Differing Takes On The Shooting In Charleston

"I honestly have nothing other than just sadness once again that we have to peer into the abyss of the depraved violence that we do to each other and the nexus of a just gaping racial wound that will not heal, yet we pretend doesn’t exist. And I’m confident, though, that by acknowledging it, by staring into that and seeing it for what it is, we still won’t do jack shit. Yeah. That’s us.

And that’s the part that blows my mind. I don’t want to get into the political argument of the guns and things. But what blows my mind is the disparity of response between when we think people that are foreign are going to kill us, and us killing ourselves.

If this had been what we thought was Islamic terrorism, it would fit into our — we invaded two countries and spent trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives and now fly unmanned death machines over five or six different countries, all to keep Americans safe. We got to do whatever we can. We’ll torture people. We gotta do whatever we can to keep Americans safe.

Nine people shot in a church. What about that? “Hey, what are you gonna do? Crazy is as crazy is, right?” That’s the part that I cannot, for the life of me, wrap my head around, and you know it. You know that it’s going to go down the same path. “This is a terrible tragedy.” They’re already using the nuanced language of lack of effort for this. This is a terrorist attack. This is a violent attack on the Emanuel Church in South Carolina, which is a symbol for the black community. It has stood in that part of Charleston for 100 and some years and has been attacked viciously many times, as many black churches have.

I heard someone on the news say “Tragedy has visited this church.” This wasn’t a tornado. This was a racist. This was a guy with a Rhodesia badge on his sweater. You know, so the idea that — you know, I hate to even use this pun, but this one is black and white. There’s no nuance here.

And we’re going to keep pretending like, “I don’t get it. What happened? This one guy lost his mind.” But we are steeped in that culture in this country and we refuse to recognize it, and I cannot believe how hard people are working to discount it. In South Carolina, the roads that black people drive on are named for Confederate generals who fought to keep black people from being able to drive freely on that road. That’s insanity. That’s racial wallpaper. That’s — that’s — you can’t allow that, you know.

Nine people were shot in a black church by a white guy who hated them, who wanted to start some kind of civil war. The Confederate flag flies over South Carolina, and the roads are named for Confederate generals, and the white guy’s the one who feels like his country is being taken away from him. We’re bringing it on ourselves. And that’s the thing. Al-Qaeda, all those guys, ISIS, they’re not s— compared to the damage that we can apparently do to ourselves on a regular basis."


~Jon Stewart, The Daily Show


“I find it extraordinary that people would call this a hate crime.”

~Steve Doocy, Fox-N-Friends

“Wait for the facts, don’t jump to conclusions ... most people jump to conclusions about race… There does seem to be a rising hostily towards Christians across this country because of our biblical views… [The shooter] didn’t choose a bar, he didn’t choose a basketball court [i.e. places where “black people” are usually found]… He chose a church. I would urge pastors and men in these churches to prepare to defend ourselves. We’ve got to arm ourselves... when women and children are attacked.”

~E.W. Jackson, a pastor and the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2013, speaking Thursday morning on Fox-N-Friends

The Poor Pay. The Rich Don't.

"Johnny is a cheating teacher on a train traveling 80 mph west, to jail. Charlie is a cheating Wall Street executive on a train traveling 40 mph…. I'm kidding, it's a helicopter and he's going to a party where a giant ice sculpture of David is peeing vodka." ~Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart examines with his usual sharp wit and perceptiveness how the rich get away with everything.

The working stiff pays for his crime by doing time. The rich are given a pass… Heck, they’re rich and therefore not culpable.

You may remember this story about the rich kid excused for killing someone with his car while driving drunk because he was also driving while rich. Wealth was the excuse.

We have high-end crime in America because they are rich enough to ignore the law. For them Crime Pays.

In Scandinavia they can at least wipe that smug look off their faces. (The Atlantic reports)

This demonstrates again that the biggest force in the economy is something no news story will report on and no news anchor ever mentions.

It’s called THE RULE OF ACCUMULATED ADVANTAGE.

The more advantages you have the more they leverage every other advantage you have.

The more disadvantaged you are the more those disadvantages leverage other disadvantages to keep you down.

The rich defy gravity. The poor sink.

Some Quotes Worth Posting

"Data worth pondering:
S&P 500 index:
1-20-93: 433.37
1-20-01: 1342.54
1-20-09: 805.22
Latest: 1432.84
Draw your own conclusions."
~Bruce Bartlett, former Reagan economic advisor

"ObamaCare. RomneyDon't." (Seen on a wall.)

