It’s Friday, ya bastids!A rally for the rest of us! John Stewart and Stephen Colbert are having “competing” rallies on the National Mall on October 30th (video below). It’s not entirely clear that this is for real, but then I could say the same thing about Glenn Beck’s rally. Well, at least this will be one rally with a lot fewer misspelled signs. If it is just a joke, then neither Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert would show up. Then the mall will just be full of a bunch of confused people. And again, we’re back to a Glenn Beck rally.
As Paul Krugman points out in an excellent column, Mitch McConnell is holding the middle class hostage so he can try and force through the tax cuts for the rich. Raising taxes on the middle class in an economic slump would be disastrous. So the GOP is in effect threatening to plunge the entire US economy into a depression, unless we go along with tax policies that will… well, plunge the entire US economy into a depression.
The recession we already have has put the poverty rate at a 15-year high. 14.3 percent of Americans live in poverty. Californian, the largest state, is home to about 12 percent of the US population. If poverty were a state, it would be the biggest state in the United States. Americans have survived by sharing homes with parents and other relatives. There’s been an 11.6 percent increase in multi-family homes over the past two years. America isn’t moving forward… it’s moving back in with its folks. So not only are there unemployment lines, now there are lines for the bathroom in the morning too.
Finally, staffers from previous Christine O’Donnell campaigns are speaking out about what a disaster she was. In 2008 O’Donnell was obsessed with an idea to distribute 100,000 packets of suntan lotion with the slogan “Don’t Get Burned By Higher Taxes. Vote Christine O’Donnell 2008.” If she used the suntan packets in her last campaign, she could have used the slogan “Help Christine O’Donnell Smear Mike Castle!” She was also convinced that she could be the keynote speaker at the Republican Convention, and even booked a trip to St. Paul to try. Did she really think that an unqualified dingbat could just waltz in and address the Republican Convention? Besides Sarah Palin, I mean.
Today’s Homework Discuss
Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity announcement:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Rally to Restore Sanity | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - Bill Clinton Extended Interview Pt. 1 | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - Bill Clinton Extended Interview Pt. 2 | ||||
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Thom's blog
The United States of CEOs
Last week, in a San Bruno, California, neighborhood, a natural gas pipeline exploded in a thunderous sound heard for miles destroying homes and killed at least four people. Now, a consumer advocacy group has found that the company that operated the faulty pipeline, Pacific Gas & Energy (PG&E), had classified the pipe as a high risk and yet did not use the funds it had collected from a rate hike to repair it. Meanwhile, all over the nation states and cities are increasingly outsourcing facilities and infrastructure to private, for-profit companies like PG&E, taking in short term cash to help them through this tough economic time, but turning our infrastructure over to institutions that are set up only to make a profit and not to further the public good. From privatized parking meters to water supplies to toll roads to gas lines, America is increasingly becoming the United States of CEOs, with less and less control, oversight, and influence from We The People.
http://thomhartmann.com/
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