Tagged: national

Tucson Tragedy

The lead story today is the massacre in Tuscon. All the news reports indicate that Congresscritter Gabrielle Giffords was the target. Last night, the Sherriff of Pima County, Clarence Dupnick said  ”When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government; the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous, and unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

There had been threats against Giffords before, Dupnick said that she had been threatened by someone with a gun during her re-election campaign in November, adding that there had been other threats, and that last March her office had been shot at and vandalized.

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Diplomatic Crisis

The big news this Sunday is the reports trickling out on the Diplomatic cables that have been released though wikileaks. OVer 250,000 cables were released, half covering the last three years starting in 2007, but some dating back to the 1960s. The big reveal, arab allies wanted the US to bomb Iran. Well, that explains why our Iranian policy has been so singularly driven in that direction by neocons. Then there’s the US Diplomats being encouraged to spy on the UN leadership. But that’s not all.

We start with the Guardian:

The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year.

At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables – many of which are designated “secret” – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN’s leadership.

These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistlebowers’ website, also reveal Washington’s evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues.

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Motor Trend Exposes Blowhard Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh apparently hasn’t learned his lesson about what subjects to veer into. Not so long ago, Limbaugh got into hot water over his “analysis” of quarterbacks in the NFL. This year it’s over dissing Motor Trend magazine and its selection of the 2011 car of the year. In case you missed it, they picked the Chevrolet Volt. This selection upset Limbaugh, who on his radio show had this to say:

“Folks, of all the cars, no offense, General Motors, please, but of all the cars in the world, the Chevrolet Volt is the Car of the Year? Motor Trend magazine, that’s the end of them. How in the world do they have any credibility? Not one has been sold. The Volt is the Car of the Year.”

This quote is what Motor Trend’s  Todd Lassa teed up for a beautiful example of a rebutal in the ways most media don’t bother with. It’s what every political reporter should do when anyone, but especially politicians, just make stuff up or play fast and loose with facts.

Motor Trend magazine is one of those car geek magazines that extolls everything from the inner workings of a car to the performance on the road. It’s one of the magazines I check when looking at cars because of they do a great job of detailing the stuff you really want to know before you make a car purchase. Look up your car and see for yourself. Limbaugh’s attack on their car journalistic bonafides was just dumb. As they so efficiently dissected:

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Nanny State Thinks We’re Stupid

The problem when you start banning stuff, is that you don’t know when to stop. So the subject of alcoholic energy drinks is confounding the very serious senate nannies. They want to ban packaged drinks like Four Loko. On Senator Schumer, D-NY’s web site:

“The Food and Drug Administration will rule that caffeine is an unsafe food additive to alcoholic beverages, effectively making products such as Four Loko, Joose and others like them prohibited for sale in the United States. Additionally, the Federal Trade Commission plans to notify manufacturers that they are engaged in the potential illegal marketing of unsafe alcoholic drinks.”

Um, yeah like you can’t drink a Red Bull and a shot of vodka on your own. At a bar. Consecutively or mixed. Morons.

Hard Truths About The Federal Deficit

Well there’s certainly been talk about the federal budget these days, and I’m certainly not immune to the issue. But let’s refresh out collective memories as to what the federal government actually spends money on.

So the navy blue line represents revenues, and you can see the effect of the Bush tax cuts, which have essentially pushed down revenue collection far below what the actual spending is. So much for that surplus to plan for spending. And we can see that federal spending is more or less smaller than it has been despite the stimulus plans etc. And we can see that social security is fairly stable. That leaves Medicare and Medicaid. Which will consume the majority of the federal spending budget. Got that? Kinda makes that healthcare reform issue really important if you care about reducing spending down the road. The next 20 years represent the crux of the problem as the baby boom generation lives longer and hits those end of year medical care costs that make the bulk of spending.

The budget plan that everyone is talking about proposes to do exactly nothing about Medicare and Medicaid and focuses on Social Security and Other Federal Noninterest Spending. What’s the point? That’s not where the problem in our budget lies. Two things need to happen, revenues need to go up and Medicare and Medicaid spending needs to go down. Discuss.

Sharia Law Coming To You From South Carolina

Imagine if the Senate was returned to a Republican Majority. We’d get something akin to Sharia laws. What are those? Hey you haven’t been paying attention to the tea party these days. Meet Sharon Angle who has lots to say about constitutional law while running for Senate in Nevada:

One of the last questioners asked about “Muslims taking over the U.S.,” including a question about Angle’s stance on the proposed mosque near Ground Zero in New York.

“We’re talking about a militant terrorist situation, which I believe isn’t a widespread thing, but it is enough that we need to address, and we have been addressing it,” Angle said.

“Dearborn, Michigan, and Frankford, Texas are on American soil, and under Constitutional law. Not Sharia law. And I don’t know how that happened in the United States. It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law to even take hold in any municipality or government situation in our United States.”

Um, Sharia law is the Islamic version of  Allah’s edict on a whole bunch of things. Like that women are subservient to men when it comes to property and inheritance and the right to work. Kinda like Senator Jim DeMint’s views on the same:

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