Morning Must Reads: Then and Now

I knew it- Obama is a Mac.

What did I miss?

Billion with a ‘B’.

“The money was in a special fund administered by the US Department of Defense, the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), and was earmarked for reconstruction projects.

But the report says that a lack of proper accounting and poor oversight makes it impossible to say exactly what happened to most of it.

According to the report, the Pentagon is unable to fully account for $8.7bn of funds it withdrew between 2004 and 2007, and of that amount it ‘could not provide documentation to substantiate how it spent $2.6bn’.”

No, it’s the hottest year on record so far.

“Scientists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies reported recently that the average global temperature was higher over the past 12 months than during any other 12-month period in history. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released corroborating data, adding that the past four months, including June, have each individually been the hottest on record as well.”

On the implications of the above.
.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-vine/76587/immigration-and-climate-change
.
“Earlier this week, a team of researchers led by Princeton’s Michael Oppenheimer published a study suggesting that as global warming causes agricultural yields in Mexico to decline, an additional 1.4 million to 6.7 million Mexicans could migrate to the United States by 2080.”

Denial of service.

“Local governments across the country are facing an intensifying fiscal crisis that is forcing them to make deep cuts in personnel and services just as more hard-pressed residents are seeking their help, according to a report released Tuesday.

These cities and counties — which have cut jobs significantly since the start of the downturn — could slash as many as 500,000 more jobs over the current and coming fiscal years. The cuts would affect schools, public safety, libraries, trash collection and social services, according to survey released jointly by the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties and U.S. Conference of Mayors.”

“$10 billion for teacher jobs, $1 billion for summer youth employment, $5 billion for Pell grants, $701 million for border security – were cut from the war funding bill coming to the House floor despite being fully paid for and not adding to the budget deficit. They have been jettisoned in favor of further borrowed war spending. ”
.
“Despite widespread shortfalls in education funding around the country, the $10 billion that would have saved 140,000 teacher jobs across the nation – all of it offset – has been cut. The $37.12 billion in war funding, on the other hand, is not paid for.”
.
Read the whole depressing thing: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/7/27/888107/-The-War-Funding-Vote:-A-Credit-Card-for-War,-But-No-Cash-for-Teachers

Imagine in a world where the truth is told by the press and other news organizations. Maybe even at TIME.com.
.
But, alas, the lame stream media has been discovered by the public to be yet another tool of the liberal agenda.
.
Even in polling data, the numbers are skewed heavily towards this President they have protected from day 1. The newest poll out on the President’s numbers has TIME coming in as the biggest shill for Obama than any other.
.

Poll Date Sample
Approve Disapprove Spread
RCP Average 7/12 – 7/26 45.7 49.0 -3.3
Gallup 7/24 – 7/26 1547 A 45 48 -3
Rasmussen 7/24 – 7/26 44 56 -12
Reuters/Ipsos 7/22 – 7/25 48 48 Tie
CNN/Opinion 7/16 – 7/21 47 50 -3
Quinnipiac 7/13 – 7/19 44 48 -4
FOX News 7/13 – 7/14 43 48 -5
Time 7/12 – 7/13 49 45 +4

.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html
.
Imagine that!!
.
Does TIME.com think people are stupid? I guess they do, as Joe Klein has said frequently and often.
.
As those crooks and liars who were involved in Journolist said in their respective emails to one another, “they are too stupid to understand, so we will decide for them”

Who would’ve thought / it figures

“Most jarring is the sad irony of all of these people at the podium, with their supporters spread across our National Mall, celebrating, in part, their worship of guns, while invoking, quite blatantly, the legacies of two great Americans whose magnificent lives were cruelly cut short by bullets.

And as you hold that image in your mind, consider the words of Dr. King, who, while mourning with all Americans the loss of President John F. Kennedy to gun violence, suggested: ‘While the question “Who killed President Kennedy?” is important, the question “What killed him?” is more important. Our late President was assassinated by a morally inclement climate. It is a climate filled with heavy torrents of false accusation, jostling winds of hatred and raging storms of violence. It is climate where men cannot disagree without being disagreeable, and where they express dissent through violence and murder.’

Are Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre, and Ted Nugent, at this place and time, the new keepers of King’s dream and of Lincoln’s legacy? Or do they, with this event at this place and time, in one of the boldest and most public ways imaginable, mock, and indeed, slander, everything for which these men so nobly stood, and for which they died?”

