One good start, one bad rigid mindset ...

A good start:
President Obama To Order Guantánamo Closed

The bad:
Mass Transit Got the Shaft to Make Room For Tax Cuts

This is particularly bad because tax cuts don't have the effects promised. But these gifts to the wealthy please the Thugs (for a few seconds) and for some reason Democrats keep wanting to please the Thugs in spite of the fact that all it leads to is the Thugs demanding to be pleased some more. They care not about the country or its citizens. Can't Democrats stopped repeating the same self destructive behaviour over and over again? Apparently not ...

Obama, Obama ...

Per McClatchy: Pelosi, Summers signal discord on quick end to Bush tax cuts

Obama apparently sees no hurry (assuming he still plans to do it at all) to back out one of Bush's gifts to the rich: special tax status for being rich.

At the same time Obama appears to be willing to continue mainlining money into bank coffers. Money that supposedly was going to induce the banks to make loans; loans that supposedly would go to businesses; businesses which supposedly would hire real people. Remember trickle down? The government can't grasp that the concept that giving to the rich with no rules and no oversight and no consequences helps no one but the rich. Or they do realize it and they are a part of this confidence game played upon the nation.

There's still Social Security which the Republicans, and not a few Democrats, have so far failed to destroy. The Social Security contributions, paid by employee and employer, are used to fund pensions for employees when they retire. Horrors. Not trickle down but actual contribution by workers paid to actual people (the rich included). The rich Robber Barons of our society have failed to gain absolute control of the funds, as yet.

The belt tightening Obama so eloquently says we all must do seems to point to a program paid for by employee/employer contribution (SS) but not to those who are rich and who get free money from the US government (paid for from our taxes) while they pay no, or little taxes themselves. Money that they get to do whatever they want with, like pay themselves bonuses or buy banks or just let it sit in their coffers until sometime in the future when they decide to buy the country up cheap.

But us citizens, we should tighten our belts. As if that isn't happening already while the rich get richer and wait ...

It's a mad, mad world and more tax cuts?

More tax cuts, please ...

No jobs? How about some tax cuts.

Interest rates going up? How about some more tax cuts.

Interest rates going down? We definitely need more tax cuts.

Floods, famine, hurricanes, global warming? Tax cuts, tax cuts.

Sunshine, balmy breeze? See how those tax cuts run.
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I suppose I'm the one who is mad and not the entire media/corporate/political world BUT it seems to me that with full employment and living wages workers would be able to pay their fair share of taxes.

And when there are no jobs or only part time or starvation-wage jobs then tax cuts have no benefit for those so accursed at all.

The only people and organizations who ever benefit from tax cuts produced by our elected aristocrat-wannabes are those that already don't pay anywhere near their fair share.
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ADDED:

I actually suspect this unfortunately isn't about Republicans, but rather about a bunch of Blue Dog Democrats who are so incredibly stupid that they can't tell the difference between fiscal responsibility for a family of four and trying to stave off another Great Depression. (Yes, they really are that thick.)

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Today's QUOTES:

Another good solution to the too-big-to-fail problem is to break up any institution that becomes too big to fail.... --It's a really bad crisis that forces this much truth on a newspaper of record, Prometheus 6 [AE: History is useless as all lessons must be learned anew.]

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Yesterday's QUOTES ...

... Isn’t it interesting that advocating tax breaks for the wealthy is unlikely to get someone called an elitist by the media.

When you think about it, Obama actually has more experience than McCain. Sure, a guy named "John McCain" has been in the Senate since 1987, but he's not the Republican nominee.

There was a guy by that name who supported Roe v. Wade, but the new John McCain replaced him two years ago.

There was a guy by that name who called Jerry Falwell an "agent of intolerance", but the new John McCain replaced him two years ago.

There was a guy by that name who proposed comprehensive immigration reform, but the new John McCain replaced him in February.

There was a guy by that name who was against waterboarding, but the new John McCain replaced him in February.

... and on and on ...