"Mitt Romney was not a businessman; he was a master financial speculator who bought, sold, flipped, and stripped businesses. He did not build enterprises the old-fashioned way—out of inspiration, perspiration, and a long slog in the free market fostering a new product, service, or process of production. Instead, he spent his 15 years raising debt in prodigious amounts on Wall Street so that Bain could purchase the pots and pans and castoffs of corporate America, leverage them to the hilt, gussy them up as reborn “roll-ups,” and then deliver them back to Wall Street for resale—the faster the better. That is the modus operandi of the leveraged-buyout business, and in an honest free-market economy, there wouldn’t be much scope for it because it creates little of economic value." ~David Stockman, Director of Office of Management and Budget in Reagan White House

"Conservatism's mansion has many rooms, and all of them are padded." Charlie Pierce

"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they've been fooled." ~Mark Twain

“What worries me is the idea that we’re in a vicious cycle. Increasing inequality means a weaker economy, which means increasing inequality, which means a weaker economy. That economic inequality feeds into political economy, so the ability to stabilize the economy gets weaker.” ~Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize economist

"The traditional third-party mantra, "There's no significant difference between the major parties" amounts to saying: "The Republicans are no worse, overall." And that's absurd. It constitutes shameless apologetics for the Republicans, however unintended. It's crazily divorced from present reality." ~Daniel Ellsberg

"In the eight to twelve close-fought states -- especially Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, but also Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin -- for any progressive to encourage fellow progressives and others in those states to vote for a third-party candidate is, I would say, to be complicit in facilitating the election of Romney and Ryan, with all its consequences." ~Daniel Ellsberg

“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy.” ~George Orwell, 1984

"Many people think that Congress regulates Wall Street, but in fact it is Wall Street that regulates Congress. Virtually no piece of legislation can pass through Congress unless it has the okay from corporate America and big money interests."~Bernie Sanders, Independent, VT

"Let me warn you, and let me warn the nation, against the smooth evasion that says, 'Of course we believe all these things. We believe in social security. We believe in work for the unemployed. We believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things! But we do not like the way the present administration is doing them....'" FDR

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country…. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed." ~Abraham Lincoln

"Every good citizen ought to do everything in his or her power to prevent the coming of the day when we shall see in this country two recognized creeds fighting one another, when we shall see the creed of the "Havenots" arraigned against the creed of the "Haves." -- Theodore Roosevelt, October 14, 1912

"Love how the GOP, after bringing the economy to the brink of ruin in 2008, are now acting like someone else farted." ~Andy Borowitz

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything." ~Alexander Hamilton

"A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing." ~Alexander Hamilton

"Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things." ~Alexander Hamilton

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." ~Ambrose Bierce

“The "Trickle-Down" Theory: the principle that the poor, who must subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich bigger meals.” ~William Blum

"A President Romney would push legislation, sign it, reverse it, reinstate it, deny it was ever passed, veto it retroactively, then prosecute it aggressively." ~Pasquino

"Why is it that if you take advantage of a corporate tax break you're a smart businessman, but if you take advantage of something so you don't go hungry you're a moocher?" ~Jon Stewart

''You can say anything you want during a debate and 80 million people hear it. If reporters then document that a candidate spoke untruthfully, ''so what?'' ~Peter Teeley, press secretary to Vice President Bush, 1984

"If these stories are true these men are not bankers, they are banksters who rob the poor, drive the innocent to poverty and suicide and do infinite injury to those who honestly work and strive. Worse than that, they are traitors to our institutions and national ideas." ~Herbert Hoover, upon learning of the predatory practices of Wall Street bankers before, during and after the Crash of 1929.

“All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.” ~Congressman Paul Broun, Republican from Georgia, member of the House Science Committee

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." Voltaire

"The institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise. The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth.” ~Republican State Rep. Jon Hubbard of Jonesboro, Arkansas

"The good journalist must recognize in Fascism certain ancient virtues of the race, whether or not they happen to be momentarily fashionable in his own country. Among these are Discipline, Duty, Courage, Glory, Sacrifice." FORTUNE magazine, July 1934

"Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people." ~Adam Smith. The Wealth of Nations 1776

"People who dismiss the unemployed and dependent as ‘parasites’ fail to understand economics and parasitism. A successful parasite is one that is not recognized by its host, one that can make its host work for it without appearing as a burden. Such is the ruling class in a capitalist society.” ~Jason Read