Money for nothing…
.
“The goal is to transform Afghanistan into a modern nation… (by) bringing electricity, clean water, jobs, roads and education to this crippled country. But the results so far — or lack of them — threaten to do more harm than good.
…
(T)he U.S. alone has committed $51 billion (to rebuilding Afghanistan) since 2001, and plans to raise the stakes to $71 billion over the next year…
…
But the number of Afghans with access to electricity has only inched up from 6 percent in 2001 to an estimated 10 percent now, well short of the development goal to provide power to 65 percent of urban and 25 percent of rural households by the end of this year.
…
Complaints had piled up about Karzai’s inability to deliver reliable power to Kabul, let alone the rest of the country. Afghan voters became increasingly frustrated as they watched billions of dollars flowing into the country for reconstruction, but still couldn’t power their homes, hospitals, schools and businesses.

Remember when deficits didn’t matter?

“The modern Republican argument about taxes seems to boil down to two principles, both misguided: Taxes can be reduced, but they can never be allowed to go up. And whatever level taxes are at, they are too high.

Think back to the beginning of the Bush administration tax cuts. It seems almost impossible to believe, but the argument then was that the budget surplus was too large. There was, or so President George W. Bush assured us, ample cash to cut taxes for everyone and protect the Social Security surplus and set aside $1 trillion over the next decade for ‘additional spending needs’ and pay down the national debt.[...]

The only thing that remained the same was the clamor for tax cuts. Same argument, different rationale. The Bush tax cuts are set to expire at the end of this year, and the argument now is that they must be extended — for everyone. This time not because the fiscal bottom line is too healthy but because the economy is too shaky.”

14 Weeks from Republican Governors Association on Vimeo.

‘Thirteenther’ is the new Birther.

“There are, of course, other implications of Thirteenthism, such as ensuring that the United States never again suffers the humiliation of having a president win the Nobel Peace Prize. That was just what the Iowa Republicans had in mind, according to Plogmann, who wrote in an e-mail that the plank “was meant to make a statement about the delegates’ opinion about Mr. Obama receiving the prize.” (Presumably they didn’t mind if, in the process, they were also making a statement about any American scientist or writer unlucky enough to win a Nobel.)

Unfortunately for them, the Department of Justice looked into whether Obama needed Congressional approval to accept the Nobel under the existing emoluments clause, and based on the meaning of “foreign state” (which would not cover the Nobel Prize Committee) concluded that he did not.”

Where is the money going, you may ask. AP gives an example in the article:
.
.
“(A) $305 million diesel power plant represents the biggest single investment the U.S. has made thus far to light up the country. It has been dubbed the most expensive plant of its type in the world, sitting in one of the world’s poorest countries.
…
Today, the diesel plant… runs mostly for short periods, producing only a fraction of its promised 105 million watts of power.
.
“This power plant is too expensive for us to use,” says Shojauddin Ziaie, Afghanistan’s current deputy minister of water and energy…
…
contract records obtained by The Associated Press show expenses and fees paid to the (US firms hired to run the project) tripled from $15.3 million in July 2007, when the project was estimated at $125.8 million overall, to $46.2 million in October 2009, when the price tag reached $301 million.”

He doesn’t use a rubber keyboard like I do, though…

Mis-link. Here’s the valid one:
.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/27/why-some-republicans-want-to-restore-the-13th-amendment.html

Another outlier is this one:
.
Rasmussen 7/24 – 7/26 44 56 -12
.
A full seven points off the next lowest; the FoxNews poll at -5
.
But its funny how Rusty is REALLY perturbed about one outlier, and not so much about the other one. I wonder why that is?

C’mon now grape!
.
At least the “thirteenthers” are a little more sane than the birthers!

Continued Iraq violence
.
“Four people were killed and 11 injured in a bomb explosion at a restaurant in Baghdad’s eastern neighborhood of Sadr City on Wednesday, an Interior Ministry source said.
…
Sporadic attacks are still common in Iraq as part of recent deterioration in security which shaped a setback to the efforts of the Iraqi government to restore normalcy in the country more than four months after the violence-torn country held parliamentary elections on March 7.”

It’s just like terrorism or any other subject dear to his heart:
.
It’s perfectly alright ’cause they’re on his side…

Hmmm…less ‘alternate history’ and more Bizzaro universe, perhaps.

“I think we have part of the key to how Republicans can believe that returning to the Bush agenda is exactly what we need: they’ve invented themselves an alternate history in which wonderful things happened under Bush, and earlier booms have been sent down the memory hole.”

