WELCOME TO OPINIONS BASED
ON FACTS (OBOF)
&
THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)
YEAR THREE
|
Name
|
Published
|
|
OVERVIEW
|
|
|
OBOF & TYMHM
PART 14
|
Dec
18, 2012
|
|
OBOF & TYMHM
PART 15
|
Jan. 02, 2013
|
|
OBOF & TYMHM
PART 16
|
Jan. 08, 2013
|
IN THIS
ISSUE
1. Important opening.
2. Pork holding up Senate Sandy
relief bill.
3. Obama's New Year's resolution.
4. What's to come next.
5. Filibuster rule reform.
6. Asparaqus farmers bailout.
7. Why Paul Krugman should be Treasury
Secretary.
NOTE: I have more to put in this posting, but I feel this is long enough at one time. Therefore,
I plan to put out an EXTRA on Friday
January 11, 2013.
IMPORTANT OPENING.
By Floyd
Bowman.
Publisher
"Opinions Based On Facts."
First, I want to correct a mistake in last week's posting. I referred to the Lame Duck Congress as the
104th Congress and the new 2013 Congress as the 105th Congress. I can't tell you why I did that, because I
know better, but anyway I did. The
correct designation is the 112th and 113th Congress, sorry about that. Proves I am human and do make mistakes.
A number of issues in this posting are truly in need of
help from every Taxpayer, that we can get to, and explain the reason these
issues are important to all of us. The
thing that disturbs me, so much, is the fact that so many people today and,
particularly, the younger generation, just don't pay any attention to the
problems of our country, or don't even listen to or read any news, and then one
day when things blow up in their own little world, they will wonder, how did
this happen?
I have two Grandsons, who both fall in this group. I am in hopes that there are enough others of
us to pave the way so that the bottom won't fall out of their world.
Now, when I say there are issues that need our help, I mean, that we MUST
write, call, or sign petitions that are on internet and talk with friends, when
these issues come up and they are what you believe in.
Folks, it is truly unbelievable as to the amount of
important happenings that need to be brought to your attention. The first one that I am going to post has
been covered up by all news media, except one, NBC Nightly News on Sunday,
January 6th. Even when that was pointed
out in the Nightly News, it was short and you would hardly grasp the total
meaning of it. I did not see it, but my
Son did and brought it to my attention.
I was able to find it on the internet Monday night and then I pursued it
further to learn the truth and details of what was being covered up. The article tells the entire story and won't
need any comments from me, except to say I am simply outraged at what has and
is happening in Congress. We, the
people, have no idea, and, most of the time, can't find out, the underhanded
actions that take place there.
Most people, and almost all Republicans, blame President Obama for the runaway
spending. I want
to remind you that the President can't spend a dime. Only Congress can spend money. So, when there is talk about the deficit
reduction, remember that only Congress can reduce the deficit.
Then look what those Republicans do about spending, when
they think they can keep it from the Taxpayers.
The Pork, that is listed in the next article, is not needed at all, as
near as I can determine. But, it will
bring jobs to the Republican states and, if you don't think the individual
Senators won't come out on the long end of the stick, you are just fooling
yourself. The news media has been
blacked out on this. You want to grasp
every word of this article.
There is just one other thing about this article. There is one part that I have not listed,
which is a direct copy of the bill that lists the pork. You can look it up if you wish on Google
"Pork holds up Senate Sandy
Just because I have said quite a bit about this one
article, doesn't mean that the others are not important. They are, and please do what you can to help
get the things done that we all want done.
When I say, we all want done, I mean all progressives, and I think most
of you who read my blog are progressives.
~~~
Pork Holding Up Senate Sandy
Rick Ungar,
Contributor
The failure of the House of Representatives to take the vote necessary to
get badly needed relief to New York and New Jersey
residents suffering the ravages of superstorm Sandy
As Northeastern Democrats and Republicans lined up to bash Speaker John
Boehner’s insensitivity to the suffering of his fellow, storm
battered Americans—not to mention a thorough tongue lashing from New Jersey’s
Republican Governor Chris Christie, delivered as only Chris Christie can do—
Republicans from other parts of the nation rose to the defense of the
beleaguered Speaker, pointing out that Boehner was correct to not ask House
Republicans to support a Senate bill so laden with pork as to cause even the
most moderate House Republican to adopt a kosher diet.
