Recent Comments

1. almost 13 years ago on Non Sequitur

   Most popular sign at most bars would be, “I’m Not Here.” That’s what they say when the phone rings.

   Voting for the lesser of two evils is much more useless than occupying a local public space.

2. about 13 years ago on Tim Eagan

   Earned Income Credit goes to people who do have earned income. It’s supposed to reward initiative. The only things our economy truly rewards are greed and theft. (But you have to steal big, rob a 7-11 and you’ll go to jail.)

   As to “Reduce the population by half,” the sustainable carrying capacity of the earth is about a billion. World population just hit 7 billion and is still rising. It would take the equivalent deaths of two Asian tsunamis every day for fifty years to accomplish that kind of die off. Nice scenario totalloser is wishing for.

3. about 13 years ago on Pat Oliphant

   @cwspragueWhat has Obama done? Get the 1994 GOP health care bill (that guarantees profits for the insurance leeches) passed? Get a stimulus bill half as big as needed in the first place with half of that diverted to more “job-killing” tax cuts for the wealthy? Let the Bush-Cheney war criminals off scot free and keep their wars simmering"? Let the banksters who crashed the economy off too? Send Bush’s “job-killing” FTAs unaltered for Congressional approval? That you don’t like all this stuff portends badly for what you’d actually like to see the government do. And btw, right there in the preamble, along with “provide for the common defense” which your type always remembers, it lists “promote the general Welfare.” It also doesn’t limit securing “the Blessing of Liberty” to only the wealthiest, and calls for the establishment of “Justice,” not merely a legal system. No doubt you see “insure Domestic Tranquility” as a synonym for repression of dissent, but wiser folks realize that means creating a nation with real opportunity for ALL. If you read any history besides the cartoon tea bag version you’d know that the Founders purposely increased the power of the central government after the debacle of the Articles of Confederation (which the GOP acts as if is still the law of the land). That’s what “form a more perfect union” meant. And you’d know that the greatest prosperity the world has ever seen came about because of the New Deal you hate so much (and that the top 1% from the Du Pont brothers to the Koch brothers has been rolling back since WWII ended). Time to restore it and finish implementing it. When the Occupy protesters get down to brass tacks (without beheading too many bankster scumbags, I hope), I believe they’ll find FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights to their liking.

4. about 13 years ago on The City

   Backderf nails it. As to wannabee charater actor Harleyquinn- the baggers don’t have jobs. They’re living on Medicare, Social Security, or Disability (for being too fat and/or too diabetic) and riding around on scooters the government paid for. Too ignorant to understand the protest they named their movement after was a protest against corporate privilege, not taxes. Scooped up and co-opted by the Koch brothers for chump change. As opposed to the kids on Wall Street and in over 1,000 other locations who have zeroed in on the problem.

5. about 13 years ago on Working Daze

   Bachmann is overpaid by about $170K per year. No stock options though.

6. about 13 years ago on The City

   Yes, the “greatest generation” did their job when they were sent overseas. They’d certainly been prepped for it by years of the Great Depression. Don’t kid yourself though, American manufacturing, including the women who stepped up to take jobs, was what won the war. Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Gardens, that kept the nation fed, didn’t hurt either. But the GIs came home, took their GI Bill and other bennies, and forgot about eternal vigilance. They let the New Deal be dismantled starting right after WWII, didn’t speak up whennd the sham of the Cold War was created so the National Security State could be substituted for our republic. Despite having fought for universal rights, they were largely silent as the nation tried to slide back into Jim Crow. When their kids revolted against all that they were mostly just bigoted critics. And now we sit with the true essentials of national security, manufacturing and farming, dismantled and destroyed. The kids in their teens and twenties now will be the next hero generation for America. Let’s hope they do a better job than the last.

7. about 13 years ago on Tom Toles

   Hedges is on the money. My personal favorite is “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.” Two brief quotes:

   “We have transformed our culture into a vast replica of Pinnochio’s Pleasure Island, where boys were lured with promises of no school and endless fun.” "

   “It was Sparta that celebrated raw militarism, discipline, obedience, and power, but it was Athenian art and philosophy that echoed down the ages to enlighten new worlds, including our own.”

   While I try not to criticize Obama too much in public, it just encourages the baggers, Dylan’s Hard Rain is gonna fall pretty soon now. Thirty years of Reaganism (that has now gone far beyond what even Alzheimer Ronny shilled for) have dug us (and the world) a hole too deep for Keynesianism to fix.

   On the positive side, when we are thrown onto the mercy of our abilities by the harsh world ahead of us, the baggers are doomed. Most of the ones I know (and I live in a rural, red area), can’t walk 100 yards and have a half-gallon sized Big Gulp surgically attached to their hand. Just wait til Medicare stops paying for their insulin.

8. about 13 years ago on Bad Reporter

   Drilling for oil creates oil company profits not jobs, Oh, and BTW the oil wouldn’t be “American” they’d sell it to China. Those drill rigs should be turned to drilling geothermal wells which can provide power in mst of the US

   Absolutely brilliant! Proof that we need not worry about poisoning our water: “Baloney!” Why are we wasting money on universities and scientific research?

9. about 13 years ago on Barney & Clyde

   @SplendensPluviaNemus – What world do you live in? The miners get lung disease and killed in accidents. They’re not the ones who get rich.

10. about 13 years ago on Joel Pett

    That we didn’t get any oil is only proof that the neocons are not only insane, they are incompetent too. The turning point was when the American people couldn’t stand the truth from Carter and elected Alzheimer Ronny the right-wing puppet. Haven’t had a decent president since, although some are worse than others.