Friday News Roundup - Domestic
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-01-27/friday-news-roundup-domestic
The Obama Administration announced the first cuts in the Defense Department budget since 1998; Republican presidential candidates squared off in the second Florida debate as polls showed a dead-heat between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich; and the Federal Reserve announced it would keep interest rates at near zero until late 2014. Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times, Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune and Ron Elving of NPR join Diane for analysis of the week's top national news stories.
Guests
Ron Elving
Washington editor for NPR.
Clarence Page
syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
Doyle McManus
columnist, Los Angeles Times.
Friday News Roundup Video
A caller asked the panelists for their thoughts on President Obama's policies geared towards helping black Americans:
Comments
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Are the Koch brothers freedom loving American patriots, or the equivalent of a foreign born freedom hating one world order radical leftist named George Soros. Is there one shred of evidence that Soros has thought of the The U.S. as anything other than a vehicle for wealth accumulation, or has he given any evidence of respect for our countries founding principals of individual freedom? Hold on to your misguided class warfare totalitarian shorts you are in for a sobering enlightenment, your unexamined bubble of hate is going to be popped.
By: Hans Bader | 03/01/11 5:11 PM
Special to the Examiner
The Koch brothers gave $20 million to the ACLU to fight the Patriot Act, but only $43,000 to Scott Walker’s $11 million campaign for governor of Wisconsin. Now, these libertarian brothers who support drug legalization and cuts in defense spending have been falsely branded as the puppetmasters behind Walker and Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. (The Kochs have never met or spoken with Walker. They’re Libertarians, not conservatives. One of the Koch brothers was the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential nominee in 1980, running against Reagan).
Leading the charge to vilify the Kochs is the Alliance for Justice, which is headed by Nan Aron, a former ACLU staff attorney; the Alliance for Justice is a coalition partner of the ACLU. Along with the ACLU and Common Cause, the Alliance for Justice recently helped organize a “protest action” against the Kochs, at which demonstrators called for the lynching of Clarence Thomas.
As a writer noted at Huffington Post, “the groups involved in” that protest “action” included “Common Cause,” the “ACLU,” and the “Alliance for Justice.” The protest was part of a vilification campaign against the Kochs that included a presentation that characterized “the Kochs” as a “Threat to Our Democracy.”
The ACLU is immeasurably richer thanks to the Kochs’ contributions. Given their passionate opposition to the Patriot Act, the ACLU and its allies would have waged the same fight against the law if the Kochs had never given it a dime, leaving them $20 million poorer. That would have left them with less money to vilify the Kochs, and less money to push the ACLU’s other pet causes, like supporting racial preferences in cases like Gratz v. Bollinger, and arguing that voter-approved limits on racial quotas are unconstitutional. The ACLU, Common Cause, and the ACLU are all funded by many of the same left-wing donors, like George Soros.
I have libertarian leanings myself, and I’ve criticized the wisdom of several Patriot Act provisions, and the constitutionality of one of them. But compared to other pressing civil-liberties issues, the Patriot Act is truly a bottom-drawer issue. Given the fungibility of money, the Kochs’ donation to the ACLU may well have backfired on them.
It may also have left the ACLU with more money left over to spend attacking the civil liberties of groups like small businesses and Evangelical Christians. Contrary to its name, the ACLU sometimes opposes civil liberties, supporting curbs on the free speech rights of private religious employers in the Meltebeke case, and restrictions on the free association rights of business owners: it once sued a California restaurant to force it to serve neo-Nazis wearing swastikas, as George Mason University law professor David Bernstein has noted.
The Kochs have given millions to political causes, but this is dwarfed by the $600 million they have donated to non-political charities like the arts and medical research. They seem to be opposed to Obama partly because of his support for corporate welfare for the Kochs' competitors, and Obama’s record-setting deficit spending, which the Kochs view as a long-run threat to the country’s financial stability and thus their own businesses. (Charles G. Koch elaborated on this recently in the Wall Street Journal).
The Kochs have good reason to be concerned. Obama’s record-setting deficits ran up more national debt in just one month in 2010 than Bush ran up in all of 2007. And as the Washington Examiner’s Timothy P. Carney has noted in column after column, the Obama Administration has frequently engaged in crony capitalism and corporate welfare that enriches well-connected businesses at the expense of competing businesses and the public. (Examples include ethanol subsidies, which the Kochs oppose; green-jobs subsidies that wipe out and outsource American jobs; and proposed giveaways of pollution rights to favored corporations).
George Soros hero of the left!
"The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States."
"Laissez-faire ideology does not prepare us to cope with this challenge. It does not recognize the need for a world order."