However, as it turns out, the pork portions of the Senate bill were not earmarked to benefit Democratic
members of the upper chamber of Congress. And you may be quite surprised to
discover where that money is actually headed once the rich Senate legislation
is passed by the House.
A review of the mark-up of the Senate bill reveals that all that extra,
non-Sandy related cash is actually set to provide billions(Actually $2.9 billion) for “storm events that occurred in 2012 along the Gulf
Coast and Atlantic Coast within the boundaries of the North Atlantic and Mississippi
Valley divisions of the Corps that were affected by Hurricanes Sandy and
Isaac.”
Why, you might ask, would the Senate be packing billions of taxpayer
dollars for these areas of the country that are nowhere near the devastation
brought about by superstorm Sandy into a bill designed to bring relief to those
suffering from the storm that ripped the northeastern part of the nation?
The answer can be found in a quick review of the states that are set to
benefit from the Senate’s extra-special benevolence—states including Alabama,
Mississippi , Texas
and Louisiana
What, you may ask, do these states far from New York
and New Jersey
Each is not only a red state, but each of these states are represented by two Republican senators—with the exception of
Louisiana
And what happens when you buy off seven Republican senators with a package
of goodies under the guise of storm relief supposedly meant to benefit two blue
states?
You get yourself a filibuster proof piece of legislation.
Coincidence? Not at all. We know this because Harry Reid told us so in
press conference held on December 20, a time when everyone’s attention was so
glued to the fiscal cliff drama that any talk of any other bills was completely
lost in the wind.
Here’s what Majority Leader Reid had to say:
“We have other important things to do here in the Senate. We have — we’re
going on almost two months now without giving relief to the northeast who were
struck by that violent storm, Sandy New Jersey
and New York Alabama has two Republican senators, Mississippi
has two Republican senators, Texas has two
Republican senators, Louisiana
While it would appear that Reid figured out—all on his own—that adding in
these pork benefits for his Republican colleagues would insure passage of the
relief bill without requiring the need to devote endless hours heading off yet
another GOP filibuster effort, it is clear that these GOP senators—each
and every one of them a supposed mortal enemy of unnecessary government
spending—did not rush to request that the money be removed from the
bill so as to save the nation a few billion bucks.
(You
see, it isn't Obama that runs up this spending.
It is Congress and this is a perfect example. Floyd:)
Apparently, these deficit hawks only spread their wings when they are
flying in full public view. But when
nobody is looking?
Let the pork flow.
Can you spell h-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-e?
~~~
Obama’s New Year’s
Resolution:
Protect the Status Quo
Amy Goodman
NationofChange
/ Op-Ed
Thursday 3 January 2013
Amidst the White House and
congressional theatrics surrounding the so-called fiscal-cliff negotiations, a
number of bills were signed into law by President Barack Obama that renew some
of the worst excesses of the Bush years. Largely ignored by the media, these laws
further entrench odious policies like indefinite detention, warrantless
wiretapping and the continued operation of the U.S.
gulag in Guantanamo
On Sunday, Dec. 30, the White House press secretary’s office issued a terse
release stating “The President signed into law H.R. 5949, the ‘FISA Amendments
Act Reauthorization Act of 2012,’ which provides a five-year extension of Title
VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.” With that, the government’s
controversial surveillance powers were renewed until the end of 2017. The American Civil Liberties Union
called it the “heartbreak
A champion of progressive
causes in the U.S. House of
Representatives, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio , is
leaving Congress after 16 years, after his Cleveland
“The FISA bill is just one
example,” Kucinich replied, “We’re entering into a brave new world, which
involves not only the government apparatus being able to look in massive
databases and extract information to try to profile people who might be
considered threats to the prevailing status quo. But we also are looking at drones, which are
increasingly miniaturized, that will give the governments, at every level, more
of an ability to look into people’s private conduct. This is a nightmare.”
Add to that, the nightmare of indefinite detention
without charge or trial. Just over a
year ago, President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for
2012, also known as the annual NDAA. That 2012 version of the sprawling NDAA
contained a controversial new provision granting the U.S. military far-reaching
powers to indefinitely detain people - not only those identified as enemies on
a battlefield, but others perceived by the military as having “supported” the
enemy. Chris Hedges, a former foreign correspondent for The New York Times who
was part of a team of reporters awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for the
paper’s coverage of global terrorism, sued the Obama administration because, in
his reporting, he regularly encounters those the U.S. government defines as
terrorists: “I, as a foreign correspondent, had had direct contact with 17
organizations that are on that list, from al-Qaida to Hamas to Hezbollah to the
PKK, and there’s no provision within that particular section [of the NDAA] to
exempt journalists.”