Sarah Palin Fails to Make ’50 Most Beutiful People’ List:
.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/28/six-lawmakers-make-beautiful-list/

“500 Words”*
.
Obama:
They went thataway!
.
*Credit goes to the original commenter. I hijacked the title.

Where have I heard that before?
”
Recently NASA published “statistics” that “proved” that 1998 was the hottest year on record in the United States.”

Climatologists at Nasa’s Goddard Institute of Space Science in New York have been forced to revise their estimations after research from Stephen MacIntyre, who published his findings on his Climate Audit site
==

“According to NOAA, California was one of the few spots in the world reporting below average temperatures from April through June.”

And yet California ranks as the 9th worst emitter of Ozone depleting air.

==

There is still a question as to the placement of temperature recording devices being heavily concentrated in major urban areas as opposed to rural areas. You can prove any position with numbers, it just depends on the source of the numbers. It is hard to believe that NASA ,which is facing budget cuts and is being relegated to cheering Muslim accomplishments in science as one of its chief objectives change their well confirmed position of global warming believer and risk further budget cuts.

Implications of?

=
“First, the author of the study, Michael Oppenheimer, is a longtime staffer with the environmental extremist group Environmental Defense. Michael Oppenheimer claiming global warming will cause some sort of crisis is about as objective and credible as BP saying it did everything possible to prevent the Gulf oil spill.

“Second, global warming has indisputably benefited rather than harmed global and Mexican crop production. A plethora of peer-reviewed studies document, and hard scientific data confirm, that global and Northern Hemisphere precipitation, soil moisture, and crop production have all dramatically improved as temperatures have warmed since the end of the Little Ice Age a little more than 100 years ago.

“Third, Mexican crop production has steadily increased during the past 50 years, as temperatures have risen. Mexican crop production has fully doubled in the past 35 years alone.

“Fourth, even if Mexican crop production were declining rather than improving, the much more simple answer to illegal immigration concerns would be to better guard the border. Illegal immigrants can enter the country in large numbers only if our government makes deliberate decisions to leave the border unguarded.”

Heartland Institute

Release the hounds!

“So the sluice gates are open on both ends of these committees. The F.E.C., which at least tried to take a stand before the appeals court, now seems to have given up the fight. Five of the six commissioners voted to approve the new committees. The lone dissenter, Steven T. Walther, issued a stinging statement noting that the commission could have complied with the courts by removing the limits on contributions by individuals to 527’s, not the contributions of unions or corporations. Neither the March appellate decision nor Citizens United, he said, invalidated limits on the contributions to independent committees by corporations or unions.

That notion seems quaint in an era when millionaires are buying campaigns and corporate check writing is about to revert to Nixonian levels. A group set up by Karl Rove raised more than $5 million last month, and plans to raise $50 million to attack Democratic Congressional candidates. Democrats, led by the Service Employees International Union, are scrambling to catch up.

You’re in great shape for the fall if you find the $30,400 individual limit to political parties just too constricting and can write six- or seven-figure checks to committees that are partisan in intent and deed. If your only playing field is the ballot box, then you are not.”

Fitty, I could argue that point…
.
“Barrus says in an e-mail that enforcement of the 13th Amendment would strike a blow against “the elected politicians who have grand plans of ruling every facet of America,” and would essentially delegitimize virtually every act of the federal government since 1819″

“”$10 billion for teacher jobs, $1 billion for summer youth employment, $5 billion for Pell grants, $701 million for border security – were cut from the war funding bill coming to the House floor”

==

Trouble reading moronmom? It was the w-a-r f-u-n-d-i-n-g bill. I understand liberals think any spending bill is another whack at the spending pinata. Maybe you could impose on the Democrat Congress to take time from destroying the economy with HC reform(?), Crap & Trade and the other bills the American people don’t want and pass something that is a primary responsibility– the BUDGET!

Yes, that “illicit opium supply” figure is “fascinating”, isn’t it?

