Good Morning!
Photo by joanneleon. December, 2012
When you order up a ham-and-egg sandwich, the flavors and the aroma mix well. But if asked to sacrifice to make the sandwich, the chicken would say “no problem,” lay an egg and keep on cackling. The pig would say “no, no, no,” for he’d have to give up a leg. When folks say everyone should sacrifice, they are often talking about ham-and-egg justice.
-- Jesse Jackson
Danny Barker - Ham and Eggs
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News and Opinion
Ham & Egg Justice Quotes of the Day
[We've seen this threat before from both sides -- one of the most effective ways of getting Congress to acquiesce is to threaten to shorten their recess. Queue Harry Reid bringing out the cots next on the Senate side.]
Signs of progress for the "fiscal cliff" negotiations came to a screeching halt on Wednesday when House Speaker John Boehner signaled that he and the White House remain far apart, ultimately warning his fellow lawmakers that they might have to work through the Christmas holidays.
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A new poll reveals what other recent polls have shown: Americans want compromise. They support what many Republicans do not: making the wealthy pay a higher tax rate to help avoid the "cliff." Additionally, the poll from the Wall Street Journal and NBC indicates that entitlement cuts aren't off the table for Americans, although the Democrats are steadfastly against that idea.
...link
House Speaker John Boehner privately told President Barack Obama that he’s prepared to consider more than the $800 billion the GOP has already proposed in new tax revenues — but only if the White House will back much deeper cuts to entitlement programs, according to several sources familiar with the talks.
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With this stalemate, Republicans are starting to ponder a Plan B: Extend the Bush-era rates for families who earn less than $250,000 and then reopen the debate on taxes and entitlements next year, when the nation heads for the debt limit again.
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If enough Republicans begin to sound like Cornyn, Obama would almost certainly get his wish: Congress would approve an extension of the Bush-era tax rates for families with annual salaries less than $250,000, and a tax hike from 35 percent to 39.6 percent for income above that amount. And Republicans would live to fight another day: demanding spending cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security when Obama formally requests an increase to the national borrowing limit to avoid a debt default.
[...]
But there’s a hardening sense among Capitol Hill Republicans that they are losing this battle — and that it makes more sense to wait until next year to fight, when it’s time to raise the debt ceiling.
...link
This poll is behind a paywall. I have an excerpt from the CBS News article and the link, but that is all. I have a really, really hard time believing this and I hope someone here gets the details about the poll. If this is true, it would be a sudden and giant reversal in public opinion.
Poll: Strike a Cliff Deal Now
About two-thirds of Americans of all political stripes would like Congress to strike a deal to reduce the federal budget deficit, even if means cutting Social Security and Medicare and boosting some tax rates, the survey released Wednesday found.
An even larger share--more than three-quarters of Americans, including 61% of Republicans--said they would accept raising taxes on the wealthy in order to avoid a "fiscal cliff" of large spending cuts and tax increases now set to take place in January.
WaPo has one picture of the brawl. The story about Tymoshenko, the former PM and current opposition leader who was imprisoned, is interesting too, since she was at first in the energy business and later a reformer and her allies (and I think the EU too) contend that it was a political prosecution.
Ukraine's parliament opens with stormy session
Two months after an election criticized by Western observers as unfair, Ukraine's new parliament convened on Wednesday and the opening session was marred by a protest and a fist fight.
Despite a strong showing by three opposition parties, President Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions secured a slim majority after October's election.
The observers had a lot of complaints about the balloting: the imprisonment of the country's top opposition leader, former premier Yulia Tymoshenko; the ruling party's unfair access to state resources and the media; and the way the votes were counted.
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As a result, Oleksandr Tabalov and Andrei Tabalov, a father and a son, were pushed from the hall where parliament was meeting and prevented from taking an official lawmaker's oath. The opposition later insisted that without the oath the two men could not serve as lawmakers, and their status remained unclear.
Elizabeth May: Statement - Climate Change
Published on Dec 11, 2012
Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, we are on a collision course to global disaster with a dangerous disconnect between the political timetable and what science is warning us is a rapidly closing window to avoid runaway global warming. Scientists warn us that everything is speeding up from what they anticipated. Arctic ice is melting faster, permafrost is melting and sea levels are rising. At the same time, we are watching the glaciers in retreat while fires and droughts are on the rise.
In Copenhagen, and again just last week in Doha, Canada committed to a process that will not take legal force until 2020. However, science warns us that if we do not ensure that greenhouse gas levels stop rising and begin to fall by 2015, not just here in Canada but also globally, it will be too late to take action.
The time is now to move from rhetoric to action and recommit to Kyoto, which in five days we will have legally exited.
Defense Budget: Ripe for Reductions
The pending budget deal must include long-overdue military spending cuts.
But this isn't the precipice that's consuming Washington right now. Instead, the so-called "fiscal cliff," the package of tax increases and spending cuts that will begin in January unless Congress agrees on a way to stop them, is the big buzzword.
Pentagon cuts are actually part of the "cliff" plan. You'd hardly know it — most of the talk is about "reforming" taxes (including tax cuts for the rich and corporations) and "reforming entitlements" (a euphemism for weakening the safety net). But without a new deal, we'll be spending about $50 billion less on the military each year.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has referred to these cuts as "doomsday." Really? Over 10 years these cuts, adjusted for inflation, would take our Pentagon budget back to where it was in 2006. As high, in other words, as it was at any time since World War II.
The military cuts that would occur without a new budget-balancing deal are admittedly a bad way to run a government. For one thing, they come tied to equivalent cuts in nearly every other federal program — food safety inspections, job training, air traffic control, health care research, the whole gamut.
Blog Posts and Tweets of Interest
The Evening Blues
OMG. "New!" "Improved!" Emergency Manager Bill in Michigan Just Passes House. Update.
It just happened
628 Wolves Slaughtered this Fall: Ecological Disaster & Extreme Cruelty
Jesse Jackson - Green Eggs and Ham
Remember when progressive debate was about our values and not about a "progressive" candidate? Remember when progressive websites championed progressive values and didn't tell progressives to shut up about values so that "progressive" candidates can get elected?
Come to where the debate is not constrained by oaths of fealty to persons or parties.
Come to where the pie is served in a variety of flavors.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." ~ Noam Chomsky
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