"The sovereignty of states must be subordinated to international law and international institutions."
"The worse a situation becomes, the less it takes to turn it around, the bigger the upside."
To stabilize and regulate a truly global economy, we need some global system of political decision-making."
Sounds like a guy that longs for the chaos and social breakdown that will set the stage for totalitarian takeover. Are these the words of a patriotic American or a traitor to the founding pricipals of the United States.
Representative Gabrielle Giffords submitted her resignation from Congress on Wednesday to focus on her recovery . Contrasting the classy heroic Giffords was the appearance of the harpy DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz . The same women who used the Tucson shooting for DNC political aggrandizement couldn't resist creeping into the spotlight for Giffords goodbye.
"We need to make sure that we tone things down, particularly in light of the Tucson tragedy from a year ago, where my very good friend, Gabby Giffords — who is doing really well, by the way, — [was shot]. I hesitate to place blame, but I have noticed it take a very precipitous turn towards edginess and lack of civility with the growth of the Tea Party movement.” DWS
Forget Politics as usual....frankly I am disgusted with every politician out there, every single breathing, writhing one of them! Clearly what we need is to throw baby, bath water and tub out….and start over! A Constitutional Convention that excludes all politicians, any current or past elected official at any level, all military officers, any executives of any corporation that can say they are multi-national, any clergy, priests, preachers, deacons, or any other self-styled leader of any religious sect or cult!
Next item of business is to declare no business organization of any type has any privileges reserved for itself as if it were a person unless explicitly granted...."by the people".
Second, no one can provide any services, money, or any kind of support to any political candidate unless they are an authorized voter in the voting district of that candidate.
Third, Congress shall be a single chamber of Representatives representing equal Congressional districts elected by a majority of all eligible voters.
Other Key points: scrape the income and payroll taxes and replace with a VAT and fees for business services.
Eliminate sales taxes. Liquidate all foundations, trusts , and other “tax avoidance schemes” and confiscate all wealth at death! All of it. Everyone starts over from zero.
Create a single payer based medical system paid by the VAT.
Liquidate all retirement programs and move everyone including military and government workers into SS.
I don't think it would matter much if we got a "New" Constitution, the next wave of politicians would find a way of ignoring and circumventing the new one just like they did the old one.. The typical voter is just not sophisticated enough to appreciate the relatively simple Constitution we have now and quite frankly at the least bit of discomfort is willing to throw what little they do know about it overboard. Except for libertarian candidates like Ron Paul, I don't have the answer.
Wow Teece Bowman, your plan sounds somewhat less radical than Newt Gingrich's 13,000 person Moon state, and markedly less imaginative than what I'd expect from you. Maybe you're a counter puncher. I always start with capping wealth and income by whatever means- taxation, seizure, compulsive social expenditure. You seem to think laws change attitudes and human behavior immediately and that we could de-toxify government overnight. Why have a Congress anyway when we possess the means of direct democracy? Teece, you need to start an Occupy or other committee of correspondence right near home and start hashing this stuff out face to face. My uncle and I are starting a Bill Moyers group at the public library to do just that. I start with capping first so that no one can be brainwashed by expecting to get disproportionately rich, and so there will be no uber-rich to admire. My take is that Soros, Buffet and Gates are not so different than the Koch brothers, or Howard Hughes or Steve Jobs, or that crazy Richard Branson. Too much money destroys the owner's mind just like cocaine. I was looking for white doughnut sugar on Romney's upper lip last night during the CNN debate.
I smell intense BO, or is that formaldehyde.... I'd like to thank David and Charles Koch for all that formaldehyde gas they put in politics. It's like a warning, like the stink utility companies put in natural gas lines.
Bill Moyers has it about right: "No one can easily become or long remain extremely wealthy, or extremely poor, in a fair and just society." The persons opposing what I say are less interested in fairness and justice than they are fixated on the prospect of their own outsized wealth. Immature minds like that are not ready for participatory democracy. They should stick with board games and video fantasies where the Koch brothers wear unitards and fly to the opera powered by their own gas.
MarcusTullius quoted:
"I hesitate to place blame, but I have noticed it take a very precipitous turn towards edginess and lack of civility with the growth of the Tea Party movement.”
She hestitates to place blame, but places blame. Lovely. This is the disinformation and lying that comes consistently from the extreme left. I could say what I think of DWS but I'd surely get kicked off the board.
Headline:
"TEECE BOWMAN DECLARES SELF SMARTER THAN THE FOUNDERS".
Unbelievable.