This amalgamation of major business interests with state power, this system of oligopoly and governance of, by and for the ruling class, has metastasized beyond imagining since the Progressive era. It has expanded in every direction and subsumed virtually every industry and business in America, large and small. It is this system of "political capitalism" that dictates domestic and foreign policy, including a foreign policy of endless war, preparation for war, and various forms of "cleaning up" after war. You the ordinary citizen, you "the people," figure nowhere in this -- except to provide the necessary labor and, when required, your blood and your life.<

That [Tim Russert] is who was canonized -- by the media and, revealingly, by the Right -- as the Model of Great Journalism. That's because the core function of the establishment press is to obtain and then disseminate government claims. ...

We must SAVE the Free Market with taxpayer money ...

NOW they tell us why it's called a Free Market. They are not responsible for THEIR mistakes, but not only are we, the citizens, responsible for our mistakes, we are also totally responsible for whatever disasters or just plain bad luck we run into.

Let me just ask. I'm sure somebody out there has the answer. After all, they had reasons why Katrina victims deserved to drown and die, be forced from their homes and screwed by their insurance companies and disregarded by their country. They had reasons why uninsured children didn't deserve health care, why those who died from a lack of medical attention only got what they had coming. They had reasons why the people who came to emergency rooms were just looking for drugs, they had reasons why thieves got rich and saints got shot, they had all kinds of explanations for everything that looked to everybody else like a fucking problem we needed somebody to solve. (via The Sideshow)

And Steve Soto writes so sanely about the same topic: Chasing Wealth, Not Jobs. Why not Steve Soto for President. But like Gore, Clinton and many others, he's too smart and rational for the press (and probably even the crowd at dailyKOS) to be objective, truthful or actually informative; you know doing that journalist thing journalists are supposedly supposed to do?

Tax and spend, a concept whose time has come ...

I concure, taxing wealth and spending on society is way past due:

Tax and Spend? Hell, Yeah! by Susan J. Douglas

Of taxes and explosions ...

I'm copying an entire post from Rick Perlstein's blog. I hope he does not mind but this juxtaposition of quotes is the kind that may break a mental log jam in someone's mind. And because that theoretical someone may theoretically read this post but theoretically not follow a link I have copied the entire post. I will remove it, of course if requested to do so. The following is posted at Rick Perlstein's blog, a blog that all should read.

Steamed
By Rick Perlstein on July 19, 2007 - 2:09pm.

We've referred to this document frequently, and will do so much more in the future. It's the skeleton key to understanding the Manhattan steam pipe explosion and its meaning for America's declining greatness. For now, let's strike, as it were, while the steam is still hot (200 degrees, in case you haven't heard). Scroll down and watch the CBS News report on yesterday's rush hour explosion in midtown Manhattan.

Here's what they say:

"...The explosion was so massive, so powerful, almost the entire East Side of Manhattan had to be shut down and evacuated...."

"...Ruptured steam pipes are a common occurence in New York. Mayor Mike Bloomberg blamed the gigantic incident on his city's aging infrastructure...."

To contextualize, here's what the previous mayor of New York has been saying:

“I’ve lowered taxes 23 times as mayor”

—at the May 15 Republican candidate debate, before pledging across-the-board federal budget cuts of five to 20 percent.

"You know why you have one of the best economies in the country? Because you have no taxes.'"

—to New Hampshire Republican activists on April 3.

"Every year - in good times or bad - I required city commissioners to propose cuts in their own budgets.... Fiscal conservatives understand the value of controlling the size and cost of -government. Controlling spending makes -government more efficient and more effective in achieving its core responsibilities."

—in an April 11 op-ed entitled "My Four Pillars of American Prosperity."

We don't endorse or dis-endorse candidates here at The Big Con. What we do is document an ideology and its failure. What Rudy Giuliani says is what every Republican candidate says. What he has provided us here—and the reason we single him out—is an illustrative tale. Put more conservatives in charge of your country; send your country down the road to wrack and ruin.

Republicans are bad for your health and dangerous to your welfare and disastrous for our democracy!