And yet, they are attempting to repeal Obama’s health care reform bill, a bill that the Congressional Budget Office says will reduce the federal deficit by $143 billion.
So what to do? Simple. The Republicans exempt repealing health care reform from their new rules. They have modified the new rule so that it doesn’t apply to repealing health care reform.
But wait, there’s more. They have also exempted extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Oh, and the lowered estate tax. And changes to the Alternative Minimum Tax. Actually, they exempted all tax reductions. And on top of that, they also exempted the cost of implementing any trade agreements. Why not?
I’m so glad they are serious about balancing the budget.
Daily Kos has a petition to force Senators who want to filibuster to actually stand up there and filibuster. I figure if they feel strongly enough to filibuster something, the least they can do is stand up there and explain to the American public why they are filibustering.
Only 20% thought that the first step should be to cut defense spending, while 4% wanted to start by cutting Medicare, and 3% wanted to cut Social Security (the third rail is still in place!).
Ironically, raising taxes on the wealthy was even relatively popular among the wealthy, with 46% of people making more than $100,000 a year supporting it.
So why were the Republicans so insistent on reinstating the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans, that they threatened to bring Congress to a standstill if they didn’t get their way?
The new session of Congress doesn’t start until Wednesday, but Republicans have already scheduled a vote on January 12th to repeal Obama’s health care reform bill. Of course, this is a complete waste of time and money, since Democrats still control the Senate, and even if they didn’t, Obama would surely veto any any attempt to repeal health care.
I expect that the Republicans will continue to rattle their sabers at health care reform, including trying to cut off funding for it, until they figure out that most Americans want health care reform.
The next time some politician says that we have to “seal the border” with Mexico before we can do anything about immigration reform, you should realize that this is an absolute lie. It is simply not practical to seal a border that is 2000 miles long.
Speaking of Tom Tomorrow, another newsweekly has dropped running cartoons for “budgetary reasons”, including This Modern World. If anyone would like to make a donation to keep This Modern World running, please go to his website and hit the “donate” button in the left column. Your sanity will thank you.
Filed in Irony|Comments Off on The Year in Crazy, Part One
Every wonder why conservatives seem to expect the worst of people (Muslims, the poor), while liberals tend to dwell more on the goodness and dignity of all? Or why conservatives are more receptive to threats of terrorism? There may be a scientific explanation!
A new study done at the University College of London shows that people with conservative views have larger amygdalas, the so-called “reptile brain” associated with fear, anxiety, and emotions, and also have a smaller anterior cingulate, the area associated with courage and “looking on the bright side of life”.
Not yet known is which way the effect goes — do conservative thoughts result in a larger amygdalas, or do people have conservative thoughts because they have a larger amygdalas. As usual, further research is warranted!
What’s really funny is that the study was done almost as a joke. The neurologist who conducted the study was asked if there were differences between liberal and conservative brains for a television show in the UK.
Another study, performed by researchers at Harvard and UC San Diego, found that the DRD4 gene predisposes people to being liberal, but only if they had active social lives as adolescents. The same gene has also been linked to people who like to try new things.
Conservatives naturally rejected the study, since they don’t believe in science. Says one, this is just “another fraud up there with … Global Warming”.
We keep hearing that the economy is heating up, but unemployment remains high (and even rose last month). The stock market has rebounded, and corporate profits (and bonuses) are high. The latest news is that American companies actually are hiring! In fact, they are hiring a lot. Just not in the USA. Caterpillar hired 15,000 workers, but over half of those were overseas. Overall, American companies have created 1.4 million jobs in other countries.
Part of this is because our tax laws give breaks to companies who hire elsewhere, but part is also because the economies of other countries are doing better than ours is. And the situation is likely to get worse, as the US rankings for higher education are falling.