Pancake Rankin wrote:
" Soros, Buffet and Gates or that crazy Richard Branson"
One thing for certain the Koch's are not the media whores like the above, It's not easy finding a photo of the Koch's. Actually after doing the research on the Koch's I was plenty surprised to find out they were libertarians and they put their money where their mouths are in regards to republican over reach. Never thought much about the Koch's but now I can honestly say they are good patriotic Americans, and all the BS coming from the left about them is just that, BS.
Hindsight is 20/20. If Teece Bowman is not more knowledgeable about current conditions in this American Empire and more inventive than the Funding Fathers in solving present day problems only metaphysics could give us an explanation. It is a silly sentimental twit who believes a modern informed woman does not know more (is not smarter) than slave owners and financial manipulators who died about 200 years ago.
Document fundamentalism and the worship of anachronistic tradition is a disease that kills millions. Next they'll be claiming they can walk on water by duct-taping a Bible to each foot. Booga-booga-booga. Too much great man voodoo for me.
During President Obama's SOTU he said that his Attorney General will deepen investigations into Foreclosure fraud. The American public has yet to witness one individual prosecuted for the Wall Street fiasco or foreclosure fraud. Now I know President OBama did not cause these fiascos but we have been hearing him as well as other leaders saying "turn the page, move on, next chapter" when it comes to any serious accountability standards being enforced. Can anyone imagine a working class person who has committed a crime using these arguments in a court room. "Judge think we should just move on, turn the page, next chapter"
And why is it that we did not hear President Obamas negligence in these areas come up during the Republican debates? Does accountability in these arenas involve too many of their friends?
Pancake Rankin wrote:
"Bill Moyers has it about right: "No one can easily become or long remain extremely wealthy, or extremely poor, in a fair and just society."
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Moyers would know about making sure the extremely poor remain extremely poor considering he supervised LBJ's task forces that shaped the legislation of the vast welfare expansion known as the Great Society.
"Moyers' part in Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover’s bugging of Martin Luther King’s private life, the leaks to the press and diplomatic corps, the surveillance of civil rights groups at the 1964 Democratic Convention, and his request for damaging information from Hoover on members of the Goldwater campaign suggest he was not only a good soldier but a gleeful retainer feeding the appetites of Lyndon Johnson."
Thomas Lipscomb of the Heartland Institute
"Yet somehow none of that has stopped Moyers from posing as the conscience of the American press for most of the past four decades, mostly in various screechy PBS shows."
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/changing_channels/2009/02/bill-moyers-hom...
How much of the Republican frothing at the mouth about cuts in defense spending has to do with their usual knee-jerk reaction to criticize President Obama in anything he does and how much is shoring up campaign contributions from military industrial contract vendors?
PBS as well as NPR are also products of the "Great Society" federal government overreach. It's no surprise Moyers was a star there. I watched his show and liked it, he would almost always ruin an interesting story line with a closing radical left monologue. That probably led to the demise of his show.
Finally during the debate Blitzer brings up that Gingrich wants to get rid of capital gains taxes all together.
Can any of your guest explain how alleged value voters can vote for a serial adulterer who points at others why they are involved with the same type of behavior? Just do not understand any alleged value voters apprehension to support a traditional family values guy like Romney...what ever you feel about his money, taxes, etc.
The only thing I can figure is that these fake values voters like the idea that you can sin on Saturday go into church on Sunday ask for redemption then go back on Monday and start the cycle again
I would really like to hear a good discussion of the future of jobs in America. It seems to me that I never hear solid, logical discussion of this; it's always more about creating new jobs training programs. It would appear that America has become more of a country of job programs than jobs, and I can't see how that's going to change significantly any time soon. The golden age of jobs, that we keep harkening back to, followed a major war, with hundreds of thousands of young people, coming home from the war, and those who were too young to have gone,coming of age in the late 1940's-early 50's. These young people created families, households that needed houses, appliances, cars, furniture, and all that comes along with those. All kinds of jobs were created in a short period ot time, and, for the life of me, I do not see another such opportunity anywhere on the horizon for the U.S. Small, entrepreneurial manufacturing seems to be taking the place of the large employers, for the most part. I would just welcome a comprehensive discussion on the real future of manufacturing and jobs in America.
The "self deportation" comment isn't as ridiculous as you'd believe; look at the problems in Alabama finding farm workers after their new, strict laws.
The media (including the participants on this show) CONTINUE to perpetuate the false message that it will be harmful politically to be in favor of enforcing our immigration laws. THIS IS FALSE! As a life-long Democrat and '08 Obama voter, I am appalled that this Administration has pandered to ILLEGAL immgrants and their insufferable advocates! Americans want for our MOST-GENEROUS-IN-THE-WORLD immigration laws to be enforced. We want for our leaders to rid this country of ILLEGAL immigrants. We are NOT for granting rewards for immigration lawbreaking, as doing so only serves to incentivize exponentially more lawbreaking (as evidenced by Reagan's 1986 Amnesty). The Democratic leadership will LOSE BIG in Election 2012 as a result of their decision to side with the immigration lawbreakers and their advocates over American citizens and LEGAL IMMGIRANTS, as most Demoratic, Independent, and Republican voters view cheap pandering of this nature as despicable!
