"I know your species has developed the technology to leave me, I’ve seen you use it before, so I’m asking you now, please, just take the hint already," read another excerpt from the Earth’s statement, which added that it would really be best for all concerned if humanity were to "trundle off to some other biosphere for a while.” …
“Honestly, what more is it going to take for you people to get the message?” …
"Do I have to spell it out for you?" the statement continued. "Get the fuck out of here. I want you to leave now." …
Category Archives: NADA – New American Dark Ages
New American Dark Ages
Medicare for All
At the start of health care reform, MR suggested Medicare availability for 50+. Now, a big-wig calls for Medicare at any age.
The Republican death wish – War Room – Salon.com
Democrats should be proposing that anyone be allowed to sign up for Medicare. Medicare is cheaper than private insurance because its administrative costs are so much lower, and it has vast economies of scale.
If Medicare were allowed to use its potential bargaining leverage over America’s hospitals, doctors, drug companies, and medical providers, it could drive down costs even further.
And it could force the nation’s broken health-care system to do something it must do but has resisted with a vengeance: Focus on healthy outcomes rather on costly inputs. If Medicare paid for results — not tests, procedures, drugs, and hospital stays, but results — it could give Americans better health at lower cost.
Let the GOP go after Medicare. That will do more to elect Democrats in 2012 than anything else. But it would be wise and politically astute for Democrats to go beyond just defending Medicare. Strengthen and build upon it. Use it to reform American health care and, not incidentally, rescue the federal budget.
Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was secretary of labor during the Clinton administration. He is also a blogger and the author of "Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future." More: Robert Reich
The Republican death wish – War Room – Salon.com
[hat tip to dangerousmeta]
Who the Republicans Really Work For (and Against)
ThinkProgress » Boehner Shares Stage With David Koch At Wall Street Club
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) went to the heart of Wall Street last night to deliver a major speech on the deficit at the Economic Club of New York. The stage on which Boehner spoke featured a who’s who of financial moguls, including conservative billionaire David Koch, co-owner — along with his brother Charles –of the oil conglomerate Koch Industries, and a major funder of right-wing advocacy and tea party groups. This AP photo captured Boehner shaking hands with deficit advocate Pete Peterson, as Koch looked on:
Koch was also one of the few people with whom Boehner shook hands as he exited the stage after his speech
ThinkProgress » Boehner Shares Stage With David Koch At Wall Street Club
As ThinkProgress has reported, brothers Charles and David Koch and their corporate giant, Koch Industries, have played an extensive role in the corporate takeover of government, both at the state and federal level. This weekend, another of the Kochs’ projects surfaced in Texas, as the state’s Republican lawmakers rammed through a Koch-backed bill that would make it harder for consumers, workers, and small business owners to bring civil suits against corporations.
A growing number of GOP-led states are launching a concerted effort to severely impede and disenfranchise voters across the country. Last Thursday, the Florida legislature did its part by passing a 128-page “sweeping rewrite” of the state’s elections laws with “head-spinning speed” that now heads to Gov. Rick Scott (R) for signature. Passed along a party-line vote, the bill — HB 1355 — contains several provisions that drastically alter election laws to disadvantage and disenfranchise voters across the state …
In the wake of their successful assault on Osama Bin Laden’s hideout, ABC News did a short feature on the Navy Seals. The report tells us that the people who hold this highly demanding and dangerous get paid about $54,000 a year. It then adds that:
“The base salary level [of Navy Seals] is comparable to the average annual salary for teachers in the U.S., which was $55,350 for the 2009-2010 school year, according to the Digest of Education Statistics.’ That is one possible comparison. There are other possible reference points. For example, the CEOs of Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan both pocket around $20 million a year.
Teach Your Children Well
There’s a party in the park today. There’s a Bounce for the kids – one of those soft cages kept inflated by an infernal combustion engine spewing noise and fumes for the next 10 hours. You gotta have a Bounce. Otherwise, what would the kids do for fun – run and play like generations before them? (Not today’s kids: they’ll be on their iPhonePadPlayers texting each other and playing games that involve destroying.)
I have a feeling the noise-generating Bounce is a gateway to a lifetime of similar toys: the BMX, the ATV, the JetSki, all towed behind the self-contained RV with microwave and DVD player, powered by a generator. Now, surely, this is a coincidence. Surely, the Bounce isn’t a cynical tool for pushing children into a lifelong consumer rut (both meanings). However, where does running and playing in the park lead: walking, hiking, maybe even the quiet contemplation and appreciation of one’s surroundings. Where’s the profit in that?
Of course, the Bounce provides parents with a place to deposit the kids while they check their email. They may even get a few minutes to talk with other grown-ups, if they can hear each other over the din.
And tomorrow the park will be strewn with more trash than usual. This obliviousness, indifference, and disdain of place is the logical culmination of our evolution: we don’t need no stinkin’ Earth. The anthrosphere transcends place. When this planet is used up, we’ll order another one. There’s an app for that, surely.
There is no end to Birther Nonsense
This morning Obama said, “I know that there’s going to be a segment of people for which, no matter what we put out, this issue will not be put to rest. But I’m speaking to the vast majority of the American people, as well as to the press. We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We’ve got better stuff to do. I’ve got better stuff to do.”
If you’re a birther at this point, you’re an idiot and, probably, a racist. You’re certainly wasting precious time and brainpower on bullshit.
“This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense.” (58 years ago)
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms in not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.Address by President Dwight D. Eisenhower "The Chance for Peace" delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16,1953.
Shameless Republicans
[W]hile the four Republicans in Congressional leadership positions are attempting to hold the increase hostage now, they combined to vote for a debt limit increase 19 times during the presidency of George W. Bush. In doing so, they increased the debt limit by nearly $4 trillion.
DUHbya said: “At the end of those 10 years, we will have paid down all the debt that is available to retire. That is more debt repaid more quickly than has ever been repaid by any nation at any time in history.” [liar-idiot]
Of course, the opposite occurred, with debt held by the public increasing from $3.5 trillion to nearly $6 trillion and gross federal debt going from $5.6 trillion to nearly $10 trillion. In fact, conservatives argued in 2001 that the very existence of a budget surplus was a valid reason to enact large, regressive tax cuts. But this is precisely what happens when you have an administration that believes “deficits don’t matter.”
A new report by Public Campaign examines how these major corporations have influenced Congress to craft a tax code that lets them get away with making so much money and paying so little taxes in return. In its report, “The Artful Dodgers,” Public Campaign juxtaposes the limited tax liability of dozen major corporations with the companies’ campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures, which amount to more than a billion dollars over the last decade: [read the list at the following link]