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/coke-or-pepsi/

Here’s an even more “fascinating chart on the state of Afghanistan”:

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/right-of-way/

My guess is that they’ll all sing a song Nugent once dedicated to Nashville…cats

I based my comment on the actual existence of the Thirteenth Amendment.
.
That single tenuous connection with reality is one more than the birthers had…

I’ll just say this:
.
Ted Nugent is definitely not cupid…

Pelosi at the NutRoots Conference

Pelosi told the audience she adamantly opposes raising the retirement age for Social Security and said the Depression-era program shouldn’t be cut to help reduce the deficit. ‘When you talk about reducing the deficit and Social Security, you’re talking about apples and oranges,’ she said

==
Who knew that Social Security wasn’t a spending item in the US budget>

Oh, you gotta have better than the Heartland Institute, freeper…
.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute
.
“The Heartland Institute’s Environmental “expert,” James Taylor, is a lawyer based in Florida. Despite presenting a veneer of scientific expertise in their Environmental advocacy, the Heartland lacks any scientists trained to understand climate issues.”
.
And institute’s funding is a who’s who of right-wing sugar daddies.
.
Oh, and this is the same org that put out the “500 Scientists Whose Research Contradicts Man-Made Global Warming Scares” which contained names of scientists who adamant that recent changes in the global climate were induced by man.

“Heartland Institute”\
.
The Heartland Institute is an American conservative public policy think tank based in Chicago, Illinois that advocates free market policies.
.
“The institute is a member organization of the Cooler Heads Coalition, which describes itself as “an informal and ad-hoc group focused on dispelling the myths of global warming.”[15] The Cooler Heads Coalition is affiliated with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and receives funding from oil companies.”
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Institute
.
Why is it that when a conservative has a question about science, they ask an economist?

Duncan Hunter?
.
Duncan Hunter is a big man:
.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.elsiegufler.com/Images/photos/ElsieDuncanHunter.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.elsiegufler.com/photos.html&usg=__g8s0upARgT6JmdJ9M7M9F4qLX3s=&h=900&w=900&sz=252&hl=en&start=0&tbnid=Sw42-DUcXcsUIM:&tbnh=138&tbnw=152&prev=/images%3Fq%3DDuncan%2BHunter%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1440%26bih%3D749%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=831&vpy=395&dur=5858&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=131&ty=131&ei=jUxQTOHiBcKBlAes44DrCQ&page=1&ndsp=29&ved=1t:429,r:19,s:0
.
If he posted that picture here as a poster and disagreed with wingnuts, they would be calling him “lardass”.
.
But, it’s okay if you’re Republican.
.
It’s always okay with the right wing so long as your Republican.

Well, freeinpa, there’s always rural subsidies…

There is SO much wrong about that article, I don’t even know where to start…

Perhaps you’re unaware that there exists a separate tax with which to fund Social Security?
..
The program has a surplus in the neighborhood of $2 trillion that was invested in government debt. There is no issue with SS and it is not a budgetary concern. Glad I could clear up that misconception for you.

Backing up slowly
Don’t kill the messenger…

“…“Third, Mexican crop production has steadily increased during the past 50 years…”
.
Their irrigation, transportation, fertilization and insecticides have improved in the past fifty years, do you think that this is a a factor?
.
The Little Ice Age?
.
“It is conventionally defined as a period extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries,[2][3][4] though climatologists and historians working with local records no longer expect to agree on either the start or end dates of this period, which varied according to local conditions. It is generally agreed that there were three minima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by intervals of slight warming.[5] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes areas affected by the LIA:”
.
“For this reason, any of several dates ranging over 400 years may indicate the beginning of the Little Ice Age:

* 1250 for when Atlantic pack ice began to grow
* 1300 for when warm summers stopped being dependable in Northern Europe
* 1315 for the rains and Great Famine of 1315-1317
* 1550 for theorized beginning of worldwide glacial expansion
* 1650 for the first climatic minimum.

In contrast to its uncertain beginning, there is a consensus that the Little Ice Age ended in the mid-19th century.[citation needed] The International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) website, however, graphs the Little Ice Age as continuing until 1919 or 1930.[1″
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age#Dating_of_the_Little_Ice_Age
.
What an obscure and unclear point of measurement.
.
How were crops doing in Mexico in 1250 AD before the start of that era?

freinpa:
How To Prioritize In Three Easy Lessons
.
1. Assemble your problems
2. Determine which ones have the most immediate impact.
3. Determine solutions.
.
Somewhere in there is a hint freeinpa. Let’s see if you can find it…

Social Security is a trust account- it is financed by specific deductions and can only be spent on administering the program. They are apples and oranges.
.
Defense spending, on the other hand, is perfectly relatable to deficit reduction.

“…the other bills the American people don’t want and pass something that is a primary responsibility– the BUDGET
.
Correction:
“…the other bills the right wing and numerically impaired don’t want and pass something that is a primary responsibility– a tax increase on the wealthiest to pay for it.”
.
If Americans didn’t want these things, Freepizza, why would they have voted for candidates who promised to do these things.
.
I know that you have multiple personalities and think that you are many people, but, please, remember that you are not the entire population of the United States.
.
You are in the minority for everything except your opposition to HCR;
.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/140786/americans-back-stimulus-spending-create-jobs.aspx
.
Speak for yourself, not the entire country.

