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In honor of one of the only people who lets us answer the question, “Is it just me or…?” with, “No, there are others who get it. We are not alone!” we offer this clip. One viewer called this performance the greatest rendition since Tina Fey did Sarah Palin. We agree, and wish Jon Stewart a very happy birthday today!
Is it fair to cast eliminating waste and fraud to save billions in taxpayer funds as “cuts” to Medicare?
Obviously, it is not. But that’s exactly how Republicans have been spinning provisions in the Affordable Health Care Act — which they call Obamacare — that enable rooting out inefficiencies and corruption in the Medicare system. They also used this vile disinformation as campaign spin in order to scare millions of seniors into voting for them in the midterms.
But that was four weeks ago. Now the New York Times has spoken with Rep. Darrell Issa, the wealthy former car thief from California who is set to become the House’s chief Obama administration inquisitor — officially known as the chairman of the Oversight Committee — about his plans for next year. And guess what? He says he plans to ferret out “$40 billion a year in fraud or waste in Medicare” over the next two years.
But hold on here. After voting in lockstep against Democrats’ plan to eliminate waste and fraud and then campaigning against the efficiencies as “cuts” to Medicare, now Republicans are simply adopting the Democrats’ idea and moving on?
You betcha.
Calbuzz is one of the go-to sites for straight-shooting journalists’ insight into California politics. Earlier this month, they nailed the campaign of Republican Meg Whitman — who lost by a whopping 13 points on Nov. 2 — for what they referred to as post-election “bullshit” coming from the campaign’s top operative, Mike Murphy:
[When] we saw meathead David Gregory interviewing our friend Mike Murphy, the $90,000-a-month campaign guru for Meg “Biggest Loser” Whitman, on “Press the Meat” the other day, we felt compelled to get up off the floor and say something.
“We got beat and, you know, I ran the campaign, and I take responsibility for it,” Murphy said, at least acknowledging that he had been in the neighborhood. But then came excuse, No. 1: “It’s a very blue state and it’s getting bluer. As the red, you know, wave kind of went one way, there was a bit of a blue riptide coming the other way.”
And then, excuse No. 2: “CEO candidates who are doing kind of a tough medicine message . . . Meg and Carly Fiorina in California, they weren’t buying it. So we just couldn’t get there. We could win the Republicans, win the independents, but in California if you don’t win a lot of Democrats — you don’t win and we did not.”
Whoa there, big fella. “Win the independents?” If Meg and Carly had actually won the actual independents, they would be governor- and senator-elect.
Electric scanners are TSA’s great hope
For detecting guns, bombs and dope.
While screeners insist
They’ve no prurient interests,
Why do they call it a nude-o-scope?
U.S. corporations have reported the highest profits recorded since the Commerce Department began tracking corporate income growth 60 years ago: $1.659 Trillion. That renders as $1,659,000,000,000 in numerical values.
Granted, while the profits represent the highest dollar amount ever recorded, Matthew Iglesias at the liberal site Think Progress says that, based on the Commerce Dept. report (see charts at right), “record-breaking” is a relative term because the figure itself has not been adjusted for inflation.
The New York Times financial pages, which generally side with Republicans on economic issues, took a rosier view:
That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or noninflation-adjusted terms…. Corporate profits have been doing extremely well for a while. Since their cyclical low in the fourth quarter of 2008, profits have grown for seven consecutive quarters, at some of the fastest rates in history. As a share of gross domestic product, corporate profits also have been increasing, and they now represent 11.2 percent of total output. That is the highest share since the fourth quarter of 2006, when they accounted for 11.7 percent of output.
Being president ain’t always fun,
Like flying on Air Force One.
But then comes Thanksgiving,
And to earn his living,
The Prez has to pardon a tom.
From Trump’s “stolen election” lies, we can’t get no relief,
He carps on about stolen votes, but he never names the thief.
Somebody needs to tell this guy
Americans aren’t buying his lies,
And that he’s turned us into the United States of Disbelief.
