News Regurgitator! / News & Political Blog

Quick news bites to keep you up to date with what people
are talking about - mostly what isn't being
reported on by our 'legacy media'.

KOMEN = MARVEL COMICS?
FRIDAY, February 10, 2012
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Here's my take on the Komen controversy that you've been waiting breathlessly for.

It's an excuse to posit if Marvel's treatment of Ghost Rider creator Gary Friedrich could blow up in the same way, albiet more slowly.

DISTURBING NUMBERS
TUESDAY, February 7, 2012
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An estimated 700,000 American families file for bankruptcy every year because of medical debt.

A Washington Post investigation revealed: Thirty-three members of Congress have directed more than $300 million in earmarks and other spending provisions to dozens of public projects that are next to or within about two miles of the lawmakers’ own property, according to a Washington Post investigation. Under the ethics rules Congress has written for itself, this is both legal and undisclosed.

Mother Jones: According to reports from the Congressional Research Service, during their time in office President Ronald Reagan made 240 recess appointments, President George H. W. Bush made 77 recess appointments, President Bill Clinton made 140 recess appointments, and George W. Bush made 171. Obama's first term has seen a paltry 28. In this context, Obama's move seems less like a power grab and more like the proverbial 98-pound weakling taking a second to wipe the sand out of his eyes.

Total corporate federal taxes paid fell to 12.1% of profits earned from activities within the U.S. in fiscal 2011, which ended Sept. 30, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s the lowest level since at least 1972 - way below the 25.6% companies paid on average from 1987 to 2008.

In 2006, the guys in charge of regulating the housing market thought the crisis was a joke. Literally. That's how out of touch they were, they didn't see it coming and didn't know what to do once it hit because they failed to do their jobs. They succeeded in their mission - leaving the banks and mortgage firms to do as they please - but they didn't do their jobs.

MONDAY BITES
MONDAY, January 23, 2012
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Whatever the idiots on TV are trying to convince you of - look the other way!

Charles Pierce: "As someone who watched him first against Ted Kennedy, and then, later, during his run for governor, I am really rather stunned at what a singularly appalling liar Mitt Romney has become. It is bone-deep with him now. His campaigns in 2008 and 2012 have made lies out of both campaigns he ran in Massachusetts and out of his entire tenure there as governor."

It's the blatant hypocrisy that bothers me, otherwise I wouldn't care about his wives. Remember back in 1999 Newt Gingrich "pledged to say during every public appearance that Americans have the right to know the truth about the Lewinsky matter and that the president is not above the law." And boy did we hear about it!

Steve Kornacki: "What Gingrich did brilliantly on Thursday night is to articulate this paranoid victimhood in a clear and compelling (for his audience, at least) way. It's the same basic trick he pulled in this week's other debate, when he connected with another strain of the persecution complex: that honest, tax-paying Republicans are the victims of a dependency class of poor people and minorities that Democrats intentionally enable. Thus did Monday's crowd rejoice when Gingrich insisted to Fox News' Juan Williams that there was nothing remotely insulting about his statement that the NAACP should be asking for paychecks instead of food stamps, or his suggestion that children in poor neighborhoods don’t understand the value of work."

According to NASA scientists 2011 was the ninth-warmest year on Earth since 1880.

FAMILY VALUES
THURSDAY, January 19, 2012
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Jay-Z recently had a daughter so he says he won't call women "Bitches" anymore. Heartwarming.

Greg Sargent: If Romney, whose wealth is estimated at as much as $250 million, is elected president and gets his way on tax policy, he would pay barely more than half as much in taxes than he would if Obama is reelected and gets his way — and the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy expire and an additional Medicare tax as part of the Affordable Care Act kicks in.

Not surprising: Five percent of Americans account for half of the nation's health care costs.

Newt Gingrich’s second ex-wife, Marianne, has promised to blow a gaping hole in the Republican presidential candidate’s political career with a bombshell interview she gave ABC News. They may or may not air it today. It would be great fun to sit back and watch all of this nonsense if one of these clowns DIDN'T have a chance to become president!

ELECTION STUFF
WEDNESDAY, January 18, 2012
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From the SC debate the other night, Mr. Romney said: “And then I get speaker’s fees from time to time, but not very much.” Mr. Romney made $374,327.62 in speaker’s fees last year, around $41,592 per speech. In Romney’s world that’s “not very much” money. How much does YOUR part time job pay? If it's close to $41,000 a day, congratulations! I'd like to borrow "not very much" money from you.

Romney says he is paying close to a 15 percent tax rate on his earnings but it may actually be lower than that. Think about it - Romney and his ilk pay less in taxes on investments because it's money they didn't work for, it comes basically free. They've still got the principal and this income requires no effort, like a job - so it should be taxed LESS? And Republicans want to eliminate that tax on investment earnings all together! Inherit your wealth? Pay no taxes. Work two jobs, 30% goes to taxes. What a scheme!

Rick Perlstein: [Romney]’s still inauthentic – but with, I think, an exception. Every time he opens his mouth on the subject of capitalism, he says what he sincerely believes, which happens to fit neatly with present-day Republican ideology: that rich people deserve every penny they have, and if people complain about anything rich people do, it’s only because they’re envious.

BooMan: Now, it's an interesting thing that Mitt's father was born in Mexico because he ran for president in 1968. I assume he was ineligible to be president because he was not a natural-born citizen, and his parents weren't serving the country. They had fled the country so they could continue to have polygamous relationships. The only reason they came back was because there was a backlash against yanquis during the Mexican Revolution. So, Mitt Romney's father was born in Mexico and therefore was a Mexican. I don't know if he had proper immigration papers, but I doubt it since his parents weren't exactly kosher with the federal government, if you know what I mean. Since George Romney was almost certainly an illegal Mexican immigrant, that means that Mitt Romney was an anchor baby.

Washington Monthly: It’s certainly understandable that voters were frustrated going into the 2010 midterms, and hoped conditions would improve just as soon as they elected dozens of unhinged, right-wing Republican lawmakers. But since that time, every major pollster has seen Congress’ approval rating drop to levels unseen since the dawn of modern polling. It’s a case of buyers’ remorse on a rather grand scale.

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