITHNER = CLOSE THIRD!
With headlines like these, one would think the Democrats would be having a field day:
"Tens Of Thousands Face Unemployment With Stimulus Job Funds Set To Expire"
"AP Poll: Repeal? Many Wish Health Care Reform Went Further"
Instead, other headlines read:
"Democrats' Punt On Tax Cuts Shows Inability To Govern"
"The Super Rich Get Richer, Everyone Else Gets Poorer, and the Democrats Puntâ€
Democrats are cowering like cornered rats and the sharks are circling.
America has a failure of leadership, and lunatics are stepping in to fill the void. Good leaders have a vision and surround themselves with people that can make their vision reality. Bill Clinton had it and did it. George Bush had it and did it. I cannot imagine that either of those men spent much time worrying about consensus, or if everyone was “on boardâ€, or even liked them. We seem to have a vacuum of leadership. What else can explain the influence of the Tea Party, Arizona’s immigration law, and failure to pass “Don’t ask, don’t tellâ€?
Republican and Tea Party proposals are “all about meâ€, not about “usâ€, not about Mr. and Mrs. America. I hear narrow-minded, ill-informed, hypocritical, and otherwise biased comments about family values, unemployed people, companies too big to fail, Muslims, and Mexicans. At the same time they are taking OUR tax money and redistributing it to THEIR tax-less friends.
Okay - but she keeps appearing on clips of the shows she used to do
I know Arianna thinks the Democrats were wrong to table the tax cut fight - I disagree. The tax cuts don't expire until the end of the year and it would have been a bruising and probably losing fight - not a winning scenario for Democrats. Losing more Democratic seats for a principle is not in our best interests.
It is only a losing fight if you want to not give the tax cut, if you want to give the tax cut it is a winning fight.
There is a difference in giving a tax cut on income above $250K, and limiting the tax cut to income below $250K. Those folks won't miss the 3%.
Al Gore was vPOTUS and he is worth 200M now, Mr Clinton had a 5 million wedding, it seems like it pays well to me.
WHAT MONEY??? Does the media think we have money to invest. I spend my money on necessities. After that there is no money left.
These advisors have no idea what it is like to live from pay check to pay check. OR... unemployment check to unemployment check.
The best news is they do not need to worry about it because the govenment has a program to help them out, and they will never need to worry about it, they are the wealthy, and the wealthy just need to poor to stay poor and vote them back into office.
fanned
Obama has purposely surrounded himself with Rubinistas - Summers, Geithner, Goolsbee, etc.
Summers serves at the pleasure of the President. Obama has worked hard on behalf of Wall Street, the big banks, and the executives of the big companies.
Outcomes Matter.
The outcome of OBAMA's policies is, after two years, record unemployment and record poverty.
With no visible attempt at effective action to remedy these issues for the Average American.
But, a lot of effort on behalf of Wall Street and Big Bankster executives.
Obama's real priorities are there for everyone to see.
Outcomes Matter.
And, it's best to judge people by their actions, not their words.
Obama and Biden have shown so far from their actual actions, he only outcomes that matter to them is support for their big corporate donors.
Very good, right out of the book 'The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength' So it really does not matter what any of will do, what matter is what the ones in power will do. How can anybody support Mr Obama after two years, he did not even do the stupid, easy stuff the left wanted. Dang.
So don't criticize his bonafides without doing a little research first.
Hmmm, that is good point, vote for me as even though it is much worst than before, it could have been worst. Is this on a bumper sticker?
Everyone go watch Oliver Stone's new movie "Wall Street - Money Never Sleeps" to get a visceral understanding of the incestuous merging of political and financial worlds.
One is LarrySummers, quietly resigning from Obama's circle of inner advisors. He's financial + economic timebom that predictably blewup in America's face 2years ago. That financial + economic timebom is apattern of recurring waves (bubbles) of legalized unbridled financial speculations. Go watch OliverStone's new movie "WallStreet - money never sleeps". GordonGekko (played by MichaelDouglas), fresh out of jail, revived his career + spoke to mass audience:
"I said greed is good. Now it seems greed is legal."
That epitomizes 3decades of growing ever larger + more devastating speculative financial bubbles engulfing WallStreet, America + global economies. Started with "dotcoms", migrated to "DefaultCreditSwaps" on WallStreet manufactured + engineered "derivatives" on crappy "Ninja" ("No-INcome-Jobs-Assets") realestate mortgage loans. Magnitudes of dotcoms were Billion$'s in 1990's, inflated to DCS in realestate mortgages derivatives in Trillion$'s in 2000-10's. Since inflated assets HAVENOT disappeared, they merely migrate to inflate global currencies speculations in Quadrillions ($1Quadrillion=$1,000,000,000,000,000), covered by legally printed USDollarbills printed by USTreasury. This speculation is ALL LEGAL.
Nincompoops chosen (just like ChauncyGardner) to front this legalization of global currencies speculation, centered around merged WallStreet + WashingtonDC(USTreasury), will be O'Donnell, Palin, etal. Magnitude of this global asset speculative bubble is so huge + incomprehensible to average folks that powers behind this choose to dumbdown politics to reptilian emotional level of O's + P's to legalize it in politics. Since if people understood, they'd start a revolution.