"The moneyed elite in this country are dragging a bag filled with your future down the steps, and [the Republican base's] reaction is, 'Hold on there, that looks heavy. Let me give you a hand getting it into your trunk.'" ~Bill Maher

"Here's a guy who comes from a millionaire family, goes through elite schools, has all the breaks in life, and he is lecturing working families, people who are on Social Security and Medicare, about personal responsibility. Well, these are people, who in some cases have served in the military, defended our country, raised kids, worked 40 or 50 or 60 hours a week, they know life. They don't want to be lectured by some millionaire guy talking to his millionaire friends about personal responsibility." ~Senator Bernie Sanders on Mitt Romney

"My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives." ~Mitt Romney

Jon Stewart arm wrestles Grover Norquist (and wins)

Here's the Jon Stewart interview. (Dontcha wish actual newspeople interviewed this well?)

I have a pledge for you. And I bet it'd work.

"Any congressional district that elects anyone who signs Grover Norquist's pledge shall have its federal funding adjusted to equal its federal taxes paid."

This would affect mostly Republican districts who get more than they pay in. And it would balance the budget almost immediately.

Take it a step further: all congressional districts that elect a Democrat shall not have to pay more in taxes than they receive in federal funding. This would affect most Democratic districts who tend to pay more in taxes than they receive in federal dollars.

Ya see, here's the Big Hypocrisy: the districts that get the most from the federal government are Republican districts. And Republican districts nationwide, on average, get more from the federal government than they pay in.

So we'd be doing them a favor. We'd be helping them be honest, helping them be true to their ideals. No more federal gravy train for Republican districts who signed Grover's pledge (which he thought up when he was twelve–––I'm not making this up, it's on tape.) And Democrat taxpayers would stop being ripped off by the lazy, tax evading Republican parts of the country.

Anyway, Jon Stewart does a pretty fair job of outdebating Norquist. He points out that Reagan raised taxes a dozen or so times. He points out Clinton raised taxes and created a budget surplus and a boom, and Bush cut them and destroyed the global economy and bankrupted the country. Norquist doesn't blink or argue because it's all true.

Stewart does miss one big fat opportunity. When Norquist says we should get rid of public pensions and replace them with 401K's because then everyone knows exactly what they are going to get, Jon should have pointed out that 401K's are the accounts that Wall Street cleaned out over the past four years. The money went away. (Well, it didn't go away as much as it went into Goldman Sachs executive bonuses.)

Retirees under the privatized system have to pray really hard that the economy is up when they retire.

The thing Norquist hates about pensions is they are promises that have to be kept even if the market is being wiped out by pirates. Norquist doesn't like promises made to working people. Only promises made to pirates and CEOs, who are sometimes the same thing.

Martha Stewart Died For Our Sins

Jon Stewart does a quick explanation of how insiders helped insiders to trillions of taxpayer dollars. The enablers of the collapse helping out the perpetrators of the collapse. To do what? Well, to give themselves enormous bonuses for one thing. It's nice to be a financial insider.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg News tells us, Bush's Treasury Secretary was giving a very special group of close personal friends a heads up on what was going down so they could invest their billions appropriately and get extra special rewards. And Congress wasn't even told about all of this. Bush, Paulson, Hedge Funds, the Inner Circle, but not American taxpayers or Congress. Hm...

Will someone explain to me why Martha Stewart went to jail?

Hypocrisy-du-jour

Jon Stewart (and his writers) are again the sharpest news analysts in the business, taking apart the hypocrite-du-jour on FoxNews. It's really funny even if it makes you mad.

"We deserve what we get, dammit. But everything everybody else gets is wrong and greedy and unfair." The evil entitlements are those going to other people. Those entitlements not going to attractive, blonde, highly paid FoxNews anchors with attractive children destined for exclusive private schools.

Is this or is this not the core belief of all Republicans?

To put it differently, Republicans who make their living off capital gains are Hard Working Americans. Everybody else is lazy and undeserving and damn lucky Republicans are nice enough to employ them at a poverty wage.

Republicans who make millions off the government are doing so out of selfless patriotism––the millions they receive are accidental. Other people who make a meager living off the government are parasites and Communists.

This is called hypocrisy and Americans would laugh at it if Republicans weren't holding a gun to our head.

I think this is what Mr. Stewart is noticing. Maybe I should do his blogging for him...