So much for transparency.

Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

More Democrats shenanigans or legislative incompetence?

““If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain any title of nobility or honour, or shall, without the consent of Congress accept and retain any present, pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them.”
.
The alternative 13th Amendment in the Alternative right wing universe.
.
How about British Knights Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush:
.
“In 1989, Reagan was created an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, a British first class knighthood. This entitled him to the use of the post-nominal letters GCB, but did not entitle him to be known as “Sir Ronald Reagan”. Only two American presidents have received the honor—Reagan and George H.W. Bush.[309] Reagan was also named an honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. Japan awarded him the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum in 1989; he was the second American president to receive the award, but the first to have it given to him for personal reasons (Dwight D. Eisenhower received it as a commemoration of U.S.-Japanese relations).[310]”
.
Well, it’s okay so long as you are Republican.

“SEC FOIA/PA Program
The Freedom of Information & Privacy Act Office:
What It Is, What It Does
A Message from the Chairman:

Providing access to information that investors need to make informed investment decisions is one of the SEC’s strategic goals. Each year, we receive thousands of requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) relating to almost every aspect of the Commission’s work.

I am committed to strengthening our FOIA program so that we respond to requests in a timely manner, treat all requesters equally, and provide as much information as possible without adversely affecting our mission. Success in this area will also support our other strategic goals of fostering and enforcing compliance with the Federal securities laws, and establishing an effective regulatory environment.

We realize that the public’s interest about our work is at an all-time high. I have directed SEC employees to seize this opportunity to illustrate the dedication and effort that they put forth every day on behalf of investors and the American public.

If you have any questions about the Commission’s FOIA program, please contact one of the FOIA Public Liaisons by clicking on the link below.

— Mary Schapiro

The SEC FOIA/PA Office is located at the following address:

Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of FOIA and Privacy Act Operations
100 F Street, NE
Washington, DC 20549-2736
Phone: 202-551-8300
Fax: 202-772-9336
e-mail: foiapa@sec.gov

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which can be found in Title 5 of the United States Code, section 552, was enacted in 1966 and provides that any person has the right to request access to federal agency records or information. All agencies of the United States government are required to disclose records upon receiving a written request for them, except for those records that are protected from disclosure by the nine exemptions and three exclusions of the FOIA. This right of access is enforceable in court.

The Privacy Act of 1974, which can be found in Title 5 of the United States Code, section 552a, establishes safeguards for the protection of records the Government collects and maintains on United States citizens and lawfully admitted permanent residents.”
.
http://www.sec.gov/foia.shtml
.
Well, Freepizza, it appears as if Fox News forgot to tell the SEC that they are no longer subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
.
Or, this could be a fun fake fact from Fox .

IQ53 I do not need a hint to knwo you are a full fledged idiot!
==
Both Democrats and Republicans are all running this year and next and saying surplus, surplus. Look what we have done. It is false. The actual figures show that from the beginning of the fiscal year until now we had to borrow $127,800,000,000. – Democratic Senator Ernest Hollings, October 28, 1999

An overall “downsizing” of government and a virtual end to the arms race have contributed to the surplus, but the vast majority is coming from excess Social Security taxes being paid by the workforce in an attempt to keep Social Security benefit checks coming once the “baby-boomers” start to retire.
Of the $142 billion surplus projected by the end of 2000, $137 billion will come from excess Social Security taxes.

Social Security is legally required to use all its surpluses to buy U.S. Government securities. From Social Security’s standpoint, it has a multi-trillion dollar reserve in the form of U.S. Government securities. When the Social Security system starts to falter due to insufficient contributions to pay for all the benefits of retiring baby-boomers, probably around 2017, it will start cashing those securities and will expect the U.S. Government to pay it back, with interest. The problem is, the government doesn’t have the money. The money has already been spent–in part, effectively, to pay down the public debt under Clinton”

==
The delusion of a “trust fund” and liberals. Apples and oranges for pumpkin heads

“The Privacy Act of 1974, which can be found in Title 5 of the United States Code, section 552a, establishes safeguards for the protection of records the Government collects and maintains on United States citizens and lawfully admitted permanent residents.”

Too bad that doesn’t include our armed forces which liberals have laughed at with the theft and publication of classified documents. But then they can plead they did nothing worse that the Democrat who chairs the Judiciary Ctm.