Great post!
My favorite quote is OffTheCuff remark + prediction, by JonStewart barely onemonth after GWBush's illfated 2000election. He shouted "HOARD GOLD!" Surely enough, this "comic" preciently expressed the premeditated corrective remedy for anticipated era of Bush's failed antics of cowboy international politics + 100% laissez faire economics on WallStreet + MainStreet. Since January2001, gold bullion (in US$) rose from $255 to $1300, (5.1times, or +410% increase), which reflects real devaluation of USDollar.
This trend is FAR from over, since the dynamics that drive this trend are firmly inplace + working. Let's briefly examine parts people see, some understood:--
1)Washington politics of "TooBigToFail" economics is firmly in place. It hasn't been debunked as unsound finances+economics nor discredited as untenable political-economic policy. TBTF policy translates into predictable future financial hostage-crisis --- top BigBanks continue to be allowed legally to speculate on anything those BB owners + genius young hedgefund architects dream up. 2008 set precedence -- their losses WILL be covered by USTreasury (with printed US$)
2)Cripplingly costly perpetual wars guarantee inflationary wave in coming decade.
Goldprice was US$35 in 1930's.
rose to US$100 after Nixon ended dollar-gold convertibility in 1971.
Goldprice increased +1200% in past 40years, +3600% in past 80years.
US$ depreciated by 92% in past 40years.
Yet while the former has numerical advantage the system is designed to move slowly, if at all, so the latter is enjoying relative success despite having their a**es handed to them by members of their own party.
Great, one group is a big dear frozen mid-crossing in the public light, and the other is letting the children drive the uninsured 4 x 4: what could possibly go wrong?
The whole idea of voting is we have something to say, at least once in a while, and the less we speak, meaning the less of us who speak, the more these reprobates get to fill in the silence.
If that’s too strong a word for you, you haven’t been paying attention. Nothing is happening: the Left won’t even take a vote for fear of losing, and the Right has declared new plans to not change their modus operandi.
So instead of being a ship that tacks left then right then left then right again, never actually moving very far forward, now we’re simply without wind…and it appears the current is moving toward the edge of the world.
Even during the Counterculture Movement the Right was alive and well, and only part of the country went that far Left.
But Left means inclusionary policies; and apparently the Right thinks "America for Americans" isn’t an exclusionary ideology, or at least that the Statue of Liberty is a decommissioned lighthouse.
My problem with the Right is they want to do all the bad things, but claim all the good. Of course the Left wants only to do good, but without some of the bad we won't be free for very long.
Either way, our economic system is precariously balanced even without corruption, so with corruption it's likely to take our political system--money management--with it, if not our social structure as well.
Basically, both sides spend like crazy, so I state that if we're going to go broke, or at least run up one hell of a bill, let's at least do it trying to fix our problems here at home, rather than spreading our "disease" to the rest of the world.
Fanned.
"It is unfortunate that so far, the only organized response has been the Tea Party; it might be time for a third party in America based on nothing more than common sense and honesty. With Arianna Huffington warning of Third World America and Paul Krugman writing "Banana Republic, here we come," it might just be time to rise up and throw the rascals out, rather than waiting for them to comfortably resign."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-ferguson/post_930_b_738597.html
Why can't Democrats, progressives, socialists, independents, greens come up with something timely reading the public mood + correctly seizing the moment? I don't as yet have a good answer. But as Ferguson intoned in the theme and sentiment "throw the rascals out, rather than waiting for them to comfortably resign", let the serious broadbased discussions begin.
Let each + every person who feel need for radical fundamental social, economic + political changes to sweep across America put in his+her dollar's worth of ideas + suggestions. Let's start with ... if you were asked to draft a "Ten-Point Party Manifesto" for a new grassroots people's revolutionary party agenda, what would it be? and folks, let's not be distracted by subconscious emotional overtones of the label "revolutionary". Revolutionary simply means "Rapid evolution". "Wake up" is a revolutionary message when everybody's asleep.
Why is birth of genuine new third party necessary? Simply put, people have tried every other danm way that didn't work. Fooled once, shame on you, fooled twice, well ... fooled umpteen times, well let serious discussions begin on what "Second American R-evolution" should mean. Let founders of "Renaissant America" come forward.
I despise the Repub war tactics.......refusing to cooperate in every circumstance....no matter who it hurts, even themselves and their own constituents. It's mean and it's ugly and shows how disordered our government has become. I am convinced Obama truly believed he could find common ground and work from that place to achieve progress. How disappointed he must be to find nothing but obstinate, heartless, cruel indifference. And how unfortunate for our country. The situation we have seen thus far is one in which all Americans, regardless of party affiliation ought be ashamed.
f & f
When all about you are losing theirs and balming it on you.
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim.
if you can deal with triumph and disaster and keep those two imposters just the same.
If you can talk to kings and keep the common touch.
You are better than all of us put together.
Arianna is the best. Thanks for all that you do we are so humbled by you.
You make us want to stand up and be what we can be. Americans.