A federal judge agreed and ordered a stay, preventing
that section of the NDAA from being enforced. The Obama administration
appealed, and the case is still before the U.S.
Couched in the same 2013 NDAA is a section prohibiting
the Obama administration from spending any of the bill’s $633 billion in
construction or alteration of any facility for the transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay
This
effectively ties President Obama’s hands, despite his 2009 executive order to
close the prison complex, and his more recent reiteration of the goal.
Of 166 prisoners still held there, 86 have been cleared
for release, but remain imprisoned nevertheless. The legal group Human Rights First has just
issued a blueprint, detailing how President Obama could close Guantanamo
The president’s second term will publicly begin on Jan.
21, the hard-fought-for holiday celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.‘s birthday. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it
bends toward justice,” King said. If
President Obama aspires to do more than perpetuate an unjust status quo, he
must start now.
Amy
Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international
TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North
America . She is the author
of "Breaking the Sound Barrier," recently released in paperback and
now a New York Times best-seller.
~~~
WHAT'S TO COME
NEXT?
By Floyd
Bowman.
Publisher
"Opinions Based On Facts."
In last week's
posting, I presented a picture that could be interpreted as moderately
good. At the same time, there was an
article from Robert Reich, that point out it was a lousy deal. Since last week, I have had time to look at
it more and even though last week I said I disagreed with Reich, I find that I
do agree with him more than I did.
One of the worse parts
was that Obama gave in to the Republicans about leaving the Bush tax cuts for
the rich for those making up to $400,000 a year, instead of the $250,000 he had
said would be the cut off point. That
gave away a lot of revenue. Couple that with the pork that is now in the
Senate Sandy relief bill, which calls for a
total of $9.7 billion and $2.9 billion of that for pork, and you have cancelled
out any new revenue we were suppose to gain from the tax revision relating to
the wealthy. Once again, Congress talks
about deficit reduction out of one side of their mouth, and then spends what we
just got to apply to that end, from the other side.
That brings us
to what they really want to do, and it isn't deficit reduction. They really want to do away with entitlements,
as much as possible. They want to change
them into private programs.
One that
they want to get rid of completely is Social Security. Republicans have tried to get rid of it ever
since it was enacted in 1935. It is
entirely ideology with them. They have
proven many times, that they don't really care about deficit reduction. Issues reported in this posting prove that.
They care
nothing about our people. They care
nothing about our country. They make the
most ridiculous statements, just to try and create FEAR. For example, Mitch McConnell, the Minority
Leader in the Senate, said Monday, January 7th, that talk about taxes is now
completely over, that there would be no more talk about taxes. Well now, he knows better than that.
It is my considered
opinion, the Republican leadership believes they are in the driver's seat and that they
have all the leverage against the President when it comes to raising the National
Debt Ceiling. That is when they are
going to insist on cutting a lot out of Social Security and Medicare. I'm sure there will be other items that they
will also, hold hostage.
They do not, at all,
believe in social programs or safety nets.
In fact, when you get right down to it, they don't believe
Democracy. They want to do away with
Government all together and replace it with a form of control, just short, of a
Dictatorship. One in which control of
our country is in the hands of the wealthy, the super banks, and Wall Street. Now folks, I fully
realize that that is a pretty strong statement, but actions speak louder than
words and all actions that I see and read about, lead me to believe this.
CHANGE THE FILIBUSTER RULES.
By Floyd
Bowman.
Publisher
of "Opinions Based On Facts."
Published
January 8, 2013.
In the past four years, there have been a total of 390 filibusters. Compare that to, for example, one filibuster
during the Johnson Administration. Why
do you suppose we see such a dramatic change?
One reason might be the fact that it has become so easy to
filibuster. Back in the time of the
movie "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" to filibuster you had to stand
on the floor of the Senate and talk continually about your objection to the
bill or anything you wanted to talk about as long as you talk standing. If you stop talking the filibuster is
over.
The filibuster rules are different now.
