j_b

The nitwits who cheer-lead the robber barons while they took America to the brink are talking about TRUST? The hypocrisy of regressives has no bounds.

by your own admission, the whole establishment is practically in big business' pocket, and has been for damn near a century - i don't see how it can get much worse. institutionalizing corruption is a lot worse than having to give the appearance of propriety.

Human nature is just as readily studied scientifically as any other natural phenomenon. Decades of study have produced excellent, predictive models of how markets, relationships, authority, and other human nature-driven phenomena work. The assumed (and false) inscrutability of such phenomena springs forth from that most fundamental of human desires: to remain inscrutable. These studies couldn't differentiate between nature and nurture.

Like all those rednecks in Massachusetts, eh "professor"? especially don't take your delusion for reality: by a 68-27 margin, voters in last Tuesday's election supported the universal health care law in Massachusetts; this included a majority of Scott Brown voters.

Not even. 2/3 of Americans never watch cable news. At best, this poll is confirmation that regressives who watch FOX believe the crap shoveled at them.

smearing my person is all you have got jackass. It sounds like I got under your skin, goon.

I hear ya Brother. What a great place America would be if we just got rid of all the lemmings. Nice dodge (and you thought you had a slam dunk LOL) but you'll have to attempt getting rid of lemmings all by yourself.

Not surprising at all but thank you PP for showing us once again that regressives are lemmings who'll trust corporate shills that manipulate their emotions so easily. In turn, progressives distrust all corporate news, including those that regressives call 'librul', and for good reasons.

Wrong 'bout that, Bill. They've been singing his praises here for some time now. Liar. What I said was that agrarian reform and getting rid of the oligarchy was a good idea but I was leery of Chavez's Bonapartism. As for that BBC article, it's hardly objective. inflation has been high in Ven for decades now and I seriously doubt their GDP is very much outside the trend found in latin Amrica.

More red-baiting from jackboot. Always trust supporters of military coups d'etat and death squads to accuse others of being undemocratic.

I liked the title from Rollingstone Mag that said: "Republicans hold a 41-59 majority in the senate"

He got the most from the Financial/real estate sector. The green party candidate got the least from finance/real estate ... http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/sectors.php?sector=F

whether PP trolls isn't very important (and not very likely). He has been on message for as long as I have been around here. At this stage, troll or not isn't differentiable.

I am so insecure that I have been saying for months that a majority of the public is on Obama's left.

more unequivocal poll numbers in Mass: * Generally speaking do you think Barack Obama and Democrats in Washington, DC are delivering enough on the change Obama promised to bring to America during the campaign? Yes 31% No 57% Not sure 12% * Do you think Democrats in Washington, D.C. are fighting hard enough to challenge the Republican policies of the Bush years, aren’t fighting hard enough to change those policies, or are fighting about right? Not Enough 37% About Right 21% Too Hard 15% Not Sure 27% * If the Democratic Congress passed a bill that laid down stronger rules of the road for Wall Street and cut bonuses for the executives of companies that received government bailouts, would that make you more likely or less likely to vote Democratic in the 2010 general election? More likely 53% Less likely 14% No effect 33% * What would do more to improve our nation’s economic conditions: Decreasing government spending OR tightening government regulation of Wall Street and corporate executives? Cut spending 43% Tighten regulation 25% * Democrats in Washington are more on my side than on the side of the lobbyists and special interests, OR Democrats in Washington are more on the side of the lobbyists and special interests than on the side of people like me. The lobbyists 47% People like me 23% Not sure 30% * (Asked of people who opposed the Senate healthg care reform bill:) Do you think it goes too far or doesn’t go far enough? Too far 23% Not far enough 36% * Would you favor or oppose the national government offering everyone the choice of a government administered health insurance plan — something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older get — that would compete with private health insurance plans? Favor 82% Oppose 14% Not Sure 4% It's also noteworthy that in each of those questions, people who self-identified as independents were nearly identical in their views to self-identified Democrats. http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010010320/poll-shouts-message-massachusetts-voters-were-sending

it's the spin of all corporocrats, including those in the Democratic party. Lieberman said the Dems had to move to the center, as if he'd let them move leftward without dragging his feet

I hope regressives aren't rejoicing too soon because their fake populism isn't fooling too many: "Massachusetts voters who backed Barack Obama in the presidential election a year ago and either switched support to Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown or simply stayed home, said in a poll conducted after the election Tuesday night that if Democrats enact tougher policies on Wall Street, they'll be more likely to come back to the party in the next election. A majority of Obama voters who switched to Brown said that "Democratic policies were doing more to help Wall Street than Main Street." A full 95 percent said the economy was important or very important when it came to deciding their vote. In a somewhat paradoxical finding, a plurality of voters who switched to the Republican -- 37 percent -- said that Democrats were not being "hard enough" in challenging Republican policies. It would be hard to find a clearer indication, it seems, that Tuesday's vote was cast in protest. The poll also upends the conventional understanding of health care's role in the election. A plurality of people who switched -- 48 -- or didn't vote -- 43 -- said that they opposed the Senate health care bill. But the poll dug deeper and asked people why they opposed it. Among those Brown voters, 23 percent thought it went "too far" -- but 36 percent thought it didn't go far enough and 41 percent said they weren't sure why they opposed it. Among voters who stayed home and opposed health care, a full 53 percent said they opposed the Senate bill because it didn't go far enough; 39 percent weren't sure and only eight percent thought it went too far." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/20/obama-backers-more-commit_n_429673.html

Really? It's not listed here: Iowa communities and counties

Giving payroll tax break to employers is probably a good idea only if the money is reinvested (here and not in Timbuktu), which demands having strings attached. Otherwise it is just more of the trickle down nonsense you guys spewed for the last 30+ years. But, Universal healthcare would provide greater economic stimulus than payroll tax breaks.

"KEEP YOUR GODDAMN GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE!"

yeah, we know. Regressives are for corporate death panels (~40,000 death per year), tax cuts for the wealthy to bankrupt the state, and creating terrorists faster than they can be killed off.

Not to defend the program because I had problems with it (fuel economy requirements not stringent enough) but the analysis by edmunds is seriously flawed: "in order to determine whether these sales would have happened anyway, Edmunds.com analysts looked at sales of luxury cars and other vehicles not included under the Clunkers program." The spending of the wealthy who buy luxury cars has nothing to do with the spending habit of the rest of people, especially during a serious economic downturn and sky-rocketting unemployment. By the way, the stimulus was already 50% tax cuts even though there is very little economic stimulus in "giving everyone the money".

It's not just Alaska. The overwhelming majority of red states with balanced budgets today are welfare states whereas most blue states with a budget shortfall have a ratio of federal spending to fed tax that is less than unity.

If economic growth is X percent a year, and total government spending is X+N percent a year, and the value of N is greater than zero.... I don't think you have to be a wing-nut ideologue to be concerned about the rate of government spending growth relative to real economic growth, you just have to understand math. if you understood math you wouldn't rest your analysis on meaningless entities like "growth, 70% of which is consumption afforded by taking on debt over the last 30+ years. During 1940-1970, the top marginal tax rate was at least twice what it is today. Needless to say, the use of tax heavens and transfer pricing weren't standard operating procedure either. more anti-public sector demagoguery ... It's not because private sector employees are getting screwed of retirement benefits that public employees should be screwed too.

More anti-public sector demagoguery; for nostalgia's sake you'll soon be talking about $900 hammers bought by the defense department. Oops, you won't do that since it's now mostly privatized/contracted out and the People are now purchasing $10,000 hammers.