A GOVERNMENT WHICH REFUSES TO ENFORCE ITS OWN LAWS IS INTOLERABLE!
Correct Stephanie--- And I don't think that the correct interpretation is that there should only be self-deportation. There will be deportations, and if you enforce employment laws requiring employers only to hire LEGAL immgirants and Americans citizens, there will also be self-deportations!
Debbie Wasserman Schultz crying over Gabrielle Giffords was stomach turning.
The topic of 1/27/2012 re: candidate issues;
Just about everyone pays taxes. You can say someone pays 35% or 15%, but we all also file our tax RETURN. This means that we are going to get a portion of our tax burden REFUNDED to us. If you calculate in the amount of tax return you get into your entire tax burden, then we all actually pay much less than the 15% or 35%.
I would like to see some calculations on what the actual average tax rate is for each tax bracket.
In thinking about capital gains taxed at lower rate under argument they are subject to double taxation, our contributions into the social security fund were taxed and we now pay taxes on our social security benefits. Am I wrong, or is this not also double taxation?
Started listening to this show late - just heard someone take isse with the kidnappers being killed - that it was disturbing that they were doing a police action and going in there to kill people.
First and foremost, it was a rescue mission. There is no dispute that there were kidnapped victims there, being held against their will by kidnappers. It was a risky rescue mission at night, and somehow it's an issue that the kidnappers got killed? What if some delicate rules of engagement allowed one to get off shots and kill the victims?
I too have concerns about assasinations of people in other types of situations, especially given the lack of trials. My concern is not for treating terrorist, etc badly, but wanting to make sure mistakes are not made and the wrongly accused are not killed or mistreated, etc. But this kind of knee-jerk criticism of a justified operation just contributes to the stereotype of a liberal elite that is too soft on terrorism/crime, etc.
kathleen wrote:
"The only thing I can figure is that these fake values voters like the idea that you can sin on Saturday go into church on Sunday ask for redemption then go back on Monday and start the cycle again"
If you can document that, have at it, kathleen, but I will already tell you, you can't. Newt has made clear in recent months that he has done some bad things; things he regrets. In his Catholic faith, he has asked God for forgiveness. These "fake values voters" also recognize that all are sinners (even you), but there is an opportunity for forgiveness and redemption. Apparently though, that concept only lives outside the unforgiving Democrat party.
B.O.'s Transcripts wrote:
"Debbie Wasserman Schultz crying over Gabrielle Giffords was stomach turning."
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Does POTUS Obama really want the face and voice of the Democratic Party to be represented by the hideous hypocrite harpy DWS?
Regarding the rescue of Jessica Buchanan and Paul Thisted, the international announcement of this rescue seem to be not only chest thumping and politically motivated for Obama's re-election. We now hear reports of the pirates warning that other attempts at such rescues would result in the death of hostages. It might have been better to keep silent on this success as hard as that might be for all involved.
Pancake Rankin wrote:
"It is a silly sentimental twit who believes a modern informed woman does not know more (is not smarter) than slave owners and financial manipulators who died about 200 years ago. "
As for "slave owners", (can't post without mentioning that one can you?!) slavery was the great compromise that birthed our country. Condoleeza Rice had the best description; she called it our "birth defect". She was right. But we got the greatest country the world has known and fortunately, we have survived long enough to repair the defect.
As for "financial manipulators", see Federal Reserve Chairman (by the way, for your information, the country was born WITHOUT the fed).
"Document fundamentalism and the worship of anachronistic tradition is a disease that kills millions."
A belief and adherence to the Constitution is a good thing, Pancake. Because it consists of very basic principles upon which a society can survive and thrive. Of course, if you HAVE no principles, then, yes, I'm sure you would favor throwing it out and starting over. The fascistic, freedom-hating, communistic, dictatorial society that you espouse HAS killed millions and I can give you any number of examples that prove it. (See former Soviet Union, North Korea, Rwanda for a few).
The fact is, we have not PRACTICED Contstiutional principles for about 80 years, so how you could possibly charge "document fundamentalism and anachroinistic tradition" when the Constitution has been subverted for at least the last 2 generations is beyond me. What people like you and Teece are really complaining about is the failure of the great socialist experiment that began in the 30's.