May 2011

Al Qaeda has vowed revenge for the killing of Osama bin Laden and it looks like they are making good on it:

Pakistan's Taliban on Friday claimed their first major attack to avenge Osama bin Laden's death as 80 people were killed in a double suicide bombing on a paramilitary police training centre.

Around 140 people were wounded, 40 of them fighting for their lives, in the deadliest attack this year in the nuclear-armed country where the government is deep in crisis over the killing of the Al-Qaeda chief by US forces on May 2.

In the fallout over the unilateral raid and in another sign of damaged ties with wary ally Washington, an official said Pakistan's senior military officer General Khalid Shameem Wynne had cancelled a visit to the United States.

We knew this was coming and if anything the death of Osama could spark a lot bigger and more vengeful attacks than we have scene before. This is the reason that the Afghanistan war is far from over.

Tomorrow, President Obama will be traveling to El Paso, Texas to reignite the debate over immigration reform. El Paso, ranked the safest city in America, is one of our larger border cities. For years the GOP has tried to paint these border cities as a hot bed for crime, and today it continues with John Boehner laying out the same claim. Well it seems today that Congressman Silvestre Reyes has had enough of the lies. Reyes, who represents El Paso, released the following statement:

"Speaker Boehner should focus on controlling the level of violence in his own state before tarnishing the image of border communities that remain among the safest places to live in America. As his office asserts that Congress cannot consider reforming our broken immigration system until border violence is under control, the fact remains that the six largest cities in Ohio all have higher rates of violence and crime than every major city along the U.S.-Mexico border. In fact, the Speaker's own district in Dayton, Ohio saw more homicides in 2009 and 2010 than Texas' four largest border cities combined, despite the fact that Dayton's population of 141,500 is only about one-tenth of the size by comparison. According to the most recent City Crime Rankings Survey by CQ Press, Ohio's cities have higher rates of violence and crime in every category, including murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft than border communities.

Yesterday John Boehner said there would be no debt ceiling increase without cutting trillions in spending:

“Without significant spending cuts and changes to the way we spend the American people’s money, there will be no debt limit increase,” Mr. Boehner told members of New York’s business and finance community. “And cuts should be greater than the accompanying increase in debt authority the president is given.” Mr. Boehner said those cuts should be in the trillions of dollars, not billions.

So what should be cut? Well short of trying another push on the Ryan Medicare plan, something that Republicans are even souring on, Boehner gave no details.

Boehner did say everything “except tax hikes” is on the table. Would that include defense? Somehow I doubt it.

This really opens up a chance for President Obama to take lead on the issue. The President should do a speech and ask the Speaker exactly what he wants cut. Start pushing this, force John Boehner to lay out an actual plan instead of a talking point.

Of course talking points is all that John Boehner has. Remember back during the healthcare battle, when Boehner and company had this “much better plan”. They held a big press conference and released the “plan”, which turned out to be nothing but a glossy 8 1/2x11 talking point. When Boehner was pushed on the lack of details his response was “well we aren’t in charge, so we won’t do that”. Well Mr. Boehner, you are in charge now – where’s the details?

It certainly isn’t if you have CEO behind your name and you work for a big corporation:

Compensation received by chief executives of the biggest US companies surged 11 percent over the past 12 months -- to $9.3 million on average, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Citing a study conducted for the newspaper by management consultancy Hay Group, The Journal said the increase was largely due to decisions by company boards to reward CEOs for strong profit and share-price growth with bigger bonuses and stock grants.

The survey covered the 350 biggest companies that filed their statement between May 1, 2010, and April 30, 2011.

So while middle America is struggling, the fat cats are still raking it in. Really – why shouldn’t they? Employment works much like the economy, based on supply and demand. Right now we have an over abundance of workers (supply), so they can hire people for less than normal wages. A lot of companies are even getting rid of the higher paid employees just to bring in lower paid ones. Is it right for this to occur? Nope, but it is what happens.

Of course there is also a real bad side to this. Income disparity will be even greater. Our middle class is being pushed into non-existence and our standing as the industrialized nation with the highest rate of income disparity will remain in tact. Also this increase will point to a growing payroll in America, which is only the case for about 1% of the working population. For the other 99% payroll has either remained flat or sunk, which the cost of living has continued to rise.