July 2011
81 posts
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House GOP delays debt limit vote →
The vote, which had been set for around 6 p.m. Eastern Time, has not been rescheduled, though a House GOP leadership aide told CBS News it is still planned for tonight.
The Republican leadership has been working feverishly to get the votes to pass the bill over the objections of the fiscal conservative hard-liners in their caucus; earlier this week, House Majority Leader John Boehner...
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“[H]e’s had no more problems with child support than any other average guy.”
– Attorney for Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), a Tea Party-backed lawmaker and apparent deadbeat dad. Walsh is allegedly so fiscally conservative that he’s conserving $100,000 in child support liabilities back into his own wallet. You know, like any other average guy would. (via Jonathan Cunningham)
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“Poverty is not created by poor people. It has been created and sustained by the...”
– Muhammad Yunus (via theamericanbear)
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Pretty sure I just heard MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer begin a story with “The confessed Norwegian terrorist…” Progress!
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Why We'll Default
jasencomstock:
thecallus:
Boehner can’t deliver votes on a debt ceiling increase of any kind. His party, infiltrated by insane persons, will refuse all but the most austere plans featuring gross perversions of the Constitution. Consequently, Boehner is in the unique position of having nothing to lose.
If he gambles and we default, oh well. If he gambles and we pass ridiculous Constitutional...
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Seeking correspondence between NJ Gov. Chris... →
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“When our law punishes words, we must examine the surrounding circumstances to...”
– U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a decision that overturned the conviction of a man who called for the assassination of then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008.
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Important question for the New Yorkers: Why are so many people paying so much money to live in Boston?
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R.I.P. Amy Winehouse
ryking:
Dead at 27.
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logarhythmic:
Terrorism vs. “Extremism” somerset:
For much of the day yesterday, the featured headline on The New York Times online front page strongly suggested that Muslims were responsible for the attacks on Oslo; that led to definitive statements on the BBC and elsewhere that Muslims were the culprits. The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin wrote a whole column based on the...
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Norway Update
kateoplis:
An eyewitness says he saw at least 20 dead at youth camp near Oslo.
There are unconfirmed reports that the shooter in Utoya had blue eyes and blond hair.
Police say that the man arrested at Norway camp shooting is linked to the bombing in Oslo.
The Police now suspect one or more bombs at Utoya.
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pegobry:
Google isn’t making us stupider, it’s simply making us realise that omniscience is actually slightly boring.
— Douglas Coupland on why Marshall McLuhan’s chilling vision still matters today. McLuhan would’ve been 100 this week. Coupland is the author of the fantastic and thought-provoking almost-biography Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work! (via...
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$63 million: The amount of money the state of Florida reportedly made by selling drivers’ information, including names, addresses, dates of birth, and what cars they own, to employers, insurance companies, and data-collection firms. [more]
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I’ve made a new Tumblr on which to aggregate content about the debt ceiling situation in the U.S. Follow it here: http://debtceilingdealbreaker.tumblr.com
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“Instead of a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, we need to...”
– David Frum
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“When you pay a worker to help fix a decaying bridge or weatherize an apartment...”
– David Brin (via azspot)
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New Book: What does the Tea Party Want? →
The usual assumption of the news media elites is that the Tea Party’s worldview is inchoate or just plain uninformed. “I think the pundit class tends to treat popular ideologies as products of ignorance,” Ms. Skocpol told me. But when she and her colleagues delved deeper, including distributing questionnaires to Tea Party activists and interviewing many of them, the scholars found that, “Rather...
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squashed:
I’m sensing some hesitance to share my excitement over the nomination of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Perhaps I can put his nomination in some context.
Cordray was recruited by Elizabeth Warren to head the enforcement division of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. His credentials to run this division when, as Ohio’s Attorney General, he...
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Obama Eliminates Warren as Consumer Head -... →
President Barack Obama has chosen a candidate other than Elizabeth Warren as director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a person briefed on the matter.
The president’s choice is a person who already works at the consumer agency, the person said today. Obama may make the nomination as soon as next week, another person briefed on the administration’s plans said.
The...
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News Corp. Retains PR Firm Edelman to Manage... →
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Bachmann Insists Debt Deal Failure Would Not Stop... →
Bachmann joined with Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, a close ally, to introduce a bill that they said would sidestep default by limiting government payments primarily to holders of U.S. debt and members of the military. King acknowledged that the plan would leave room for only 58 percent of federal obligations, forcing cuts of about $1 trillion a year. Social Security, Medicare, defense and interest on...
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Learn some things about Grover Norquist, the maniac who is most responsible for the Tea Party’s debt ceiling hostage situation.
I literally would have paid money for the chance to write that profile.
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JP Morgan Investor Report: Huge Corporate Profits... →
As ThinkProgress previously reported, since 2009, 88 percent of income growth has gone to corporate profits, and only 1 percent has gone to wages. Now, a July 11 edition of Eyes On The Market, a JP Morgan investor report, finds that S&P 500 corporate profit margins increased by about 1.3 percent from 2000 to 2007, with profit margins reaching levels “not seen in decades.” The JP Morgan...
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MSNBC: Business Lobby Pleads for Deal on Debt... →
“We believe it is vitally important for the U.S. government to make good on its financial obligations and to put its fiscal house in order,” wrote the Chamber of Commerce in a letter signed by nearly 500 American CEOs that was sent to the White House and all Capitol Hill offices. “Now is the time for our political leaders to put aside partisan differences and act in the...
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“How many Republicans have been on TV saying, ‘I am not going to raise the debt...”
– Sen. Lindsey Graham (R—SC) on the debt limit increase being held hostage by the Tea Party’s economic ignorance, which conservatives have been stoking for months.
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Did you know that lawmakers no longer write all of... →
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Maybe I’m just crabby this morning (and I do like a lot of the magazine’s long-form writing), but this GQ listicle of worst-dressed cities in the U.S. stinks of privilege-denial.
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Well this is certainly creative. TPM reports:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has proposed creating an escape hatch for Congressional Republicans, who have put themselves in a box by threatening not to raise the national debt limit if Democrats don’t agree to trillions of dollars in cuts to popular social programs.
The plan is designed to give President Obama the power to...
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thepoliticalnotebook:
“I wouldn’t read a newspaper now unless you put a gun to my head and even then I would really try to negotiate with you. It’s not that I reject the content, it’s that I reject the format.”
— MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan lays out his Media Diet. Read the rest at The Atlantic Wire (via theatlantic)
Not a huge fan of this statement. And not simply because...
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Making sense out of this remark would be like successfully dividing by zero.
inothernews:
“Nobody is talking about not raising the debt ceiling; I haven’t heard that discussed by anybody.”
— Senate minority leader MITCH MCCONNELL (R - Kentucky), on Fox “News” Sunday, seemingly indicating that the Republicans will bend on the issue of raising the debt ceiling...
