Day: September 19, 2011

Breitbart Claims the U.S. Military Would Back the Tea Party in a Civil War on Liberals, Unions

Jon Ponder

Towleroad:

At a tea party function in Boston, a sweaty, pacing, unshaven Andrew Breitbart says he sometimes dreams of civil war.

Breitbart is manic and occasionally incoherent in the video. He says he has been driven to violent fantasies about liberals only because he has been victimized by them. “‘Cuz I’m under attack all the time,” he says, citing an incident or incidents when “the tolerant call[ed] me gay” on Twitter. And, oh yeah, he gets death threats.

The left would like to initiate the war against him, he says, but they won’t because they know the U.S. military would side with him and the tea party. “I have people who come up to me in the military,” he says, “major named people in the military, who grab me and they go, ‘Thank you for what you’re doing, we’ve got your back.’ And so they [liberals] understand that. These are the unspoken things we know, they know.”

Transcript:

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Perry’s Job-Creation Record Not Looking So Hot

Buck Banks

8.5%

The current Texas unemployment rate, which has reached its highest level since June 1987 the Austin American-Statesman reports. The continued losses are a result of a shrinking public sector, as the private sector continues to create jobs. While the rate is below the national average, the rising unemployment level in the state could harm Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) efforts to tout his success at job creation in the Republican presidential primary.

Trickle Down Fail: Number of Millionaires in the United States Rises As Poverty Rate Hits Highest Level Since the Reagan Era

Jon Ponder

Earlier this summer, an annual report on wealth accumulation worldwide found that, despite the financial collapse of 2008, the ensuing Great Recession and the grindingly slow recovery we’re experiencing now, the number of millionaires in the United States has actually grown:

All of this prompts a question: Is the growing prosperity disparity in the United States the intended result of Republican economic theory — was shifting the nation’s wealth upwards out of the middle class their objective from the start?

According to the annual World Wealth Report from Merill Lynch and Capgemini, the U.S. had 3.1 million millionaires in 2010, up from 2.86 million in 2009. The latest figure tops the pre-crisis peak of three million.

Merrill and Capgemini define millionaires as individuals with $1 million or more in investible assets, not including primary home, collectibles, consumables and consumer durables.

The wealth held by these millionaires also hit a record. North American millionaires had a combined wealth of $11.6 trillion, up from $10.7 trillion in 2009.

The number of Americans with $30 million is still slightly below the pre-crisis peak. In 2010 there were 40,000 North Americans with $30 million or more, up from 36,000 in 2009.

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