I don't know why or when they changed, but all you have to do now is make a statement
that you are going to filibuster and that is that, no vote.
There has been a lot of negotiations about the filibuster the first day
of the 113th Congress. However, Senate
Majority Leader, Harry Reid, D. Nv. has decided to hold off action on rules
reform until they meet again on January 22, the day after President Obama's
Inauguration. His reason was that this
would give him time to try and negotiate with the Minority Leader, Mitch
McConnell to see if they could come up with a bipartisan resolution.
This will be important in order to bring about more efficiency in the
Senate and not make it so easy to stop all action in the Senate. I will keep you informed and it may be that
we all need to contact our legislators around the 22nd., to urge them to do
what we feel is the right thing at that time.
~~~
Origins of the Asparagus Bailout
One of
the things the fiscal cliff bill did was further extend a lot of random
regularly extended corporate tax breaks. I'm often seeing this reported without full
context, as if the fiscal cliff bill created
a lot of new pork. But
typically these things have been around for a while. Many folks have picked out
the extension of "market loss assistance" for asparagus farmers, for
example, but this dates back to the farm bill from the last year of the Bush
administration.
This is
said to be needed because American asparagus farmers have been
"devastated" by cheap imported Peruvian asparagus.
Floyd's Note:
There are
literally hundreds, if not thousands, of business in exactly the same
circumstances as these poor asparagus farmers.
I know of a family machine shop, fairly good size, employed about 50
people, in the third generation, shut down, because of cheap import parts
replacing the parts they were making. Now,
pray tell me why the asparagus farmer should be anymore entitled to a bailout
than that Machine Shop?
This is the
kind of spending that should be stopped, not cutting Social Security, which has
NEVER contributed a dime to the deficit and in fact has been a piggy bank for
the Federal Government General Fund to the tune of $3.2 trillion, stolen
illegally by Congresses and Presidents since 1987.
In
general, I'm all for recognizing that people's economic fortunes can dive due
to circumstances beyond their control. That's why we need stronger Social
Security, not benefit cuts. It's why we need to build a real national
healthcare system. It's why we need to
go beyond a narrow "safety net" for the poor and have real social
insurance and excellent public services. But trying to do this through targeted
bailouts is nuts, and the tendency to offer special business protections to
people who happen to be farmers rankles
~~~
Why Paul Krugman should be President Obama's pick for US Treasury Secretary
Saturday 5 January
2013
Not only is he the world's best-known economist, Krugman has the intellect
and integrity to resist Wall Street's calls for austerity
President Obama hasn't picked a treasury secretary yet for his second term,
so he has a chance to do something different.
He could ignore what Wall Street and conservative media interests want and
pick somebody who would represent what the electorate voted for. Not even just the people who voted for him:
there are a lot of Republican voters out there who are also unemployed.
I know what you are thinking: this is impossible. There is too much money
and power on the other side of this idea. Well, maybe.
But Obama has surprised us before. Last June, he picked Jim Kim to run the World
Bank. This was unprecedented and an historic change; Kim is
practically the only World Bank president in 60 years who was not previously a banker or a war
criminal. On the contrary, Kim had spent most of his entire adult life trying
to help poor people get healthcare.
Now, of course, the World Bank is not a cabinet appointment, but there is a
lot of money that flows from that supposedly multilateral institution to the
coffers of US corporations. You can bet that Jim Kim was not their top choice.
Obama is currently coming under heavy fire for his reported choice of former Senator Chuck
Hagel to be defense secretary. Hagel wants to get out of Afghanistan soon, does
not want a war with Iran, favors negotiations with Hamas, and supports cuts in
military spending.
Not only the neo-conservatives, but some of the most powerful interests in
the country, including the right wing of the pro-Israel lobby, have launched a
smear campaign. But so far, Obama has not backed down. This could have
something to do with the fact that he no longer has to run for re-election.
So, for the post of treasury secretary, to replace the outgoing Tim
Geithner, Obama could afford to make another bold choice: Paul Krugman.
Krugman would be tough to oppose on any substantive grounds. He has a Nobel
Prize in economics (also the John Bates Clark
award for best economist under 40). The New York Times columnist is probably
the best-known living economist in the United
States, and perhaps the world.
