money

There’s not much I like about Rick Perry, but this idea from his book ‘Fed Up’ is one I can definitely get behind:

One solution the governor embraces is to end lifetime tenure — a cornerstone of the Constitution, whose drafters worried far less about activist or senile judges than about meddling tyrants and political pressure.

The idea isn’t original, and it’s not limited to conservatives. Some scholars on the left have also embraced the idea as a correction for judges serving too long.

Our judicial system has changed since the founding fathers granted them lifetime appointments in the Constitution. Back then money wasn’t a big influence, as well as stark differences in ideology. The whole idea of judges was to view everything in a neutral manner and provide sound judgment of the law without outside influence. That has changed and the fact that the judges are granted almost inalienable protection from loss of job, that means they can allow outside influence to play into their decisions without fear of repercussion. The one branch of government we don’t focus on that much can be the one that ends up destroying our democracy, so I would love to see a bigger discussion take place about Perry’s idea, even though he isn’t the only one to float this idea before.

Bob Cesca has posted the following chart, showing how the share of income labor sees is at a historic low:

What's interesting is how much the share dipped during the Bush years. During Clinton's term, the rate was on the rise, after a substantial fall during the Reagan and Bush 41 years.

So what does all that mean? Trickle down works!

Of course the trickle down I'm talking about isn't the one Republicans push. Instead it's one that see's the wealth of America rapidly decrease as the money trickles down to the mass population.

And speaking of Republican economics, this highlights another problem. Look again at the big dip in the Bush years. Republicans constantly told us how bigger tax cuts to corporate America would mean more jobs and better wages. Care to re-think that position?

In a world of supply side economics, the equating factor is simple - if the people have more money then they will buy more goods. Instead Republicans want you to think that if the big corporations have more money, they'll hire more people and put out more goods, even if those goods won't sell. It's that kind of thinking that will keep us in a recession and cause our middle class to keep declining. It's that kind of thinking that the media and right wing has pushed for years and so many Americans now buy into it, despite the historic numbers showing something totally different.

A new CNN poll shows the favorability rating of the Tea Party in decline:

The approval rating for the 2-year-old movement fell to 32 percent in a CNN/Opinion Research corporation poll released Wednesday, the lowest it’s been since CNN first polled on the tea party in January 2010

That’s compared to a 46% approval for Democrats and 44% approval for Republicans. Perhaps this gives us more insight to the recent decline:

The biggest drop in the tea party movement’s favorability came among people who make less than $50,000 a year. In October, 30 percent in that income group said they had unfavorable views of the tea party. Now, 45 percent say the same.

While many try and pull the wool over our eyes, people are realizing that the Tea Party is anything but a grassroots movement. It’s a corporate backed social experiment to lure people into supporting big earner tax giveaways.

The real shame is that we desperately need a 3rd party in this country, not an offshoot of the Republican Party. A movement like the Tea Party could have the potential to take off, if it is truly about the people. Get something like that going, something that will refuse the influence of big business and money, and you will have a movement that people can really get behind.

Perhaps a good place to start looking at government waste is in the military contracts, specifically those tied to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:

A new report from a bipartisan commission set up to scrutinize the unprecedented use of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan concludes that the United States has wasted tens of billions of the nearly $177 billion that has been spent on those contracts and grants since 2002.

The report, titled "At What Risk? Correcting Over-reliance on Contractors in Contingency Operations," said its estimate may even understate the problem because it may not take into full account ill-conceived projects, poor planning and oversight by the U.S. government, as well as criminal behavior and blatant corruption by both government and contractor employees.

"For many years," the report says, "the government has abdicated its contracting responsibilities - too often using contractors as the default mechanism ... without consideration for the resources needed to manage them."

And I’m sure the number is higher. I wonder if they even considered the $9 billion that went missing in Iraq in 2003-2004? You know, that money, which whenever Democrats brought up the Republicans didn’t want to hear about it.

How can we even begin to talk about “financial responsibility” when this gross lack of oversight/accounting can continue to go on in our government without any talks of reform?

Including their deficit:

This month the state's part-time legislature goes back into session, and the state is starting at potentially a $25 billion deficit on a two-year budget of around $95 billion. That's enormous. And there's not much fat to cut. The whole budget is basically education and healthcare spending. Cutting everything else wouldn't do the trick. And though raising this kind of money would be easy on an economy of $1.2 trillion, the new GOP mega-majority in Congress is firmly against raising any revenue.

So the bi-ennial legislature, which convenes this month, faces some hard cuts. Some in the Texas GDP haveadvocated dropping Medicaid altogether to save money.

And the most important part of the article?

So why haven't we heard more about Texas, one of the most important economy's in America? Well, it's because it doesn't fit the script. It's a pro-business, lean-spending, no-union state. You can't fit it into a nice storyline, so it's ignored.

True dat! This isn’t some blue state like California or Illinois. This is the heart of red state America and God forbid the “liberal” media makes them look bad!

In individual campaign donations, $1,900 is a big number. Will Rand Paul return the money?

Nah – they look to chummy for Paul to return the money.

I also have to caption this photo appropriately – “paling around with terrorists”.

Remember bartering with chickens for health care? Well it seems like a bank has taken that advice to a whole new level when it comes to debt collection:

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters Life!) - This little piggy went to market -- to pay off a Russian woman's overdue debt to a bank.

Court officers in far eastern Russia have seized a piglet from a woman who owes a bank 13,000 roubles ($432) and put it up for sale to recuperate some of the money, the regional branch of the Federal Bailiffs Service said on Thursday.

The woman had been given the seven-month-old piglet for safekeeping, but it was taken away after a court survey of her property found it to be her most valuable possession, the bailiffs service said in a statement.

Notice though that this occurred in Russia. Who knew that Tea Party darlings were so aligned with the Ruskies?

Rupert Murdoch is a genius. Genius I tell ya!

The Times has lost almost 90% of its online readership compared to February since making registration mandatory in June, calculations by the Guardian show.

Unregistered users of thetimes.co.uk are now "bounced" to a Times+ membership page where they have to register if they want to view Times content. Data from the web metrics company Experian Hitwise shows that only 25.6% of such users sign up and proceed to a Times web page; based on custom categories (created at the Guardian) that have been used to track the performance of major UK press titles online, visits to the Times site have fallen to 4.16% of UK quality press online traffic, compared with 15% before it made registration compulsory on 15 June

I just can’t wait until he decides to do this with Fox News. I also think he should expand this idea to the broadcast Fox News. People will pay for the news, so why not make his channel like a pay-per-view. You want to see O’Reilly? Fine, it’s $3.95. Same for all his other shows. Just think of all the money Rupert will make!

Now think of how much better of a place America would be if we didn’t have his propaganda filled smut filling our airwaves or intertubes.

Please do it Rupert. Do it for America!