Let’s not forget the Highway “Trust” Fund

We invented the federal Highway Trust Fund in 1956, promising motorists and truckers that all proceeds from a new federal gas tax would be spent on building the interstate system. They aren’t. Congress has expanded federal highway spending beyond interstates to all types of roadways. And ever since 1982, a portion of those “highway user taxes” have been diverted to urban transit. Today, the federal role in transportation includes mandating sidewalks, funding bike paths and creating scenic trails.

“IQ53 I do not need a hint to knwo you are a full fledged idiot!”
.
Well that is one way to avoid the very simple criteria that most managers adhere to.
.
Simply put, it is just not as big a problem as others right now…

“Too bad that doesn’t include our armed forces which liberals have laughed at with the theft and publication of classified documents.”
.
Our “armed forces” were the ones who stole and submitted the reports to Wikileaks. Idiot.

It’s too bad that you have absolutely no facts to back up anything you say and have to rely on calling people “pumpkin heads” to vent your frustration on your constant war against reality when reality is winning.
.
Pizzaface, do you ever check any source other than Fox, AM radio right wingers and the Drudge Report for facts?
.
You must love being rhetorically beaten to a bloody pulp.
.
I know, your motto “Sticks and stones may break my bones but whips and chains excite me.”.
.
You really are a rhetorical masochist, my guess is that you might be a literal one, too.

Free, I found where you copied this from:
http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16
..it was interesting and I’ll try top re-read it later.
.
The argument can probably be boiled down to this:
.
Social Security isn’t the only trust fund in the federal budget. There are a number of others including the civil service retirement fund, federal supplementary medical insurance trust fund, unemployment trust fund, military retirement trust fund, etc. All of these trust funds, like Social Security, invest their surpluses in U.S. government bonds and increase intragovernmental debt. And like Social Security, their surpluses really shouldn’t count toward a “surplus” because the excess money they contribute to federal coffers actually has to be borrowed by the government from the trust funds.
.
..during Clinton employment was high, baby-boomers were working and contributions were higher than pay-outs (the surplus went to bonds). As the baby-boomers retire, the government will have to pay back these funds, plus interest where invested in bonds. With less working today, the money won’t be there.
.
Pelosi/Congress should consider adjustments to SS or other options to be ready when that time arrives. But that’s a discussion regarding the viability of SS itself- independent of our current deficit.
.
SS did not contribute to the deficit and it is not discretionary spending. It is apples and oranges. So unless you’re suggesting that the govt keep our contributions, in order to reduce the deficit now, you need to discuss other ways.

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Letter from the Birmingham Jail from MLK.
.
How dare the right try to co-opt the man that wrote this consequential letter? To their shame they have no leader in their Dominionist, Palinistic, Beckian, reactionary cult that can reach the moral heights of Martin Luther King Jr so they try to incorporate his legacy. They have no shame.

You know, I could never be a politician. I would have to meet and talk to people like Elsie Gufler.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/gallery/2010/07/like-a-rolling-pol-lawmakers-and-musicans-through-the-years.php?img=1&ref=fpb
Photos of pols gettin’ groovy with rockers.
My favorite is James Brown with Alan Spector at Strom Thurmond’s birthday celebration. Think about it!

I think that freeinpa posilutely loves being spanked. He dives in hear on a wave of insults, bearing zany rhetoric, and bearing gifts of…of…
.
…poo…

Wasn’t that the same birthday when Trent Lott put his foot in his mouth to kick off his “Blaxpology” tour?
.
It would be too shocking to find out it was the very same function.
.
Tell me it wasn’t…

I did like your Godfather clip, Patrick.
.
Maybe that’s* what is needed when freeinpa needs to stand in a corner with his tongue securely fastened to a wall…
.
The, uh, “item” in aforementioned video.

Unfortunately, as far as I know Trent wasn’t there. It was at Thumond’s 90th birthday that the picture was taken.

“I did like your Godfather clip, Patrick.”
.
The Sopranos that was.
.
Big bald and kick’s ass Tony Soprano.
.
Of course he is evil, but, if I wanted to see civil, law abiding and reasonably polite people I could go stand on corner just about anywhere and see that.
.
Fake evil people are fun.

About he professor Obama video:

“I wanted to work in those Snuggie ads but ….”.

Seriously, I have seen he website, useful but not really tutorial worthy.

About the picture:

I have a dream…. alas it was stolen by that blasted Leonardo. I knew he worked for Limbaugh.