Krugman has been right about the major problems facing our economy, where
many other economists and much of the business press have been wrong. A few
examples: he wrote about the housing bubble before it collapsed and caused the
Great Recession; he has forecast and explained that large budget deficits and
trillions of dollars of "quantitative easing" (money creation) would
not cause inflation or long-term interest rates to rise; and that the
"confidence fairies" would not reward governments that pursued
austerity in the face of recession.
Most importantly, Krugman is on the side of the majority of Americans. He
has written extensively in favor of policies that
favor job creation, explained the folly of budget cutting in the face of a weak
economy, and opposes cuts to social security and Medicare
benefits.
FLOYD'S INTRODUCTION TO
TRANSFER OF THOUGHT.
First, I want to point out, that the above is not all of the
article. The remainder, which wasn't a
great deal more, simply dealt with further functions and influences that the
Secretary of the Treasury has.
Considering what you have just read, you probably are thinking
the same thing I did, at this point. My
thought was that this sounds like exactly the person we need in this
position. That he would be the one that
would lead us in the direction that so many have said we should follow and that
he has predicted. He has been so right
in the past years regarding his predictions and has been proven, time and time
again, to be the most respected Economist in the country if not the world.
Well, that was my thought, until I started to read the
comments that followed the article. It
was obvious, that many of them were written by people, who were really in the
know. There is no point in my trying to
tell you about what they said. The best
is to simply provide you some of the comments, and then you make up your own
mind after having the information from the article and from the comments, that
seem to me, to be quite credible.
January 6, 2013
Krugman's appointment
would be "fantastic" for liberals but will never happen.
I would love to see
someone with his policy views to head Treasury. The problem is someone who
heads treasury needs to be diplomatic by nature, something Krugman has
empthatically says he is not. Another problem is the perception that he is
hyperpartisan, based on his scathing attacks on the GOP and leading
conservatives (even though he has been just as critical of Dems in the past)
and his very pro-Keynesian views on the economy will cause the GOP enter into
some new realm of partisanship, never before seen (as scary as that thought
is), to oppose him.
By his own admission he is
not an organized person, having one said (paraphrasing) "I could be in a
new office and have it look like a bomb went off in it in three days".
My admiration for Krugman
has no bounds. I would love to see him in this position, but he has gone on
record saying he has neither the temperament, nor the organizational skills,
required to effectively do the job. He has also said his ability to influence
opinion/policy being out of government is much greater than it would be being
inside of government, where he would have to bite his tongue and compromise on
issues he has no inclination to compromise on.
I know my fellow liberals
are salivating at the thought of Secretary of the Treasury Paul Krugman. But it
ain't gonna happen. If you want to see
someone with Krugman's economic views heading Treasury the better options for
support are Joseph Stiglitz, Brad Delong or Dean Baker. Paul Krugman, by his own admission, has made
himself into too divisive a figure to hold such a position in our (my, or the US
_______________________________________________________
'The rich are different from you and me: they have more influence.'
He would probably take it
to get a little more of that elusive influence.
_______________________________________________________
@epinoa - On the contrary - Krugman has repeatedly said he would not accept
an appointment as Treasury Secretary. (or any other administration position).
_______________________________________________________
There is a big problem
with this article - and with Paul Krugman.
He is a smart economist
who is politically infantile.
As Bill Bonner puts it:
In Krugman’s simpleminded
world, it is a struggle between good and evil, smart and dumb, progress and
backsliding. He sees the democrats as the good guys. The republicans are bad
guys. Such a simpleton’s world must be a comfort. You don’t really have to do
much thinking. Everything is black. Or it is white. Too bad for Krugman, but
most of the world is actually gray. If the republicans were so squarely in
favor of limited government and liberty, how come they didn’t actually cut
government spending when they had the chance? They ran the show for years. And
during those years government spending went up faster than it did under the
democrat.
Krugman is a product of
the past. His solutions are for problems that are no longer relevant. His model
will only hasten America
_______________________________________________________
Krugman has been very
critical of Obama's policies. For that reason alone he will not be nominated.
He is also wedded to the
idea that it is OK for the privately owned Federal Reserve to be in charge of
the US
________________________________________________
~~~
If, the good
Lord is willing and the creek don't rise, I'll talk with you again on Tuesday
January 15, 2013. However, I plan, at
this time, to talk with you before that on January 11, 2013 in the form of an
EXTRA.
GOD
BLESS YOU ALL
&
GOD
BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA
Floyd
No comments:
Post a Comment